Agreed that you need a rewarding core loop and also one that becomes richer over time (more characters? more actions, more power, less power...). But, I think you also need a longer term engagement element beyond the core loop: being engaged with the goals of game. If there's only one (e.g. only one ending) then if you love the game you'll try to reach it at least one. If there are more you might be tempted to try them all.
Another thing that helps and isn't discussed much in the article is the "meta" game around a game. Especially if the game has liveops and new characters come out, there are events etc. Most by themselves probably won't make someone replay. But if there's enough new stuff and a community which is constantly discovering new stuff to do then that can spark the desire to play again.
My favorite way for a core loop to become richer over time is when the loop has a very high skill ceiling the player can move through in a semi-controlled way. For multiplayer games, this means good matchmaking, but for other games this is layered in via optional challenges/achievments/bonus goals etc.
The stated goal of the game (aka reaching the ending) may or may not be along this path.
Case and death data is pulled in daily. We are working on getting real-time feeds for ADT (Admission / Discharge / Transfer) for ICU and Hospital Beds.
The model is run (and so forward projections are updated) once every 3 days at the moment.
Hard to argue that the ease of use of public cloud data solutions isn't having some effect. There are ways out - like truly functioning identically on-prem and multiple clouds but it's challenging.
On the other hand, we want digital public services, to be able to pay taxes electronically, to be able to vote electronically etc.
I don't think the "don't put sensitive information on the Internet" idea really holds any water unless we expect our public services to be done with pen and paper for evermore, while everything else goes digital. (Yes, machines could be disconnected from the network and so on... but that's arguably just saying "an airgap is all you need")
Well, I would prefer it, but at least at the scale of towns and small cities, I simply don't trust them.
Furthermore, if they do so many things that they need a public-facing website to manage all of the sensitive information they keep on me, I probably don't want to live there.
It's all well and good wanting to access a municipal government's private records through the internet, but try to think of how likely they are to get that right, and adjust your desires accordingly.
Instead of such general and frankly unhelpful statements, would you mind explaining to the previous poster why electronic voting is such a bad idea? It may even generate further discussion instead of just downvotes.
Wouldn't increasing voter turnout be an upside? Reducing the loss of productivity of those participating? Voting electronically is dangerous today, but I still see it as something to work towards. However, I imagine that would require incredible innovation towards multiple layers of robust identity verification protocols.
> "Wouldn't increasing voter turnout be an upside?"
There are better, less drastic, ways of making voting more accessible. Washington state's system of mailing everybody a ballot works pretty well. I usually don't even remember when elections are coming up until I get a ballot in the mail, without ever asking for it. In Washington, people who care to vote don't have any trouble finding the time. (Of course many people just don't give a shit, and electronic voting won't change that.)
But those things can be done without putting sensitive information on the internet. Crypto currency transactions can keep everything sensitive off the network. A one way airgap is indeed all you need (your device should be able to push data to the network but never receive any data from the network). The same scheme works for voting.
This question (or the basis of the analysis) really doesn't make a ton of sense. The overriding deciding factor is really: who is the buyer and how do they want to buy. An open-core model for a strictly non-technical audience is a lot worse off than SaaS. On the other hand, if you have customers with security concerns SaaS may be off the table (still) for many of them.
This is the crux of it - the world doesn't stand still. So if you're in a small team in a space that's fast moving and very competitive then the comfortable life wont last long...
If you're in a space where the addressable market is very hard to reach or fragmented, a venture based run will probably run aground. Whereas a small player hitting a niche might be great for a long time.
The key is finding a niche that simply isn't profitable to a VC funded firm.
Theoretically, I can run my small bootstrapped company and make a profit for myself of $1m a year. Thats excellent for me since I own the entire company. It's peanuts for a VC funded startup, assuming there isn't that much room to grow above $1m.
In fact, I co-founded a startup that raised millions and makes 10x more than my bootstrapped company. But it will likely fail and pay me nothing because if it can't generate an exit in the $100m+ range, then the VCs would rather run it into the ground trying to hit that Mark than sit back and let the net income flow.
Another thing that helps and isn't discussed much in the article is the "meta" game around a game. Especially if the game has liveops and new characters come out, there are events etc. Most by themselves probably won't make someone replay. But if there's enough new stuff and a community which is constantly discovering new stuff to do then that can spark the desire to play again.