Two Years of “Massive Growth” for a 2013 Game

According to Digital Extremes president Sheldon Carter, Warframe has strung together “a few years of straight, just massive growth” after the studio rethought how it develops and promotes the game. That’s a remarkable thing to say about a title old enough to be in middle school. Most live-service games peak within a year or two of launch and slide from there; Warframe is doing the opposite, pulling in new players more than a decade in.

The turnaround wasn’t luck. Carter frames it as the payoff from a deliberate change in focus — the kind of course correction that keeps a live game relevant instead of letting it coast on nostalgia. It’s the same durable “feel” that fans still praise in shooters like Destiny 2’s gunplay, even as that franchise powers down.

Outlasting Destiny by Not Chasing It

The Warframe-versus-Destiny story is full of irony. When the original Destiny launched in 2014 — over a year after Warframe — Carter admits it “really hit” the studio, and his first instinct was to compete head-on. Over time, that rivalry softened; developers from Destiny’s own team eventually came over to Digital Extremes. Now, with Bungie having announced it would stop making new updates for the series earlier this year, Warframe has effectively outlasted the competitor that once rattled it.

The lesson isn’t that Warframe won a fight. It’s that it stopped fighting and focused on its own audience — a distinction that’s easy to miss when studios get locked into arms races. The churn at the top of the genre has been brutal, from shuttered launches to the recent turmoil that saw the Marathon director leave Bungie just months after release.

The Live-Service Lesson: Audience Over Arms Race

Carter says he expects Digital Extremes to be a significantly bigger company in five years, with a vision of running Warframe and its upcoming title Soulframe “neck and neck” — two games serving totally different audiences rather than cannibalizing each other. For entrepreneurs and product builders, that’s the real headline. Sustainable growth came from retention, reinvestment, and knowing exactly who the game is for, not from chasing whatever competitor happened to be trending.

It’s a pattern worth noting as smaller live games find their footing too, like the solo-built simulated MMO Erenshor carving out a loyal niche of its own.

The Takeaway

Warframe’s resurgence is proof that a live-service game doesn’t have to burn bright and die young. With the right focus, a title can keep growing for a decade and outlast rivals with far deeper pockets. As one giant fades out, another quietly demonstrates how longevity is actually done.

Related on BizzNerd

• Destiny 2 Gunplay: Still the Best FPS Feel Before Retirement
• Marathon Game Director Leaves Bungie Four Months After Launch
• Erenshor Raid Update Makes Its Solo MMO Endgame a Reality

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Fall guys and battle royale

When you hear the term battle royale, you’re probably thinking of videogames such as Fornite or PUBG. Certainly, you wouldn’t be expecting a game that looks like this:

Well, that’s the charm of Fall guys! After the major success that Fortnite had, a lot of battle royales after it featured similar concepts with guns and bombs. However, this Mediatonic game had a fresh take. Instead of big grenades, you will be blown off the map by giant fruit!

The basic premise of the game

With a simple design comes a simple premise as well. A total of 60 players are put inside a certain map with obstacles that they’re meant to complete in the shortest time possible. After each round, only a certain number of people qualify for the next round. However, in the end, there is only one winner.

Don’t be fooled though, the game doesn’t just feature different maps but different game modes as well! Some of them include Hex-a-ring, Volleyfall, Speed circuit, The Swiveller, Bounce Party, Blast Ball, and many more. With this variety, you can also play solo, as a duo, or as a team!

Even though Fall guys induces a lot of rage within the people playing it, the overall gameplay is quite simple. There are only three movements that you can do: jump, dive, and grab. The last one can be problematic as there will be people trying to knock you down and push you to death. Who would have thought that such an easy-going game could bring the worst out of people? Reminds me a bit of Squid games!

Free to play now on Epic games!

On the 21st of June, Epic games made Fall guys free to play. This was certainly a great choice as there has been a major spark in popularity since then. A lot of big creators like the Sidemen are playing it, people are streaming it and everyone’s just having a great time. Even with its sociopathic competitiveness, Fall guys was just the right game that came out at the right time. During lockdown, it was perfect in bringing people together and making them forget about their worries. Hopefully, because the game is free, we won’t see a big spike in hackers. Although, I really don’t know who would hack in Fall guys.

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What is PUBG about?

At the beginning of the match, all of the players get put together on a single plane from which you pick your location and jump off. Basically, you start off naked – with no armor, no ammo, and no guns. In order to get the upper hand over others, you loot all the things necessary that you find all around the map. The map progressively gets smaller and the last player standing wins the Chicken Dinner.

Starts of a decline

Like we previously said, PUBG, along with Fortnite, was the reason why the world went into a craze with battle royale videogames. After so many years, it’s natural to see a start of a decline in the game, but not in the way you’d expect. It isn’t because the game got boring. PUBG lacks optimization, especially on consoles. A lot of big streamers like Shroud or Dr. Disrepect moved on from playing the game, even though they have said multiple times that they loved it.

The game would be much better if it improved the graphics and platform optimization. You cannot even look at a building that’s 200 meters away. For a while, PUBG was in a place of stagnation. However, recently the developers have announced many improvements that are coming. So far, only the movement has been changed, but it gives the players something to look forward to.

New Era of PUBG

We can only speculate, but our predictions are that a lot of big changes are coming to PUBG this year. Most of the people who wanted to play PUBG probably purchased the game in these five years. So, a much bigger player base is not expected by anyone. It is also true that the previous price tag of 30 dollars has put some people off from getting it and it was certainly true for us:

On the other hand, a lot of old players are now returning. That is because of the positive changes that have been made to the game, and many more are announced to be in progress. The ones we saw so far are training mode for new players, changes in movement, backend configurations, and so on.

Closing

PUBG is a simple game and people like simplicity. You can easily explain a game like this to your grandpa: You are on an island along with 99 enemies, you got guns and you fight to be the last surviving. That’s what made it so popular on streaming platforms like Twitch. It is easy to follow and fun to watch, any battle royale is like that. With the team making positive changes, we can only expect this game to grow. But, a realistic shooter like PUBG will always have a niche following.

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