I completely agree. The original idea of infrequent updates was that you'd get a huge amount of content. It's one thing to wait 2 months for 2 months of content, 6 months for 6 months of content, or 12 months for 12 months or content. Now we're waiting 12+ months for 2 months of content in most games.
I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but the pattern is frustrating. I'm not even really mad tbh, just apathetic at this point. I have zero faith that the next update for any of these games will come out. When they do I am pleasantly surprised.
No, I get what you're saying. Apathy is a pretty good way to describe it. It's just that I'm irritated at my own apathy at times lol. "Why don't you enjoy this anymore, damn it?!"
To me, the pattern you're describing seems more like the amount of content produced kind of plateaus after a certain length of dev time. It's an argument I've made again and again similar to the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility.
What I'm saying is that after a certain amount of dev time, more resources (dev time) isn't actually creating more or even the same amount of output (content). The amount of additional content is negligible relative to the amount of additional dev time inputted.
An example: Put in very simple terms
- Let's say a 3 month dev cycle creates 3 months of content (however you can quantify that, we at least we know it's noticeable that 3 months isn't a lot)
- An 8 month dev cycle creates 8 months of content.
- So you could say in this example, 1 month of dev time = 1 month of content
- But the problem is that output starts to peak after 8 months.
- Anything after that produces less output for each additional "unit of input"
- A 9 month dev cycle means 8.5 months' worth of content, 10 months is 8.75, 11 months is 8.875 months. And so on until you reach a point where the additional output is barely worth mentioning relative to the additional month spent to produce it.
- There's never a point where it goes negative but the results are an asymptote of a curve that infinitely approaches zero. Which essentially means output is 0 once you go past that optimal peak of however many months.
- In that case, you're continuing to spend the same amount of resources to make less and less with each additional month until you're practically producing nothing additional at all. Which is a waste of time and resources.
Disclaimer:
- I'm not saying "content" can be measured or standardized. It's just that we as players have a rough estimate in mind when we think of how much content a 3 month dev cycle or 6 month dev cycle has. Plus it also depends on the individual dev. You know for sure some of them are fucking around or not making compromises while others just simply take more time due to constraints like lack of equipment, time to work on it, etc.
- The figures used in my example aren't definite. They're just what I used at the top of my head to create the example. It's hard to quantify any of this which is why it could be anything and I'm just trying to relate what I've seen as a general trend to something more concrete.
- I've generally noticed that 3 months is short, 6 months is pretty perfect, 8 months is long but usually allows the dev to put in more detail/higher quality, and anything after 8 months felt pointless to wait around for.
