As opposed to many theorists who like discussing video games, Scott Steinberg actually spent his time in the trenches, working on game dev and publishing, before moving more firmly into writing about the future. That might help explain why I have been enjoying his “The Shape of the Future” and its insights on planning for uncertainty.
I found one of Steinberg’s quotes especially applicable to what the Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced team and its mod community have been doing to make this 30-year-old-game relevant to modern gamers:
“The same principles apply whether you’re building software, organizations, corporate cultures, or transportation – or toys, video games, or consumer packaged goods, for that matter. The question isn’t whether your strategies, solutions and systems will face changes – it’s whether your system will be forced to change in turn, or whether it will proactively embrace change and be the agent of its own evolution.”
When we first designed Emperor of the Fading Suns, the idea that it could evolve was laughable. It would launch on a CD and be sold in a box in modern brick-and-mortar stores like Software Etc. and Electronic Boutique. We might release a patch of two via cutting-edge magazines like PC Game and Computer Gaming World, but after that, it would live or die on its own. We frankly thought we were being especially proactive and responsive by releasing patches for the next several years, all the way to 1.4. We funded this continued support not through our publisher Segasoft, which never even provided us a royalty report, but through sales of the Fading Suns roleplaying game.
In fact, our philosophy about the tabletop industry aligned much more closely with Steinberg’s view than did our digital game philosophy. Regular supplements to Fading Suns continued to breathe life into the universe and let us address our players’ constantly shifting interests.
Now, with Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced, the team has released more patches and updates than I ever expected for this game. Yes, a lot of games that sell DLC release more, and on a more regular schedule, but ours are free for anyone who bought the base game, and take shape in response to requests from the community.
Few of these involve bugs anymore, but are usually what our players classify as QoL – Quality of Life – improvements. Steinberg calls this “Systems that Help People Become,” in that the improvements give players the chance to decide how they want to play the game, rather than be locked into fixed systems.
Our modders take this to an even greater level. They use our systems in ways we never envisioned to create entirely new experiences. Not all our game systems are modder-friendly, but the modders input and support has made them much more so. This is because the moddable parts of EFSe are what Steinberg calls “Composed of Clear Parts, Not Imposed by Centralized Authority.”
The modder who created the Hyperion mod for EFS more than 20 years ago, which Wikipedia calls out in its article on our game, probably exemplifies this best. He has stayed active with the game and played a critical role in creation of the Enhanced version. Now his enhanced version of this classic mod is coming out, and it highlights what he helped EFSe (or at least parts of it) change into – Distributed, Modular, Purposeful, Adaptable.
Steinberg lists those four attributes as key for systems trying to stay relevant in the face of constant change. While we did not consider these key in 1997 when we first released the game, they have certainly taken on that role today.
Oh, yes, and the shape of the future is definitely Fading Suns-shaped 🙂
