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It seems like the number of live service games that fall flat is eclipsing the number of games that retain a large enough player base to stay online for more than a year. MultiVersus, Babylon’s Fall, Spellbreak, Rumbleverse, Concord, and others have all launched and shut down within the last two years. It’s hard to know how long a live service game will last in the cutthroat environment the game industry finds itself in today.
For Mecha Break developer Amazing Seasun, the hope is that their Gundam-inspired mecha battler will remain online indefinitely.
“Theoretically a game can survive in perpetuity, forever,” Amazing Seasun CEO Kris Kwok said via translator at a Mecha Break event held just prior to the start of the open beta in February. “[I’ve] been in the game design industry for 21 years, the last game I was in charge of has been alive and well for 16 years.”
Amazing Seasun has some experience with running online multiplayer games for long periods of time. JX3 Online, an MMORPG about Chinese mythology that Kwok mentioned above, has been online in China for more than 15 years with a robust audience of over three million in East Asia.
This point came up in response to a question about how long Amazing Seasun was committed to supporting Mecha Break post-launch. Kwok refused to throw out any specific number, despite the developer and publisher repeatedly emphasizing that it was committed to adding new content for an undisclosed period of time once the game finally releases.
Obviously, the expectation of a game running for an indefinite amount of time is bold, but there are plenty of games that have managed to remain online and popular for multiple decades now. MapleStory, EverQuest, and Ultima Online are a few games that have passed the test of time. It’s doubtful that anyone involved in those teams imagined they’d still be active all these years later, though.
Kwok said that he believes the key to reaching that “in perpetuity” point of success is serving more than mech fans. He hopes Mecha Break will grab and retain the attention of players who enjoy hero shooters and battle royales.
“The key [to] winning over a wider audience is to have the player not be a human,” Kwok said. “In a sense than in an FPS you’re shooting as a human, but we have it as a pilot operating in a suit. If we can successfully [go beyond] the core fan, the mech fan then this will be it. The Western audience will be more acceptive because sci-fi is more prevalent here than it is in China.”
It’s clear that Kwok is passionate about the mecha genre. He repeatedly stated that he and his team have been creating the mecha game that they’ve always wanted. Other mech games have been popular, but they’ve rarely been a PvP action game like this.
“The sense of maneuverability is the most important element of creating a mech game,” Kwok said. “Being one with the mech. Boys might enjoy driving a car, riding a motorcycle, or at most flying an airplane, but no one has ever driven a mech. I’ve taken a lot of time to survey how to replicate the fantasy of owning and operating a mech.”
Mecha Break has been in development for nearly 10 years, according to Kwok. He was working with developers in the UK on prototypes all the way back in 2014, because Chinese developers “weren’t capable” of making a game like this at the time, according to him. But the region has come a long way in the last decade.
“If the game were to excel and also attract fans from the hero shooter and [battle royale] genre then that would be great, but currently our most prioritized target audience is the mech fan,” Kwok said. “Once we serve them well we will consider our primary task fulfilled.”
Amazing Seasun has been pulling out all the stops with Mecha Break in the leadup to their launch. It’s hired renowned artists who helped establish the Gundam franchise and is working with organizations like Team Liquid in hosting Mecha Break competitions.
Success isn’t guaranteed for any game. While players have enjoyed the moment-to-moment gameplay in Mecha Break, they’ve lambasted Amazing Seasun for its monetization tactics. But after launching the demo on Steam to a peak of over 300,000 players, it’s retained a 24 hour peak of over 60,000 players. That still places Mecha Break the top 100 most played games on Steam right now.
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Kurt Indovina
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