Slashdot Mirror
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.
I read today that Hollywood will produce 40 movies this year that are derived from old TV shows. And that doesn't count movie sequels.
EA Games: Sequel Everything
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.
you won't play the same Madden commentary sound files on every fifth play. "Whoa, he looked like he was hit by a truck! A five-ton truck hauling a trailer!" Yes, you'll hear that one six motherslapping times in one game of Madden '05. YOU HAVE A HARD DRIVE NOW, taking data from a 9 GB DVD. You have NO excuse to keep recycling the same mindless observations over and over and over again until we're pointing at our television with a shaking finger and screaming "EAT ME, JOHN! JUST EAT MEEEEEEE!" as most of us do now.
Obviously this guy has never watched a football game where Madden was doing the commentary. Madden moves between a few mindless quips and stating the obvious. Why people are so impressed with Madden, I will never know. Yes, the guy really knows football, but listening to him makes me want to shoot myself.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
1.) Movies make tons of money off sequels that may not give the same emotion as the original hit.
2.) Technological Advances are usually a very very attractive feature without having the game being identical otherwise (cept Doom 3 which was technically a very sweet redo minus the original emotion for most)
3.) There are always new kids/buyers to sell to and nobody wants to buy old games or watch old movies. Maybe the hairstyles turn people off ;)
You may agree or disagree, but I believe these are obvious points.
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.
John Buchanan, the university liason officer for Electronic Arts, came to our university. I remember him specifically talking about how EA was not an "art house" and that their main objective was to entertain people and make lots of money doing so, much like Spielberg (sp?) and Lucas want to do this very same thing in Hollywood.
The way to achieve this? Sequels of course, and rehashes of tried and true concepts (read: steal ideas liberally from best-selling games). Nothing else is guaranteed to be a profit, and although you won't ever come out with a truly stellar bar-raising game that makes zillions of dollars, on average you're going to be doing better. How do you get new ideas? Buy out smaller companies. John challenged us to name one original game that EA has put out in the last five years -- he said he'd give us twenty bucks -- and nobody could. He was sort of strangely proud of this, proud that they'd figured out a way to just, well, fucking rip people off and let them have a good time at it. How does EA get new games, ever? They buy out smaller companies.
If you want to become a games programmer because creativity is your thing, EA is not the place for you. It was quite disconcerting to hear someone be so upfront about these things.
I asked him if it was depressing, to him personally, as a human -- the fact that he acknowledges what they're doing is hardly art, is hardly revolutionary, but just aims to please the masses while earning them all a big fat paycheck -- and his answer? No... the money's good, I have some fun, I get to travael, why should I complain?
Basically I was just disgusted by the whole experience. IBM, Google, Microsoft, Sun -- they can all afford research departments, I don't see why the major games companies in industry cannot... even if there's no short-term payoff, in the long term I think there's a lot more money to be made... there's an incredible amount that simply *hasn't* been done with computer games and interactive entertainment to date, to the extent that it could really really push outside of the current teenage "gamer" market.
I mean, think about it: the games industry grosses more than the Hollywood box office, yet its real market is a fraction of the size. How are you going to reach a larger market? Research, risks, bona fide works of art, and truly engaging experiences.
No, you want depressing? Your comment prompted me to reach for my copy of Strike Fleet (circa 1987) and read the box copy: And remember, this was the company which in its early days brought us (stolen from Wikipedia):
- Pinball Construction Set (1982)
- Archon (1983)
- M.U.L.E. (1983) - Dani Bunten, we miss you.
- One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird (1983)
- Music Construction Set (1984)
- The Seven Cities of Gold (1984)
- Skyfox (1984)
- The Bard's Tale (1985), by Interplay Productions
- Adventure Construction Set (1985)
- Populous (1989)
- Chuck Yeager's Air Combat (1993)
Could those games have been made at EA today? I may just go and cry now. What a difference twenty three years makes, eh?Carthago delenda est!