Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Sequels and Remakes

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 16, 2015

I was paying a little bit of attention to the some of the big unveilings at or just before E3. I saw articles in the media complaining once again about all the sequels, remakes, and reboots. The list is impressive… on my end, I’m kind of excited about a Final Fantasy VII remake, and Fallout 4, and the new Star Wars Battlefront, and… somewhat by Doom (just Doom, not Doom 4). So yeah, I get excited about the sequels / remakes too.

Games based on existing IP always seem to make up the bulk of the E3 announcements. And yeah, as budgets have risen, so has the ratio of proven titles to new IP. So they aren’t wrong there.

But here’s the funny thing – and again, this is hardly new this year: The bulk of the media coverage has been on this existing IP, while there have also been quite a few brand new titles announced which have gotten scant coverage. Why? Because the very market forces at work that drive the release of sequel after sequel are at work on the game news sites. They want the page views, so they go with the tried and true. A whole lot more people will be checking out their take on Assassin’s Creed Syndicate than will be hunting for information on For Honor. These companies need eyeballs for revenue, and so they write articles about… the highly anticipated sequels.

In my mind, if a particular site is complaining about the plethora of games milking existing cash cows, but isn’t devoting the majority of its virtual ink to the new IP out there to remedy the situation… or at least doesn’t provide a mea culpa to go with their complaints, then perhaps they should consider their own glass house.

As for me, I’m going back to work on my sequel to IP that hardly anybody has heard of…

 


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 3 Comments to Read



  • Andy_Panthro said,

    I guess I’ve always been OK with sequels and remakes, they’re certainly nothing new in the games industry. People have been making sequels and remakes since the 80s! (and people have probably been complaining about it since then too, but it’s all a little more visible now, isn’t it?)

  • McTeddy said,

    I don’t know you;re talking about. Sequels weren’t common until recent days caused by console peasants and lazy devs.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play Wing Commander 4 before I marathon my way through Ultima 1-9… or better yet Mega Man 1-6, X-X8, and it’s maaaany spinoffs 🙂

    – – –

    Obviously, I don’t mind sequels and I think we’re actually in a pretty cool state at the moment. We’ve had some new IPs that exploded recently ranging from Dishonored to Splatoon.

    Reboots on the other hand… Screw everyone of those devs who create crappy reboots. I hate them all for ruining great IPs by making it a deathmatch shooter.

  • Anon said,

    Dishonored is a new IP, alright, but it borrows very heavily on the Thief franchise, especially the later parts that the most recent Thief game played nearly like Dishonored 2 (except the “magic stuff” which I thought didn’t fit in Dishonored at all).

    I’m not complaining, though – the more of such kind of games the better! 😉

    As for sequels: I rather play a good sequel than a worse new IP!

    Problem is: Sequels (and especially prequels) have to balance between keeping the old stuff that made the IP popular and introducing new stuff – and often they fail by tending one side more than the other or simply introducing wrong stuff.

    A good case were the Ultima series: I literally couldn’t wait for the next one because I always felt, that they got better. Well, at least until Ultima 8! 😉

    And because you mention Assassin’s Creed:
    When a game that is a solo 3rd person action-adventure game with some very personal kills suddenly introduces strategy elements (the road blocking antics in the Rome game) then I really have to question the designers what they did smoke before coming to that idea.

    For me the series was pretty much dead after the brilliant second game and while I in fact got “Black Flag” I did so because it *wasn’t* Assassin’s Creed anymore but a game where one can romp around in the Caribics and do some real-time ship battles.
    This game feels so different to me compared to the second AC that it is therefore like a new IP to me.

    And no we don’t need to discuss the in-game purchases and the 50+ GB patch of the Paris episode…

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