The Flock has interesting long-term plans for multiplayer

A new multiplayer game called The Flock has some interesting long-term plans. Most multiplayer games just fizzle out eventually, as the players slowly drift off to other games. The Flock has plans to keep people engaged - right up until the very end.

The premise of the game involves the eventual extinction of the protagonist species.  To that end, the game has a pool of "lives" which represent each member of that population. When you play the game and lose, one life is deducted from the total.

When everyone is dead, the game will stop being sold. At that point, only the people who already bought it will be able to play it. And from that point forward, it moves into end game: the final story, which will end with the end of the video game itself, full stop.

A risky strategy to be sure, but an interesting one! I will be curious to see how it pans out.

Image courtesy Polygon.com