Ghost Ship Games, the developer behind the explosively popular multiplayer mining sim Deep Rock Galactic, announced its intention to break into game publishing in the very near future. The new vertical, Ghost Ship Publishing, was inspired by conversations with countless indie game developers seeking advice on how to launch a game following Deep Rock Galactic's community-pleasing playbook.
The Best War Games recently spoke to Ghost Ship's co-founder and CEO, Søren Lundgaard, about this announcement. While there is a constellation of factors Ghost Ship considers when partnering with developers, the company has a clear target in mind: developers using Steam's Early Access program to collaborate with their communities, who are committed to long-term support and consumer-friendly business models. As for mechanical requirements, Lundgaard says Ghost Ship is looking at a specific feature his team refers to as "flexible game design."
Defining Flexible Game Design
Rather than approaching games as discrete products, Lundgaard is searching for ongoing titles with heavy community input and interaction:
"We are looking for games that have what we are calling ‘flexible game design,’ meaning that it is the opposite of a linear narrative or puzzle game. Games that are built around systems that are endlessly expandable, where you can go deep and master them. And even after playing them for hundreds of hours, you can still discover new stuff and new layers to the games."
A number of titles with infinite replayability immediately spring to mind, especially in the indie development space, and Ghost Ship Games' own Deep Rock Galactic provides an excellent case study. Since its initial launch in February 2018, Deep Rock Galactic has been showered with free content, including new weapons and cosmetics, new mission types, seasonal events with unique power-ups and mechanics, and more. The space dwarf mining sim is light on story, best enjoyed with friends, and centered around a variety of different mining-related mission types.
Ghost Ship Games has been completely committed to making the community feel vibrant, welcoming, and rewarding. In fact, another hallmark of flexible game design seems to be mechanics that inherently foster community interactivity, even if the game is itself not multiplayer. Lundgaard cited one specific example of a social mechanic as Deep Rock's "Rock and Stone!" Rallying cry, which he says has gone viral across Reddit and at real-world conventions. And the results speak for themselves. Deep Rock players discuss strategies, party up gregariously, and share humorous videos from the game.
Finite Narratives vs. Indefinite Mechanics
Ironically, there are certain hard limits on what flexible game design can entail. Non-variable puzzle games, decisive cinematic narratives, and linear progression systems are all more like standalone products than services, which is antithetical to the types of gameplay Ghost Ship is hoping to foster.
"It’s not impossible to put in a lot of story, characters, or world-building, but it’s just not very friendly towards this community collaboration, openness, and Steam early-access approach to have a strict linear plot that can’t really be changed. Then that dictates too much, and it also turns the game into a consumable product."
The problem with linear narratives is that they must come to a cohesive conclusion to be satisfying. Open-ended game design that plans on incorporating fan feedback from a title's inception would be difficult to reconcile with a meticulously plotted story. And if the narrative is an important component of the gameplay's appeal, when the story reaches its conclusion, it is hard for players to escape the sense that a title has been "used up."
Exceptions to Prove the Rule
Lundgaard was quick to state that it is possible to have stories with flexible game design, and functionally infinite replayability with excellent stories, citing two examples. The first title was Hades, a game boasting a script longer than The Illiad and The Odyssey combined, but paired with a mechanical loop so addictive that Super Giant Games is breaking a studio tradition to develop a sequel. Even after players have 'resolved' the central storyline—which is itself a substantial undertaking—they can continue to develop their relationships with the divine or indulge in the pleasing combat loop ad infinitum.
The other title Lundgaard praised was Returnal, another groundbreaking entry in the rogue-like genre recently released for PC, featuring a story that gets wilder and more surreal with each subsequent run. Lundgaard was quick to admit that Returnal is the result of a much larger production team than most developers Ghost Ship Publishing is looking for. But these are important examples that prove games with open-ended narratives, or games that slow-play their massive narratives, can attain the same kind of flexibility that Ghost Ship is looking to bring to market.
Ghost Ship Games will announce more details about its publishing vertical on March 2.