Rocket League history: the turning point that produced a football racing masterpiece

Did you know Rocket League isn’t actually the first of this series? The first part of this football racing genre is called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars (2008).

Despite owning two completely different names, Rocket League and the long game above have almost the same gameplay.

Psyonix studio development director Thomas Silloway said: “This time, I think the team can get everything right. Because the number of members before is much less than now. This time, we will make a really good game, we have a very good marketing plan to let everyone know. And it could create a buzz as the launch date approaches. A lot of people will be playing the game on Twitch from the beta and that’s going to be a big boost from there.”

Compared to the not-so-well-known first part, Rocket League is much more elaborate. Instead of complicated rules, the game is replaced with simple rules, levels and a single goal. Mastering the art of double-jumping or kicking a ball in mid-air requires hours of practice, but what makes Rocket League special is its accessibility to players. Anyone can play with passion no less than seasoned Rocket League gamers.

Interestingly enough, Battle-Cars started off in a completely different direction. Without change, perhaps the Rocket League as we know it today would never have existed.

“One day we threw a ball into the map,” Silloways recalls testing the first game a decade ago. “We played soccer back and forth and eventually realized it was more fun than the game we were playing. We just kept playing and playing during the test and it completely took up all the time the team intended to spend testing in the racing game.”

“There were times when we thought: either we should stop playing this game, or else we have to make a new game because we can’t get anything done for that game.”

If it decides to pursue the original battle car concept, Rocket League “wouldn’t be what it is at all,” Silloway recalls. “We know the other game we’re working on is fun, but when you add a ball to it, it’s ten times better. If we hadn’t, I think the team would have released a completely different version. This is a very interesting turn of events that force us to make decisions.”

Founded by Dave Hagewood in 2000, Psyonix split and developed Vampire Hunter: The Dark Prophecy (who died prematurely) and Unreal Tournament 4. While participating in Unreal Tournament 4, Hagewood designed the physics for the mobile vehicle. Move in the game’s Onslaught mode: this vehicle allows you to destroy your opponents to win.

Thanks to an in-depth understanding of the Unreal Engine, Hagewood has helped the car acrobatic around the ‘closed’ area convincingly and knows how to make the game more interesting. The platform was later turned into Battle-Cars.

Silloway joined Psyonix a few years later as a programmer intern. The team now includes Hagewood, Jerad Heck, Ben Beckwith and a few other names. Although there are now more than 40 good members, but only a few people pass the internship to form the Battle-Cars development team.

“When we joined the team, everyone had several racing versions in development.” Silloway shared, before the studio realized putting football in the game would make it better.

As the Battle-Cars game community gradually formed after the game was released, poor sales and poor reviews were like a slap in the face to Psyonix. They have put a lot of effort into developing a game that they think deserves more attention and love. However, Silloway realized that naive decisions about advertising and marketing were holding back the success of his first self-published game.

“I think people at the time believed they were just making a few mistakes when Battle-Cars came out, especially when it came to marketing decisions. We feel we haven’t advertised enough to let people know. Then the team reached out to this group of people who really enjoyed the game, and then we realized what we were seeing: an incredibly entertaining and super addictive game.”

“We always knew we could reach a larger player base, polish a few things, make the game easier to play for everyone to learn, and then the members would do better next time. I think all those efforts have paid off.”

Given what Battle-Cars has endured, a remake of what’s important in the game – self-publishing a second time, starting from scratch, investing sweat, blood, and tears into what’s not known to succeed – It’s a gamble indeed. To the point, Sillooway recalls not knowing if everything was going in the right direction until the game hit shelves. The Alpha testing phase on Steam looks fine, but the decision still lies in fixing the issues raised by players.

Same with the beta phase. There were signs that the players were interested, but exactly how much are they interested? there is no way to measure it. Because, a lot of alpha and beta testers used to be members of the available Battle-Cars community. Therefore, Psyonix was afraid. The members have experienced this and understand they need to know what is optimistic and overconfident after receiving feedback from these testers.

“We tried to strike a good balance between the soul of Rocket League and the previous game, and make the game more accessible,” Silloway shared. “Throughout development, the team kept going back and forth between the two extremes. Feedback from experienced players really helps us refine the controls and see how they react to those tweaks. In the meantime, we’re continuing to evaluate how good our decisions are and how they’ll impact when the game comes out.”

The process of ‘separating the buffalo from the seed’ became essential in the development of Rocket League, according to Silloway and the entire crew: come up with the idea, polish it, and focus on what they had done before. There’s so much going on to make a game so big and wide, but ultimately narrowing it down is the real challenge.

When Rocket League launched, the game quickly exploded. When the first brother debuted in 2008, YouTube was still in its infancy, social networks were more difficult to access than it is today, not to mention Twitch streams did not exist. Seven years later, the Rocket League fanbase has grown exponentially. By the end of 2015, Psyonix broke through with more than 8 million downloads, bringing in $ 50 million in revenue on all platforms.

On YouTube, a small community of players has been recording videos, sharing great tackles, records, tips and goals. The game has crazy fans who want to show off their talents, as if they were real soccer players.

“This is extraordinary,” Silloway exclaims. “Players take our idea and push it to the extreme limits of the game. I don’t think I can see what players can do in the current game. Gameplay allows you to create spectacular shots or saves. It feels great to know you impact people in such a way.”

Another phenomenon that has also sprouted since the launch of Battle-Cars is esports. Silloway admits the team hopes Rocket League will find a place in the esports community, but the vision can only happen if it sparks excitement: both players and viewers.

“We don’t want to force Rocket League into esports. But the things that come out of esports are just too amazing. Top tier players do extraordinary things with the ball – things I didn’t expect to be able to do! It’s great to see all esports expand, and we have some big plans for the year. The team that will make great esports for Rocket League. We like the game to be more popular, so the team will pursue ideas that keep the game in the player’s mind, keep people talking about it, keep playing Rocket League.

“We are actively improving the game and bringing in new features and new content to help with that. Members have a lot of big plans coming up to take esports to the next level. I hope some of those plans will bear fruit in the years to come.”

At its heart, Rocket League is a car soccer game. According to Silloway, many of the Psyonix members are sports fans and many of them compete in amateur leagues around San Diego. Whether you hate sports or have never seen a football match in your life, Rocket League is still very entertaining.

The process of learning to appreciate the physics of the ball, scoring a successful goal or saving the ball for the first time in the air is a wonderful experience. Turning gaming into a sport allows Psyonix to create a clear structure: you have a team, you have a score, the game has a time limit, and the team wins and the team loses. All these factors make the game interesting, even if we lose.

“You can kick the ball, you can score in the first game against another player. And that feeling is very good,” Silloway said. “Especially when you start getting a feel for the controls and realize there are better ways to play than you initially thought.”

“You have speed racing, you can jump, you can dodge, you can fly in the air and score goals. The game requires players to be good to acquire that skill. I think that attracts people. Another aspect is that you can compete with your friends.”

With online, single-player, play with friends, seasons, revamp your car with hundreds of different options – from sleek to ridiculous –, esports, and the art of mastering aerial goals appears on YouTube, Rocket League has a lot for everyone to experience. Why the game was such a big hit this time – while Battle-Cars failed – is largely down to the timing of its release. While Silloway agrees with that, he believes the studio really did their best to show the world how good their work was.

“I think the biggest reason the game is so successful is because it’s a great game. The team has put all their efforts into the game for the past three years, focusing all of its human resources. We always thought about the game from the very beginning.”

“We had way too much time from launch to Rocket League to focus on the features requested by the community and the things we personally wanted to add to the game. The team took the time to figure out the best way and everyone really wanted to spend a lot of time getting the game on track.”

At times Silloway thought of failure, but his efforts and the team’s pursuit of success made the journey completely worth it. Luckily for Psyonix, Rocket League succeeded. And luckily for us gamers, the Psyonix team will continue to support the game as long as they’re interested.

According to Pcgamesn

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