The Forever Game
Design for a play pattern that never ends, then fund it like a permanent production
- Difficulty
- Expert
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 85%
Lasky's forever game reframes durability as a design and financing decision rather than luck. Franchises have always been durable - he has played FIFA every year for thirty years - but historically the durability lived in the brand while the product was repurchased annually. Free-to-play distribution made the product itself capable of enduring, provided it is built for long-duration play patterns and then funded like a permanent production line. The financing insight is the sharp part: annual live-operations spend converges on what the game cost to build per year during development, covering new content, balance, quality assurance and player support. Riot ships content and balance changes to League of Legends every two weeks, and that cadence is effectively the entire profit and loss of the game. Lasky's contribution to thatgamecompany was convincing Jenova Chen that remaking Journey would simply reproduce Journey's result.
Origin
One of the eight lenses in Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins's Gamecraft series, drawn from Lasky's decades investing in games and his work with Jenova Chen on Sky at thatgamecompany.
Core principles
- 01Durability was always available; historically the franchise was durable rather than the product.
- 02A repeated experience does not fatigue if the telling of it keeps improving.
- 03Launch is the starting line, not the finish line.
- 04The annual cost of keeping a forever game alive approaches its original annual build cost.
- 05The same creative team that made a beautiful one-off will repeat its result unless the model changes.
How to run it
- 1
Choose the model before the creative
Decide up front whether you are shipping a finite work or operating a permanent one. The choice determines everything about the design, not the other way round.
Watch out A studio that repeats its previous finite hit will get the same result it got last time.
- 2
Design a loop that survives thousands of hours
Build a core play pattern that stays interesting long after the content is exhausted - usually social, competitive or economic in nature rather than narrative.
Pro tip Late-stage players are playing a social game, not the game you designed for hour one.
- 3
Budget live operations at production scale
Expect to spend as much or more annually on live operations as you spent per year building the game. Model this before launch, not after.
Pro tip Divide total build cost by years of development to get the honest annual live-ops floor.
Watch out Treating live operations as a marketing line item is how forever games quietly die.
- 4
Set and defend an update cadence
Commit to a rhythm of new content and balance changes. Riot's two-week cadence for League of Legends is the reference case.
Watch out Nerfs and buffs that break competitive balance can rip out the value of a working game.
- 5
Fund the unglamorous half
Balance testing, quality assurance and handling toxic-player reports consume a large share of live spend and are what keep the experience intact.
Pro tip Balancing is an arbitrage hunt; assume players will find every exploitable edge.
- 6
Extend the IP beyond the game
Story and world content compound the value of the franchise and give the audience reasons to stay attached between gameplay seasons.
Pro tip Esports and community content can serve as the marketing engine for the forever game itself.
In the wild
Jenova Chen came to Lasky wanting to make a game for the masses after leaving the Sony ecosystem. Lasky's contribution was not creative direction but a model: making Journey again would produce a console indie developer's result again. He helped Chen understand how to build a forever game instead, with a persistent, socially driven experience.
→ Sky became the number four grossing game in China by revenue, with hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and better than thirty percent net income margins on a tiny team.
Riot treats launch as the starting line of a decade-long journey. Every two weeks the team ships new content, new champions and balance changes, supported by continuous quality assurance and testing. That cadence, not marketing, absorbs most of the reinvestment in the game.
→ The game has stayed culturally and commercially dominant for well over a decade, with its live cadence effectively constituting its entire profit and loss.
Common mistakes
Underfunding live operations
Teams budget live support as a fraction of development when it in fact recurs at development-level annual cost. The game starves within a year.
Remaking the previous hit
Repeating the finite work reproduces the finite result. Lasky's advice to Jenova Chen was that a second Journey would earn a second Journey's outcome.
Breaking balance while chasing novelty
New content that disturbs competitive balance destroys the reason long-tenured players stay, which is precisely the asset a forever game monetises.
Is it for you?
Best for
Studios, product teams and investors deciding whether to build a finite work or a permanently operated one.
Not ideal for
Narrative-complete single-player works, small teams without the capital to fund permanent live operations.
From the transcript
“so I really helped him understand how to build a forever game and he rose to the occasion and just built an amazing forever game”
“I think you can expect to spend as much or more on an annual basis than you were spending in development in liveops”
“Riot updates League of Legends every two weeks”
From the episode
Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins on The Art of Business in Gaming
Mitch Lasky