Nintendo Looks To DLCs And Events To Boost Game Longevity

Nintendo wants you to play their games and continue to do so even month after release, and they are looking into DLCs and events to make it happen.

In Nintendo’s financial brief, Nintendo President, Tatsumi Kimishima, cited the example of Splatoon 2 where Nintendo’s use of DLC boosted the franchise’s active players even after the holidays, when most games will see a drop.

We are providing more downloadable content and hosting events that build excitement for our games to give consumers a fresh sense of enjoyment and extend the time they spend playing the titles they have purchased. The way Splatoon 2 is being played in Japan is an example of how efforts on the game software side can also impact the use of the hardware. The vertical axis of this graph depicts the number of active users over the passage of time across the horizontal axis. Normally, hardware use tends to drop off to a certain extent after the holiday season, but with Splatoon 2, the weekly number of active users remained high even beyond the start of the new year. Activity in Splatoon 2 is particularly high in Japan, but that same trend is now also being seen in other markets, so we intend to continue to focus on this area.

As long as the DLC doesn’t ask for a kidney and provides for more enjoyment, I guess we can all allow it right? You can read the full financial brief transcript here.