online game development doesn't end when the game ships

　　Unfortunately, online game development doesn't end when the game ships. Minn apologized to the team for positioning the game going live as the finish line, even though Marvel consumer events like the Thor, X-Men, and Captain America movies had marketing tie-in commitments for the team for months afterward. While the rush to hit the movie release dates resulted in some critical bugs making it into the game, Robar and Minn said the post-launch support of the game was a success.

"We really actually had a Monday through Friday shop, all the way through launch."--Robar, proudly touting the work-life balance achieved during Super Hero Squad Online development to the applause of the audience. "Trust your feelings. When Luke turned off the nav computer, management was worried."--Minn, drawing design lessons from the Star Wars trench run scene and cautioning against overreliance on metrics.

The Amazing Society had to scale back a number of features (including a number of playable heroes, microtransactions, and a collectible card game) in order to make their ship date, but a streamlined development process that took time to keep everyone on the team (and at Marvel) abreast of the latest developments helped the studio meet its goal of going live in two years.

On the face of it, the new game Dark Souls seems to have an approach to online gaming that for many will seem limited, dated and maybe even a little backward thinking.Those young gamers who have been weaned on the online offerings of both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have been collectively balking at what Dark Souls is offering.