When things are pointing in the right direction-players are playing a lot at once, they're returning to play often, they're spending in-game currency-your live-service game is probably doing well. You have to amass data, find the weaknesses to improve on or strengths to further solidify, then tweak the game and see how these data points change. For live-service games especially, analytics are a vital compass for studios. Okay, now let's try to add a new feature or change a feature to try to improve that number.'" And a lot of us were figuring that out as we went along and discovered, 'Okay, we think we have a problem here, let's add some data to try to verify that.
"Are we looking at, you know, concurrency? Retention? Monetization? Like what are we actually testing with this new idea? And then we'll add analytics for that specific topic. "It really depends on what it is that we're trying to improve at that given time," Russo told me when I asked what Velan's live-ops analytics actually investigate. There were a few words that came up a lot in my 40-minute chat with Russo, CEO Karthik Bala, and marketing director Josh Harrison. And so what we did accomplish in terms of the critical praise we had at launch and the ridiculously adoring community that we have, it's tough to feel anything other than that this was successful and to think of the pride that I have in the team and in the game itself." Like a lot of live-service games, Knockout City leaned into crossovers with other IP. "We built the team, we built an engine, we built this entire game experience, we released it Running a live-ops experience was the first time a lot of us had ever done that even though we've been in the industry for a long time. Russo explained how the six years on Knockout City were remarkably formative for the studio, which was established in 2016 and has otherwise developed augmented reality racing games like Mario Kart Live Home Circuit and the upcoming Hot Wheels Rift Rally. But I still have a blast logging in and playing with my friends, grouping up, and going into these brawls." And if you talk to most developers, none of them play their own game. "And it's also one of my favorite games I've ever played. "This is my favorite game I've ever worked on," game director Jeremy Russo told me. Though those I spoke to admitted there is a sadness to the situation, they weren't without hope for what's next, both within Velan and across the industry-even if it'll take a paradigm shift to get things where they need to be.
I wanted to speak to the team to find out what it's like when a game you love working on is ending on the market's terms rather than your own. As Knockout City is a personal favorite of mine, the news hit me like, well, a dodgeball to the face.
It's getting harder to stay afloat in the competitive and ever-changing world of live-service video games.
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The news came as the latest in a series of live-service game closures that defined January 2023, and looking back a few years proves this was no one-month trend.
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In a February blog post, Velan revealed that Knockout City will be taken offline on June 6, with the silver-lining exception being that Velan will enable private servers to be hosted on PC thereafter.
Though the live-service PvP dodgeball game nears its second anniversary on May 21, it'll only exist in its current state for another few weeks beyond that. Knockout City's days are numbered, but for Velan Studios, there's still a strong sense of optimism.
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