Alan Wake dev: Long-term updates will replace sequels

In an interview with IncGamers, Remedy Games’ EVP Avi Jarvilehto has told us that he believes games will increasingly act as services rather than products. 
Jarvilheto expressed his opinion by using the Remedy developed iOS game Death Rally as an example of getting an audience “involved” over the long-term through constant updates, rather than the shipping of numerous sequels. 
In five to 10 years he believes that other platforms will begin to copy the iOS model and attempt to create games as a long-term service, rather than an experience that can be consumed, finished and set aside.
“I think that’s a trend that will only continue to move forward,” said Jarvilehto. “How fast the other platforms are going to move in that direction remains to be seen, but I would expect in the next five or 10 years we’re going to move ever closer to the point where games are more like services and it’s more about the experience and getting involved long-term with the game… rather than shipping constant sequels.”
When pushed as to whether that design mantra would reduce creativity and turn games simply into money hungry pieces of software, Jarvilehto had few concerns.
“If you look at what’s happening in the industry now, there are so many creative games out there. Shadow Cities, for example, is a location based game that is constantly billed as a ‘service’ that is constantly updated and everything is changing all the time.
“There is a lot of creative energy going into that, in that sense that people are looking for ways to take advantage of the fact that games can be updated almost daily.
Will all games turn into revenue sucking vacuums? No is the answer, but some games will try to do that and they will fail. Then there will be games that generally try to provide new things for the player all the time.”
Our full interview with Avi Jarvilehto, in which he speaks about Alan Wake’s American Nightmare and the future of digital distribution, will be published later this afternoon.