a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
You are not logged in.
Alright, so apparently there's this notion that dead content in a game is bad. Now, for sure, dead content is bad in terms of some things. It takes up more code. If it's not doing anything and not going to do anything, bad content takes up disk space. It might slow things down. It might cause bugs. And sure, dead content is a goal missed by those who developed it.
But, in terms of players experience, what's the evidence that dead content is bad?
People don't complain about dead content in games from what I've seen. In this game, the most dead content I know of consists of the radio telegraph. It's gotten made on low pop, but other than when it initially got released, when did it appear on one of the main servers? That said, no one that I know of, and such people seem unlikely to exist, that the radio telegraph should get removed. It doesn't appear to bother a single person who bought the game that such exists. It's been useless for a very long time and people who bought the game just shrug their shoulders, so to speak.
So, there's not much evidence that dead content makes for a problem for players ceteris paribus (I use that phrase, because dead content that causes a bug like how Tool Slots got reactivated, apparently, by an apocalypse was bad).
In comparison, there's evidence that contradictory or bad mechanics like Warswords or Tool Slots is bad for player experience.
Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.
Offline
Addendum: Dead content being less of a problem than bad mechanics can also get seen in other games. For example, there's plenty of (mostly) dead medical content in Oxygen Not Included. People minded a lot more though when the game designers nerfed the food system, and some other changes, as evidenced by complaints and that people made mods that reverted those changes or added a new building like a more powerful fridge. And Klei even realized that they had missed something at least, when they made it so that the fridge didn't always consume so much power.
Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.
Offline