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More Products From the Sequel Factory
Both the New York Times and Electronic Gaming Monthly have commented recently on the ongoing trend of sequel production in gaming. The NYT specifically cites EA's recent trends regarding endless rehashing of titles, while EGM talks more broadly about the role of sequels in the industry. While most reviewers lament the current state of the sequel factory, those within the industry rely on new versions of old titles for their bread and butter. From the EGM article: "Let's assume the publisher's position that sequels are a necessary evil, and the blockbuster videogame industry we have today cannot exist without sequels to support its often great financial burdens for research and development, marketing, distribution, etc. So, what are sequels doing for the gamer who's not interested in keeping up with the sequel treadmill?"
This is basically the problem with the gaming industry. Sequels can be innovative and original, and new titles can be boring, and direct rip-off of other titles. The Final Fantasy games I think is a series that tries to be original - with different characters, worlds, 2D -> 3D, storylines, etc, and that series count up to over 11 already.
And then on the other hand, how many Street Fighter/Tekken/Soul Calibur/Virtual Fighter clones do we really need?
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
Some times, you really do a game well, and it's just nice to do more of it. I think the GTA series are a good example. GTA 3 (which itself was a sequel) was just really well done, tons of fun to play. So no we have GTA VC and San Andreas. They aren't really anything new, but just more of the same game done very well. Both also a lot of fun. You can over do it, of course, but I think in many cases it's nice.
Also sequels over the longer term can be real cool, like GTA 2 to GTA 3. There are many older games that I'd like to see redone to current technology. I mean I still play X-com because it's a great game, but what I'd really like to see is a new X-com, designed for modern hardware, with updated graphics, AI, etc, etc.
I agree that in many cases it gets stupid, it seems that it's just "Hey that last one made money, let's release another exactly like it!" but you get that even in non-sequels, you get games copying heavily from successful games.
I really don't think a game has to be unique to be good. I don't care if it's the 5th game in a series so long as it's entertaining.
With lots of feedback on the gameplay of the originals, a sequel can be tweaked to make it better.
Some games are also rather short, especially ones with intricate levels, and releasing a sequel or expansion pack allows the publishers to continue working on the game while also earning money.
If you don't like the game, just don't buy the sequel!
WTF?! Developers spend thousands of dollars if not millions developing these sequels. Spams are essentially free to create by the thousands. How are they even remotely similar? If a few people buy something advertised in a spam session then it's profitable. How many people have to purchase a video game sequel to make it profitable? A few? Try a few hundred thousand.
Whereas movies typically get a healthy amount of advertising on TV, the majority video game ads are found in magazines or online. Thus, name recognition in a title - "The Legend of Zelda: _______" or "Mario [sport]" - plays a much more important role in selling video games to casual gamers than it does in getting casual moviegoers to the theatres.
Is to try and make a better version. It doesn't matter if you are making the next one in a series, or if your game is highly similar to another one, it matters that you are abot to make your game entertaining, and hopefully by improving on the orignal.
Take Rome: Total War. Excellent game, one of the best strategy games in a long time. First time in a long time a strategy game has been on the best sellers list for a good amount of time. However not at all orignal. The plot is, well, Roman history. There's some modifications for playability and creative license and so on but the story was taken directly form the history books. The game is, of course, the latest in the Total War series, itself based on earlier games like Civilization.
However for all that, it's a ton of fun to play. It is so well done. The gameplay is excellent and engaging, the music is superb and the graphics are amazing, good enough the History channel uses the engine.
It doesn't matter that there's no orignality to plot or concept, the game is just flat out fun, more fun that those that came before it, and that's what really matters.
The true purpose of the sequel is to get the consumer to pay for the second half of a hit game. Has anyone else noted the trend toward shorter games these days? If you liked game A, then they are hoping you will shell out again for part B, which is more of the same, with a couple extra things thrown in to sweeten the pot.
Sequels are fine.
Sequels that are marginally different from their predecessor suck *COUGH EA*.
But then again, when you try to make a sequel that isnt a mirror image of its predecessor, people stop chanting how they want innovation just long enough to bash the game *COUGH Mario Sunshine, Zelda Wind Waker, etc*.
People are now working on making and visiting complete worlds, not just sequels.
I believe it's similar to how our songs are getting longer and longer, too- it's not unusual to hear a song that goes on for 20 minutes, now. In fact, we just call it a "mix," and it's a big long stream of music, with a little of this, a little of that, mixed in for funn.
People feel attached to these worlds, and they wonder about these characters. They don't want to be hit with a brand new world everyday. Rather, they like a particular world, and they want to see it carried out further.
Also, they want it on multiple senses. They want to read it in book format, they want to play it as a video game, as a role playing game, they want to see it as a movie, they want to keep up with it as a TV show. All these things that people want to do.
People want to know the side stories, feel out the nooks and crannies of the complexities.
This is Slashdot, so I should mention that there are implications for Free Software game developers: network your worlds. Make a Tetris game that celebrates a theme from a constructed world that some tabletop gamers articulated in detail. Fetch fanfic authors to create stories based in this world. Get an existing RPG engine, and see if you can make a short game out of one of those authors' stories. See if an illustrator won't do an illustration of a major scene. We can have whole worlds, not just isolated projects.
Sequals are easier to make, that's why we see so many of them.
If little Timmy doesn't have to buy Halo, Half-life and Doom sequals he can buy 3 "not sequal" games. Which then means they make the same amount of money but don't risk annoying a fanbase.
If you flood a market with oranges and then see oranges getting 75% of all sales on that market, oranges arn't running the market, they're bring forced down peoples necks because there is nothing else.
I like muppets.
I believe they're similar in the words immediately following your quote: "while most people just ignore them, some of them ended up buying from the spammers, and this is what keeps the spamming industry going and even growing".
Try reading next time, and remember that analogies aren't meant to be perfect. You read for the point of the analogy, not for the analogy (ie spirit of the law vs letter of the law).
Making a movie with a brand new concept is a risk; sequels are almost risk-free.
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How many people have to purchase a video game sequel to make it profitable? A few? Try a few hundred thousand.
Out of how many million gamers?
The PS2 has sold close to 100 million consoles worldwide. The Xbox is over 20 million, the GameCube at about 15 million.
The top selling games are lucky to sell 5 million copies - only a few have ever sold more than that (and yes, most that did have been sequels).
That means the vast majority of gamers do not buy any individual game. It's the same as anything else - Britney Spears gets a lot of press, but the most copies of a CD she's ever sold have gone to around 3% of the population. Clearly, 97% of the United States couldn't care less about her - and yet you'd never know that by the amount of coverage she gets or her sales numbers relative to other music.
If you assume that the same people buy a game like Madden every single year (and I think that's a pretty safe assumption), then you can pretty much deduce that at least 85%-90% of gamers in the world don't care about Madden. That doesn't mean these people don't buy other sequels, but I don't think it's out of bounds to suggest that a lot of them are simply waiting patiently for something new.
There will never be a game that unites all gamers and is truly universal. I mean a lot of people still don't own any copy of Pac-Man for any platform and that's about as close as you're going to get. But I think it's important to keep a sense of perspective - yes, sequels sell well enough to keep their publishers afloat. But, like every other individual game, most of the gaming public doesn't want to buy them. (Relatedly, I'd be interested to know what percentage of gamers eschew sequels altogether - it'd be difficult to measure, but it could actually be a majority of those gamers who do not buy any particular sequel.) They want to buy other things, and they may or may not be satisfied with what's available on the whole.
It's pretty simple, really. If I can't beta a game (for MMOs especially) then I don't really want to shell out $50 to find out it sucks.
For non-online games, it still hold's true. I have more games that turned out to be complete stinkers on my bookshelf than I care to admit.
Most gamers don't just look at the company and say "Oh, EA made X, so Y should be great!". They look at X, and believe X2 should be at least as good, or at least offer a reasonable hope of fun.
If you played and loved Fallout and Fallout 2, and Interplay releases Fallout 3, aren't you going to buy it? Heck, even if the game engine doesn't get a radical overhaul, I'd still want to try it when it hits the bargain bin.
New games often require new engines, and a ton of creative juice. A sequel to a very successful game requires a new plot, maybe some engine tweaks, some graphic tweaks, and you are done.
And even if they do update the engine, etc... If they had released Doom 3 with just "Resurrection of Evil" as it's title, with no reference whatsoever to it's Doom legacy, what do you think it's sales would have been?
Making a movie with a brand new concept is a risk; sequels are almost risk-free.
Exactly. Movies can be art, movies can be entertainment, but most mainstream movies are vehicles for profit. And studios know that a movie based on a popular television show or book will bring in moviegoers even if it's not very good, simply because it's familar.
Luckily for all of us, there are hundreds of movies every year from major studios, and many thousands more from independant sources. Don't blame studios for wanting to make an easy buck. If you don't like what's out there, don't go see it. Simple!
and everything to do with business sense. Game one takes 3 years to develop. Tools, Characters, levels. Lots of money spent.
The staff becomes more efficient as the process goes along. Version one is a hit. Now with the same staff (if the profit sharing is lucrative enough) and one under their belt, part 2 and three might take a year each to develop.
Sequels of hit games cost developers less to produce and are practically guaranteed revenue.
The game (normally) gets better with added features, better graphics, etc.. everybody wins.
I'd to throw in that not everyone plays "sequal" style games in a linear manner. I played the original GTA, and I own Vice City. Didn't play any of the ones in-between though, so perhaps people who grab Madden 2010 haven't played 2009 and below... but they'd still like an up-to-date roster, physics, etc.
Sequels that are "same ol' same ol'" are definately a problem, but just because something has the same name doesn't mean it's the same game... and sometimes sameness elements make the game familiar/fun as well. When I buy a Final Fantasy game I'm looking for an experience similar to what has come before, but unique enough to still keep me interested (which, except for FFX-2 is usually the case).
I just wish that making 'similar' games didn't kill off original games.
Man, how dare they give me: ... and, you get the point. The idea that because a game is a sequel means it's "unoriginal" and unfun is kind of stupid.
1. Half-Life 2
2. Battlefield 2
3. Freespace 2
4. Civilization 2 and 3
5. Jagged Alliance 2
6. Descent 3
7. Quake 3 (bad example?)
8. Unreal Tournament 2004
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Many of the titles that EA creates are sports titles, and so it is not exactly accurate to say that they just keep releasing sequels because sequels are absolutely necessary in many sports games. I'm an avid sports watcher and an avid sport video game player and I *want* the updated rosters and draft picks and whatnot. To be honest I could care less about new features. The game could stay EXACTLY the same from year to year and I'd still buy it just for the updated season info.
Now I realize this is not the same for a lot of people, so from the point of view of a consumer I can see that it gets boring and old for a company to keep releasing the same game with minor updates, but please keep in mind that developing and selling a Madden '06 is not exactly the same as developing and selling a Metal Gear Solid 12 would be.
Obviously this guy has never watched a football game where Madden was doing the commentary.
Actually, he probably has. The quote is from an article called "A Gamers' Manifesto" from www.pointlesswasteoftime.com, and in the very next paragraph, he says, "Have you ever actually watched a real game where Madden was in the booth? Yeah, that's pretty much the way he really talks."
Sequels to video games are not like spam. Sorry, but you lack common sense if you think otherwise.
Final Fantasy has changed significantly since FF1... in that it has more cutscenes of a formulaic anime melodrama these days, but it is hardly something to be held as an example of originality in a series. FFX had just as many tired cliches as every other interactive Japanese soap opera.
I would say Ultima is a better example of a long series that had maintained originality (no pun intended), with the last three games in the series being dramatically different from the previous games- in story as well as gameplay. If you shoehorn the Underworld titles into what is considered the series, there's even more originality and fresh gameplay.
Also, though I tend to pan Nintendo for whoring their 20 year old franchises, they have a pretty good track record of making good games out of said franchises. Look at the variety in the Zelda, Metroid and Mario games through the years. Okay, so the stories are all pretty much the same, but the gameplay is almost always fresh.
They might have a point if only the greatest games around weren't sequals themselves. Anti-sequalists have this idea that games should come out perfect the first time, fully god-breathed and explore all potentially interesting aveneues. Yet the best games we have are almost exclusively sequals. A Link to the Past was a second sequal, as was Super Metroid. Grand Theft Auto 3 was in the same boat. Final Fantasy is probably the most legitmate target of sequal haters, in that aside from a few common semi-plot elements (crystals, airships, etc) the only thing uniting them is a combat system and a desperate need for your money.
The history of literature disagrees with anti-sequalists. Long before the written word set story in stone-type, civilization had the oral tradition. Tales were told of ancient gods, and of heroes in epic battles of fate. But each telling of the tale was different, and afterwards the storyteller could evaluate what worked and what didn't work, and maybe what might have worked had it been changed only slightly. The origins of comedy come from improvisational humor, and even today's stand-up routine is a dynamic, flexible presentation. Live music is improvizational, and improvization is central to Jazz music. None of these forms of entertainment are capable of calling a singular act 'perfect.'
I like to consider each Zelda game not as an internally consistant series of adventures of Link, but an evolving image of the Hero of the Master Sword. In fact, we've come to accept and require that the series introduces changes. The most common and valid criticism of the Zelda Oracle games was that they were too similar, both to Zelda DX and to each other.
Anti-sequalists essentially translate the modern literary theory onto games, and ignore the naggling details that emerge when finished. Games aren't the work of a single guiding authoring force, responsible for the day to day decisions that encompasses the work, forming a singular message for the player(s).
I wonder, then, what people who promote 'originality' have to say about 'We Love Katamari.'
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My feeling is because, at least in America, unless you are listening to radio, most sportscasters do their damnedest to appear as unbiased as possible. Which leads to very poor commentary as not to offend anyone. This also why when obvious faux pas do happen sportscasters jump all over it because this is the one time they get to put some real emotion into it.
;)
This actually one of Madden's strengthes and why he is still on the air, sometimes he still speaks his mind, or whatever is left in there.
Most is inane chatter but some games you can appreciate the sportscasters. But usually this means we aren't too concious of their existence.