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Next Gen Squeezes Existing IP
The transition from the previous generation to Next-Gen consoles is hitting game publishers right in the intellectual property. Existing franchises are going to struggle to keep their publishers afloat, because of the immense costs and problems involved in adapting to the new console market. From the article: "The strong possibility of a new Medal of Honor game from EA could also affect Activision's numbers. The analyst estimates Gun sold 980K since launch, and that any sequel will struggle to match this, probably hitting no more than 780K. Another declining franchise is X-Men. The 2004 game X-Men Legends sold 1.2 million with last year's X-Men Legends II probably hitting around 750K. A third game this year is estimated to manage only 550K."
Maybe people are tired of sequels?
Anybody want to try something new?
I wouldn't mind you in my head, if you weren't so clearly mad -Lews Therin Telamon
Listen, it's not the next generation consoles that are doing this, it's the freaking franchise! If I played X-Men legends 1, unless you drastically change this up, and make X2 extremely compelling (i.e.: the Splinter cell guys have made each revision far more interesting then the last), then why would I even bother playing X2?
It's the content that hurt sales, not the development platform or anything else. How many X-Men do we really want crammed down our throats anyhow?
EA sports: The clone wars.
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There must be a lot of frat houses with Xboxes.
I think the issue that is not covered is that companies are now expected to make certain profit margins. If they don't, their stock tanks and so do they. I realize the old saying is true. "Either you're growing or you're dying." This however, does not mean you need to maintain a 20% growth rate every single year.
Like the one we had in 84. That'd be refreshing.
... you might as well try something new. Of course there's little predictability in introducing a brand new concept in gaming or even inventing a whole new genre. But, if a big name publisher is sure to lose money on a sequel, while hoping for some sort of success, then why is it a big deal to try something new. If you aren't gonna cut with the old stuff, then take that same investment and push it into something outrageous. Losses will likely be the same, but its a gamble too. The Sims was such a gamble which from what I understand took alot of pushing just to get it released, and it exploded into a whole phenomenon which got my 50 year old mother into gaming. Honestly, these publishers need to stop thinking like the uptight suits that they are and get into the gamer mentality. We aren't a static resource that can be drilled for money, we are an ever changing, ever evolving gaming client base!
Smarten up!
If i wanted to hear bullshit, i'd go to church.
Renamed "summons" between VII and VIII- Oooo, now their "Guardian Forces!". I can't learn spells, and I don't equip items to get them this time...I have to Draw them! Oh, and in IX, I get to learn them BY equipping items!
Honestly, as far as Gameplay, Squaresoft (and later, Square Enix) realized that it's not INNOVATIVE gameplay that keeps a franchise going- it's familiar yet innovative gameplay that does it. And that's why I'll keep buying the games- I have a good idea of what I'm getting.
Nintendo suffers from the opposite problem- too much innovation and change between games, and a constantly irritated fanbase. I know I'm not alone in skipping Wind Waker. I don't care how great of a game it is- I don't like how it looks, and I'm not going to force myself to play it. That would take a potentially "Great" game and make it mediocre. Super Mario Sunshine? Great game. I still wanted the familiar "mario" game for that system, though. Something that I could feel nostalgic about, but that had enough change in it to not feel like Super Mario World all over again.
People are tired of eye-candy being the only compelling thing about a game. If you simply remake the -same- game again and again with "more polygons" is it still significantly more fun to play? For -many- games the answer is "no". Companies have to either allow you to do something new or have a unique idea in order to attract customers - and 30 iterations of EA NFL Exxxplosion 2130 isn't going to be better then than the current sequel "blah" that they put out. In short- if I want to play a good football game, why not buy a PS2 and 04 or 05? For the difference in cost, the game has to be that much more compelling. Of course, the other argument can (and should) be made that at some point we're going to get graphics -so- good, and controls -so- intuitive that we max out the abilities of the current hardware tech. There is, after all, only so close of an approximation of reality you can reach on a screen and gamepad...... Personally, I can't wait for VR :)
Sadly, I think the Xbox 360 Marketplace might solve some of these problems, allowing a publisher to put forth a unique but low cost game. If it does well, they have a better case for producing a full blown version. But, on the flip side, they might notice that Millipede is being downloaded more than other games, and revive the IP associated with it to make a new 'and improved' version that has a bunch of bullshit we don't care about.
But given the choice between these two options, I think corporate america would favor the revived branding, relying on people's memories of the old game, rather than having to market a brand new product. And it just creates a sad gaming environment. On the plus side, we get the occational independant hit that quite good and keeps us occupied.
I think the video game industry is just now getting the memo that the movie and music industries have been getting for years (and are ignoring): Stop producing (expensive) crap.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
What bugs me is, with all these rehashes of old games, why can't they retain past good ideas? Why are they still selling console FPS games without individual button control customizeability? Why don't they all have eight or more bots in four-player multiplayer mode? Why don't they all have a decent camera system? Why don't they all standardize on what "Invert Y Axis" means? I've been hooked on FPSs since Goldeneye 64, but I can only count two FPS games that have somewhat improved on what Rare presented us with almost a decade ago?! Almost every single other console FPS game has completely blown it on one aspect or another (the worst being the lack of control customizability).
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Let me give you an example: I am playing Wild ARMs: Alter Code F. I thoroughly enjoyed the original Wild ARMs, but this game changes a few 'minor' things, that I think take away from the game (no equipment? why, oh why do new RPGs hate letting you have equipment?). OK, this is kind of a bad example because this game actually IS a remake and not a sequel and in the case of remakes there's a fine line, because if you don't make any changes, there's no point in remaking the game, and any changes you do make will be appreciated by some, but not others.
Bottom line, either make sequels that are new enough to be interesting to appeal to those who want something new, or make sequels/remakes that are true to the original to appeal to those who LIKED the way it was.
"This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
Don't worry. They don't need your purchase. There are plenty of us that are pretty damn happy with Nintendo, and also don't base our game purchases off of looks alone (of course wind waker looks gorgeous, so it wouldn't of even been an issue anyways). You might want to try PS2 or Xbox if you're looking for game franchises that generally don't change much. You'll be much happier, and we'll have one less troll on
why pay $50 for X-Men III when you can get I and II for $40 ($30 off ebay)? There's a real glut of A-Grade titles in the market right now. I've got 30 some ps2 games I've paid and average of $7 bucks for. Except for Star Ocean 3 they're all used (and I paid $20 for Star Ocean). Making sequels that are substantially different from the first game'll help the industry, but they're still going to have to face the glut of used and cheap games from the last generation, and all that backwards compatibility isn't helping. Heck, in this way Nintendo's lucky, Sony's got 2 generations of software to compete with on the ps3, Nintendo's only got the Gamecube, and then they get to sell the last 3 generations back :).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I wasn't trolling. I stated my opinion, what I thought the problem was, and you'll notice that I even stated that my turn-off from the graphics would make me think less of the game, so I wasn't going to play it and then bitch about a game that didn't deserve it gameplay-wise. Did you even read the post, or did you just see I mentioned Wind Waker and rip into me?
Falling right into the trap of forced updates. What's wrong with XBox? PS2? Nextgen consoles are not so damn next-gen when a first-gen PS2 game beats a XB360 game not only in quality, but in *visuals*! Pathetic.
The XB360 is truly dead on arrival. Shoot it, go back to developing for an established console that's known to already be in millions of homes (XB, PS2), and let the crappy "next-gen" pile of crap die as it should have way back when some overpaid idiot at MS came up with this piece of garbage.
Mod me down for trolling, but you'd be modding down the damn TRUTH. Funny how people don't like to be shown that the emperor has no clothes these days.
This is a sig. Deal with it.
I didn't think this was a troll at all. Thats a very good point about keeping some familiarity. I completely agree.
Han shot first.
Nintendo suffers from the opposite problem- too much innovation and change between games, and a constantly irritated fanbase. I know I'm not alone in skipping Wind Waker.
I argue that changing an existing game is not true innovation. it's still the same franchise. McDs can change their wallpaper and put stylier tables and chairs in their restaurants, they can change the Big Mac boxes, but it's all still McDs.
all you're doing is updating an existing license.
if they want to innovate they will give us new games with new stories and new characters every time. but they're too lazy and it will cut their profits down from billions to millions because they had to put extra work into the creation.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
So you are saying pushing the same crap out the door over and over again doesn't mean you win big every time?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
It makes sense that if someone wasn't interested in the previous iteration, that they won't be interested in the next, and thus of course customer numbers are going to decrease over time because some of your old customers just don't want to play franchise X anymore. Also, you're competing with your own previous title that's sitting there in the bargain bin with a much more attractive price.
Did you ever notice precisely how much change there is between any two games in a Nintendo franchise (other than Mario Party)? It's less like repackaging the Big Mac and giving it a new name, and more like changing the recipe - little enough that it's still recognizable as a burger, but different enough that most people will feel justified in calling it something new.
You might have a point if, say, Mario Sunshine was essentially Mario 64 with updated graphics and new levels (which is what most sequels are these days). But it's not. It plays differently. You've got a new gameplay mechanism (namely, the freaky talking water jetpack thing) which is integrated into the level design fundamentally (that is, it's not just a gimmick whose uses are distinct and separate from the platforming).
Making a game with a talking-water-jetpack-thing would not have worked as well if they had to invent an entirely new franchise to display it - particularly if they wanted to integrate the jetpack-thing with Mario-style platforming. In that case, you'd have people on Slashdot complaining about how the game played too much like Mario, why can't they just give us a proper Mario title god damn it.
Stagnant rehashing is bad, but there's a great deal to be said about not reinventing the wheel every time you have a new idea.
...but is it art?
Or do you really think the original Pikmin, a totally new IP & game mechanic, took more work and money than Wind Waker, Mario Sunshine or the upcoming Twilight Princess? I'm pretty certain of those 4 games, Pikmin was the cheapest & easiest to make. If there's one thing Nintendo is known for, it's going all out on their core franchises. They even spent tons of money on Metroid Prime, a game that was guaranteed not to sell well in Japan, just because it's so popular in the US.
It isn't laziness on their part. It's the certain knowledge that Mario, Link & Samus sell games, no matter what they're actually doing in the game (see the entire breadth of Mario Sports titles).
just some guy
The "transition drought" appears to be coming from analysts who believe that there will be a transition drought. As such they pencil in lower current generation sales, and don't believe there will be enough next-gen consoles to sell any games to. And this gets used as evidence that there will be a transition drought. See the circular logic?
The Genesis and Playstation both had some of their best games (and best-selling games) after their successors had come out. There is some life in the old systems yet.
Furthermore, old franchises are penciled in as fading out, which makes sense given how much people have been milking them these days. However, no new games are penciled in to be the big surprise hit. Because you can't plan for the surprise hits as an analyst. But the surprise hits are what keep publishers afloat... they're the new franchises that will be milked to death mercilessly. But none of these appear in the analysts numbers, because they can't be predicted, only expected.
All of these little biases add up to a terrible, terrible year where all gaming companies everywhere will go out of business. Just like last year. And the year before. And 2000...
The ______ Agenda
While I agree with you in that particular instance, I was referring to games in general. You just managed to pick the littlest, cheapest game :)
But even when coders don't write a game completely from scratch, and they use dev kits like Torque (or any of the big expensive commercial ones), they still have to do a lot of work on characters, story, levels, graphics, sounds, etc. But when they get a franchise game, a lot of the time (no, no all the time, mario sunshine is completely different and would have involved a lot more work) they can cut down on stuff. Even Sunshine would not have needed all the work on characters because they already existed. OK, so overall that may not have been a huge part of the dev effort, but when you jump to non nintendo franchises -- I don't know, EA sports games for example... those games are absolutely the laziest coding ever.
Often they'll just change a list of player names, some clothes and some faces. And they may tqeak gameplay. But overall, punters are paying full price for the same game every damn year.
There are different scales of rework required, and we can point to specific examples where it can be claimed that a new innovative game required sod all work and we can point to unoriginal franchises that have had new life breathed into them by completely changing the way they play, but I'm asking you to look at the big picture.
In general, it's laziness and greed that result in sequels.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
Myself, I'm fine when a good game has a sequel that cleans up what was wrong with the original, but after that, there's no point in sequels unless you're going to improve gameplay. I don't mind playing the same game twice. I draw the line at playing it three or more times.
just some guy