The purpose of this thread is to discuss the possibility of adding different game genres.
Yes, I am aware that the server is called ‘Hive Minigames’ and adding different genres may have a slight impact on branding, however, I personally believe it could be necessary for continued growth of the Hive further into the future.
Why?
If you look at the history of Mineplex on the Java edition, it initially did very well by offering Minigames. If you research the server history further, you will see a dramatic decrease in concurrent players, which would be fair to assume is down to a niche selection of games. Many players left for Hypixel, which offered many different genres. I’m not saying the Hive will have this decline in the future, simply upon previous historical evidences we can see a simple trend appear from not adapting to add different game modes.
Why could Minigames grow old?
Personally, I enjoy playing the Hive’s selection of Minigames as they offer a high skill ceiling, meaning that if you practice the game, you will get better and better at it. This provides a sense of progression, although this isn’t mirrored by a statistic. Sure, there are the monthly leaderboards, but a good example of developing progression is by adding long gamemode-specific quests, such as the ones in Hypixel. This would definitely provide a challenge for players at the skill ceiling, otherwise they would get bored and possibly quit the server.
Another reason is due to the eventual saturation of games. What I mean by this is that once you add more games, players tend to get split across them, reducing the amount of players in a game mode. This will decrease the sense of skill progression, as you will only ever be able to be the best at a game that has 100 concurrent players, as opposed to 3000. A good idea is by introducing groups of games or large games, which the Hive is doing at the moment by introducing Arcade. Other good examples could be MMO games, such as Factions or Skyblock.
What do I suggest?
Obviously I would love to see the Hive add different genres other than Minigames! Not only do I think that it is important for the Server’s survivability but to appeal to a wider audience.
I think that adding a MMO mode would be a safe bet, as the introduction of Swarms could make this much more of an interesting mode. I believe that Skyblock would be a good idea, not because it has been done a lot before but because there is quite a gap in the market in the bedrock servers. Sure, Cubecraft and Lifeboat have their interpretations of it but I think they are rather underdeveloped for what could be a vast gamemode.
Choosing a gamemode with a wide target audience and ways to play the game would decrease the saturation of games and also provide statistics in which players can compete beyond having the highest level / most wins.
I don’t think the Hive should add raw Skyblock or any other MMO, without having some sort of twist. An example of this could be by making ‘One Block Skyblock’.
Summary
To recap, I believe that the Hive will eventually need to branch out into other gamemodes, so as to maintain relevance. At the moment this isn’t so big of an issue as the Hive’s quality of games is extremely high, but players could eventually get bored of them after a while.
Thanks for reading! If you have any suggestions about future game possibilities or would wish to discuss anything I’ve said, go ahead!