Successive additions to a game are stronger than what preceded them, because new content must be attractive enough to adopt.
Each release must give players a reason to buy or engage, and the cheapest reason is strength. The cumulative result is that early content becomes unplayable and the design's original balance is unrecoverable, which is why long-running games resort to rotation or resets.
In practice
- A card set that sells must outclass the last one, and four sets later the first is unplayable.
- A job ladder that adds a senior title every two years has inflated the ladder rather than lengthened it.
- Subject
- Play & Game Design
- Essay
- Small worlds with visible rules