One of the games I’ve been playing for the past year or so has been Valve’s Team Fortress 2, their team-based multiplayer shooter with the unique Tex Avery aesthetics. It’s long play life is certainly in part due to the pretty solid design and loads of polish that makes it highly playable. And being a solely multiplayer experience the game is inherently designed to be replayable. But that alone doesn’t explain why this game has been one I constantly revisited while something like Call of Duty 4 hasn’t. For me, the real reason why I keep on revisiting Team Fortress 2 are Valve’s ingenious class updates.

A quick explanation is in order. For PCs and many console games nowadays its not unusual to see some level of support after the release of a game. Patches, minor tweaks are expected and many games get a few pieces of DLC and minor additions here and there. But recently games like Valve’s Team Fortress 2 and Criterion Game’s Burnout Paradise are at the forefront of what may be a new trend in games. The consistent release of (free) DLC at regular intervals to extend the shelf life and play life of older games.

Let’s take a quick glance at the aforementioned Team Fortress 2 class updates. Team Fortress 2 gives players 9 different classes to play (ranging from spies to medics to soldiers). Each class has its own unique weapons and skillsets that contribute to the battle in different ways. Valve since the release of Team Fortress 2 in late 2007 has released four class updates that significantly expand each class upon release with new weapons and abilities.

Burnout Paradise has experienced similar levels of support from Criterion. While not all the new content has been free, additions like motorcycles as an entirely new vehicle, new gameplay features like restarting events, and significant visual refinements have all been added over the past year for Burnout. And this doesn’t even include paid DLC like car packs and new gameplay modes.

These free updates are not just out of the goodness of these developers hearts, they represent good business practices too. Team Fortress 2 is more played now then at release and Valve has reiterated that each new class update brings along a significant sales spike on release. Burnout Paradise has also had some success especially as EA’s first significant downloadable title for consoles.

It’s a trend not only for major studios, but also for indie developers. Many web-based games are initially released in barebones form only to see each iterative release add new features and evolve the game into a more complete package. And many indie games are often released early to an “extended beta” where the end result is highly-shaped by player feedback and actual real-world play. This is increasingly a trend among iPhone games where releasing constant updates serves a duel purpose as not only a way to refine games, but also as a business strategy for keeping the game upfront in the iPhone App Store.

Extending the shelf life and play life of games can only be a good thing for both the developer and the player. It gives developers the ability to polish and refine after release and adjust their game to match expectations of players. And of course in business terms its far easier to develop enhancements to existing games to extend the sales of a game compared to developing a sequel. And for players it allows the opportunity to revisit older games as fresh experiences than having to churn and burn through games.

Not that iteration and refinement are magic bullets that will instantaneously extend the long tail so to speak. Updates need to be both substantial and meaningful, otherwise they fall under the guise of simple alterations and bug fixes like any other game patch. And there’s a marketing component involved also, it’s just as important to let players know about new updates so they can actually dig up these games and replay them.

In many ways, these updates represent the evolution of the now mostly-dead expansion pack that used to be de rigueur for the PC industry. They represent new opportunities to resuscitate games, keeping them in the forefront of players’ minds through constant play and word-of-mouth. They represent good developmental shortcuts in an industry increasingly looking for a sane development model. And in the best-case scenario they make games worth playing and replaying.