Live service games should give players a proper ending when they shut down, Danganronpa creator says

The creator of the Danganronpa series says live service games should provide players with a proper ending when they eventually shut down.

In an interview with Automaton, Kazutaka Kodaka discussed current live service title Tribe Nine, an action RPG which Kodaka created but is set to shut down in November despite only being a few months old.

Because he’s still committed to the game’s plot, Kodaka has announced Neo Neon Tribe, an unofficial and non-profit ‘doujin circle’ (fan group) where the storyline will eventually be finished.

According to Kodaka, the players who took part in Tribe Nine deserve to have closure, rather than the game closing down while the story is still ongoing.

“When an IP you created inevitably fails as a business, nothing much can be done there,” he said. “However, I believe that [as developers] we have to find a way to offer our players a sincere conclusion.”

Kodaka said he believes that while no developer sets out to make a live service game that will close down quickly, they should decide early on how they’re going to end the game if (or rather when) it eventually does happen.

“Of course, [while] creators can’t really go about making a game under the assumption that it is going to end services, it’s somewhat inevitable,” he explained.

“But I do believe that, as a way of taking responsibility for creating the game, one of the things creators should be thinking about when they start working on their project is how to wrap it up regardless of what happens to it.”

Although he only came up with the story for Tribe Nine and didn’t actually develop the game itself, Kodaka said he felt this responsibility as the co-creator of the IP. The Neo Neon Tribe group will complete the story via a web novel, and will then continue to expand the world with unofficial non-profit works, with the blessing of the game’s publisher Akatsuki.