The problem with modern sequels
by Felix Pleșoianu on Dec.28, 2010, under Case study, Miscellaneous, Opinion
Remember this article from three months ago, which decried the treatment classic game franchises get nowadays? Turns out, the feeling is shared. Which isn’t exactly surprising, and maybe I wouldn’t have bothered mentioning it, but for the remarks I made in my previous article.
See, the fact that many modern games (and movies) have terrible stories can be forgiven. It’s a matter of fashion, and fashions go as easily as they come. But when you make a sequel of a cult classic from decades ago, turning it into a brainless GFX-fest — as is the current trend — simply can’t go unnoticed.
Why? Think about it. Fans of a book are often miffed when the movie adaptation doesn’t match their vision of the original, even if said movie happens to be very good in its own right. Imagine how fans of the original Fallout games must have felt when the long-awaited third instalment turned out to be an over-the-shoulder action RPG designed primarily for consoles. Even if Fallout 3 was a good game (and opinions are divided on this matter), it just didn’t have any connection to the titles they had fallen in love with all those years ago.
Mind you, there were good arguments for the upgrade. After all, this is the 21st century. How many people would buy a 2D, story-driven RPG? Enough to support Jeff Vogel, obviously, but likely not enough for an AAA title. Which in my opinion says more about the wastefulness inherent in modern game development than changing markets. But still. When you recreate a beloved strategy game as a dumb shooter, as they apparently did with X-Com, you simply can’t expect a warm reception from the old fans. And if you weren’t after them, why did you bother with an existing franchise in the first place?
In unrelated news, a friend was arguing recently that brainless blockbusters are Hollywood’s way of financing more intelligent movies. So, I guess the latter don’t make money? Hmm. I seem to remember a certain big budget science fiction movie from 1982 which was a critical and box office failure. Ten years later, it was already a cult classic, and I bet the rights holders are still making money with it. Its title? Blade Runner. The moral? Truly good movies do make money, in time. The problem is, nowadays there is this obsession in business, and especially big media, to try and get ridiculously high profits very fast. Hence all the movies designed to earn as much as possible in the opening weekend, next month be damned. And I could write at length about the reasons why that’s a bad idea, even from a business standpoint.
But that’s another story, for people interested in economics. For now, I’ll point out that the original Indiana Jones trilogy has had enormous influence on both cinematography and popular culture, whereas the much more recent Indy 4 is already forgotten. All those record earnings right after release? Well that was it. And money devalues fast, you know.
(Illustration: jurrasic park sequel haz lower budget, by amystrachan; CC-BY)
The problem with modern sequels by Felix Pleșoianu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
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Real success is long-term « No Time To Play
September 10th, 2011 on 11:10[...] addressed the issue of short-term versus long-lived success before, in the context of movies, but it’s the same for games. And if you’re wondering how a board game can sell more [...]
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December 29th, 2010 on 16:21
Great points, Felix.
I like your analogy to the movie industry, except I think there is an important distinction — the rapid advances in technology cut off a game’s shelf life much faster than a movie’s. We can still watch and enjoy Raiders of the Lost Ark. The movie is widely available for purchase and rental, and will play in any DVD player. The same is not true for, say, Eye of the Beholder. Although services like Steam and GOG are making older games more available, some technical knowledge is still required to run these games properly. And, of course, console gamers cannot run them at all.
Hopefully the trend you describe will change as console lifespans increase and services like Steam and GOG continue to improve.
December 29th, 2010 on 18:48
Hmm, you’re right about a game’s shelf life. (actually, I think Shamus Young pointed out the same thing in one of his articles). That would encourage the producers to go for the quick buck, now wouldn’t it? But it would also be easy to change — emulators are very popular for a reason. The only thing lacking is will. GOG shouldn’t have been needed in the first place.
December 30th, 2010 on 11:40
I think we should make a difference between ‘natural’ sequels and ‘forced’ sequels. I believe the natural ones are the ones where the story is still going on, like let’s say in… the Harry Potter movies? There the sequels don’t seem to be forced on the public and… they finish with the 8th movie (as in… really finish). I could have come up with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but there the movies cannot be seen separately at all, it’s like one big movie cut in three parts (part 2 and 3 are not actual sequels, but… more like components of the same ensemble).
And then you have the… forced sequels. A movie had success… so let’s make another one, to get more money from the fans… I am looking at… Police Academy for example? Or Resident Evil. Or… the Batman series (the one before Batman Begins). Or…. ‘insert-any-movie-with-lots-of-sequels’. Of course, some of these series were very good as a whole (Alien), but others… should have stopped at some point (Terminator, Indiana Jones). Others… shouldn’t have tried to add anything else (Matrix).
There is one exception to the rule though… James Bond series. Why? Because… those movies are not actual sequels. You can see ANY James Bond movie at any time and in any order (more or less). And they can still be fun (Dr. No) or cheesy (Octopussy) or plain stupid (Moonraker), but entertaining nevertheless.
January 3rd, 2011 on 11:15
Good point. Would you call Fallout 3 a natural sequel?
January 29th, 2011 on 18:59
Sequels today are “dumbed down” in many ways. One of the reasons this is happening is the lack of patience of many gamers. Long gone are the times when beating a game was considered ( and was ) a real achievement.
The best example is the Baldur’s Gate series. NG1 and 2 were tough. I mean it took me a month or two to even learn how to play it ( or create a survivable character, not to mention party composition ). Then Neverwinter Nights came. Awful in terms of gameplay ( although the story was awesome ). I mean it claimed to be Baldur’s Gate succesor and you only had the main character and another guy that you couldn’t even control. Didn’t play NWN2 so i will not cover that.
Then Dragon Age came, another title that claimed to be a BG succesor ( although it wasn’t as open about this ). Nice game, nice story…it took me 3 days to finish it, Baldur’s Gate took me 3 months and didn’t even manage to complete all the quests ( the side ones ). Taking into account the things said above, the conclusion would be that people today only want “bling” and “action” in all games, disregarding the fact that RPG’s are almost never defined by that ( call them interactive books/movies if you like ).
I’ve also seen that someone mentioned Fallout. The last game remotely related to the 1st 2 games was Fallout tactics ( not really an RPG but it was nice ). Fallout 3 is just junk for the FPS crazed gamers, nothing more. And don’t try to fool yourself thinking it’s an RPG. Not every game that let’s you spend points in you character is an RPG ( i don’t even see Diablo as an RPG lol ).
So there you have it, that’s my opinion ( even though it was oriented towards one genre of games ), hope it helped
January 29th, 2011 on 21:44
Gee, I guess that’s why roguelikes are perennially popular. And 2D Japanese RPGs. And Jeff Vogel’s games — a “niche” so obscure, everybody’s heard about them. Oh, and what about the success of Good Old Games?
Gamers no longer fit into one simple stereotype, Fabian.
Marketers from big publishers want them too, ’cause that would make their lives easy, but it doesn’t work that way anymore.
No? Then I guess D&D isn’t an RPG either, as all you did in that game originally was to roll dice for a character (you didn’t even get to choose what you wanted to play) and then lead that character in tactical combat through arbitrary dungeons infested with monsters.