Seriously, can we just stop doing this?
I mean, have you actually TRIED shopping for games recently? Heaven help you if the title you're looking for starts with a C or an M. Say what you like about the Halo franchise, but at least it's games only take up about a third of the H shelf. It's really just getting silly now.
Now, everybody agrees that the total dearth of anything resembling a creative idea in the medium is a BAD THING. But honestly, I can't help but feel like something of a hypocrite when dismissing the latest slew of sequels at the local flea pit. After all, ask me to name some of my favourite things of all time and going come with a list something like:
- Doctor Who (started in 1963)
- Ultraman (started in 1966)
- Star Wars (started in 1977)
- Godzilla (started in 1954)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! (started in 1996)
- Hellboy (started in 1993)
These are all franchises that have been running for DECADES. I mean, look at it. The most recent one is Yu-Gi-Oh, and that's been going 16 years at this point. SIXTEEN. The Yu-Gi-Oh franchise is actually old enough to have consensual relations. And thanks to the internet it often does, but that's a subject best left for another day.
This is obviously some new use of the word "duel" with which I was not previously familiar.
But if everybody hates all this constant sequel business, why does it go on? Well, the factors influencing game design decisions in this area have been well documented in many other places. But ultimately the reason is of course that we the public keep buying this crap. If something sells then of course they'll make more of it. Right up until the point where everyone stops buying it, and then it's forgotten.
This is something that often gets forgotten when we're looking at the bleak outlook of popular media. Sure, back in the day we had all these fantastic classic albums/movies/games whatever. But you know what else we had? A metric shit ton of crap. It just seems like there was more decent quality stuff because nobody remembers the rest of it. As a wise man once said, sometime the memory cheats.
Although I admit that wise and well dressed are not quite the same thing.
But enough has been said about how bad all this is. But are there any upsides to the sequel?
Ummmm..... Maybe?
First of there is the simple fact that liking a thing is not necessarily bad. And if you like a thing then you're going to want more of it. And if you're willing to pay then someone is going to be willing to sell it to you. But much like cake there are at least two important things to remember: That you cannot live on cake alone, and that you need to know when to stop.
If a new version of Generic Brown FPS Shooter Franchise 57 comes out every couple years it's not really a bad thing. If a new one comes out EVERY year? And simultaneously every single other game is trying to do the exact same thing?
"I played too many pizza. "
Yeah. THAT'S the problem.
The thing about games specifically, is that they actually lend themselves to the whole idea of sequels best out of ALL the various forms of popular media. Whilst in say cinema you're more often than not simply rehashing the same tired old cliches, in games you at least have the potential to ITERATE on the mechanics and principles of the game. This can of course quickly become simply releasing the same game every year with a slightly different shade of grass, or tweaks to the gameplay that even the most hardened fans barely notice. And of course it often is. But it doesn't have to be. A studio can take a game, look at what worked and what didn't and produce a superior product because a game isn't purely about the story. It's about the gameplay. Of course you can also take a game that had great gameplay but an awful story and fix that instead. Anything is possible.
A lot of this is possible with patches, upgrades, DLC and the like. And ideally should be if it was done properly. However some things need to built into a game from the ground level. Sometimes the developers find themselves moving so far away from what they were originally thinking of doing they need to start again to do what they've now moved onto properly. Or maybe they can take everything they've learned from the patches and DLC and the like and use it craft a bigger, better version. But ultimately we as consumers want new games more than any number of additions to old games. We want to have a shiny new thing to play with. Even if the only practical difference is the box art. It's just more exciting. The thrill of the new. And of course the relentless hype machine doesn't help.
But as I said when I was talking about cake, we need to know when to stop. We, the consumers, the gamers. If we have a big box of shiny toys already do we REALLY need to get a new one that does exactly the same thing? We need to learn to say "No thanks, I've had enough of that for the moment.".
Of course what exactly constitutes exactly the same thing is matter for the fans to decide. I mean yeah, all the modern war shooter look exactly the same to me. But I don't give a fuck about anything that lacks some combination of lasers, aliens, monsters and penguins, so what would I know?
This is quite literally the only fuck I have ever given about Batman.
Although I guess that does explain why I like Yu-Gi-Oh so much.
But by now they have surely honed the modern shooter experience to such a fine degree that maybe it's time to give something else a go? But the hype train rolls on, seemingly unstoppable. I think in some ways this is part of the problem with the homogenisation that's such a problem in the market. See, it's always about the next big thing. And the next big thing lasts about maybe a month before it is supplanted with the next next big thing. But since everyone is scrambling for that magical next big thing spot nobody is taking the time to do more than ape the last one. Those franchises I mentioned earlier that I like so much? I don't think any of them ever tried to be the next thing. Indeed, none of them ever started out thinking they'd run as long as they have. They simply tried to do their thing as well as they could. And they just kept doing it as long as people liked what it was they were doing. Which it turns out is a long time.
Although I admit that in the case of Star Wars there are.... Other issues to be considered. Suffice to say that whilst everybody makes mistakes, very few do so with a multi million dollar budget.
So.... Yeah. I guess I'm saying that the problem with sequels (at least in terms of gaming) isn't so much they exist. More that a lot of them are either unnecessary or not very good. And that maybe, when a game isn't very good or is unnecessary maybe we should think twice before queuing up at midnight to buy it.
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