Navigating the Live Game Landscape: Insights on Content Roadmaps, Community Engagement, and Monetization Strategies

Ahead of the Live Service Gaming Summit, we spoke to Mohammed Benhenneda, Business Strategy & Live Performance Director at Ubisoft, about the importance of a robust content roadmap and community engagement following a game's launch. He also spoke on what he is looking forward to at the Live Service Gaming Summit.

Can you discuss the role and impact of a well-defined roadmap for regular content updates in maintaining a game's relevance and player interest post-launch? How do you balance innovation with consistency in these updates?

On Siege, we’ve always believed in giving players as much transparency as possible to our content roadmap in order to give players an expectation of what's to come but also showcase the support that the game will receive. It helps players project themselves and feel confident that there will be content coming for the next year(s) so the commitment they have to the game isn’t wasted in anyways.

How crucial is community engagement in shaping the post-launch updates of a game? Could you provide an example of how player feedback has directly influenced a major update or change in a game?

For a live game, the community plays a pivotal role in defining what content we prioritize in order to keep players engaged. While not all feedbacks are taken into account, it is certainly a barometer to understand what is important for players at a certain moment. One example I can give on how player feedback directly influenced Siege is that for a couple of years we introduced a scope (x1.5) that accelerated the game quite a bit. So much so that Siege turned from a tactical and gadget focused meta to an almost team deathmatch fragging meta. Community feedback to remove the scope in order to bring back a more tactical aspect to the game is a great example for us.

How do analytics play a role in understanding and adapting to player behaviour changes after launch? Can you share a specific instance where data analytics led to a significant pivot or adaptation in game strategy?

Analytics and data is another key aspect for any decision making that we do. While there is a lot of debate around being data-informed vs data-driven, I firmly believe that in a creative space, data should inform decisions in order to address issues or bring new things to the table for players. All of our balancing is using much data on what the pick rate, win rate, etc of all operators are. This is also something that we actually give visibility to our community in order to give them the context of what we see and why we are buffing or nerfing some operators or gadgets. So analytics and data is great for devs but can also be a great tool of communication for players to understand what is going on in the game.

How do successful live games evolve their monetization strategies post-launch to boost revenue while maintaining player trust? Can you share any examples?

Monetization is an ever evolving field of the industry and its crucial for a game that has a long lifespan with regular updates. The monetization of Siege has evolved throughout the years since its launch and recently we’ve launched the marketplace beta which had great results and actual positive feedbacks from players. The way we see monetization is a tool of expression for players to dive deeper within personalizing their experience with the game.

What discussions are you most looking forward to at the Live Service Gaming Summit?

Really excited to be able to share our experience with other people working on live games which are so much different sometimes than shipping a box product in terms of what’s needed, how to operate it, etc.