Beta phases are for making games better, not delaying them, says Farmville creator Amitt Mahajan.
It can be frustrating to see your favorite blockchain game being released in stages when you just want the finished product. But according to Mahajan, the creator of hit games like Farmville and Pirate Nation, it’s worth it in the end because it leads to a much better game.
“I actually like this whole build in public, always evolving the game. It’s like release and iterate,” Mahajan tells Cointelegraph.
He explains that while it might feel like a tease for gamers and a cheap tactic to generate more excitement, it’s incredibly helpful for the developers.
“We need the feedback, it’s invaluable to us. So I like the release early and iterate model,” the founder of blockchain gaming company Proof of Play says, referring to the common practice in the blockchain gaming industry where games are released incrementally, sometimes over years, with continuous additions before the final release.
Before shifting to Web3 gaming, Mahajan co-created one of the most popular Facebook games of all time, FarmVille, which has had over 700 million downloads since being released in 2009.
He admits that the game didn’t receive much love and tender care before its initial release, it was built in “just five weeks” and launched.
“We released an update and it got better, released another update, and it got better again” he says.
“We kept doing that, and eventually, I think there was a point where literally every single person on Facebook saw at least one Farmville post and 32 million of them started to play every day.”
Mahajan believes 90% of what he has learned came from releasing a live game and receiving feedback from the community.
“Everything up until that point was only about 10% of our learnings,” he adds, though he tips his hat to companies that can launch a perfect finished…
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