So Watch Dogs is gonna have a shit cliffhanger ending and a ton of sequals that do the same until it stops making money. Fucking great Ubisoft you fucking poison.
Jimquisition: Sequel or Slaughter
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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While its easy to throw blame everywhere, perhaps the problem is not so much sequelitis as it is conditioned response. Look at the likes of Rockstar and in effect they had a methodology that shows how you can a focus on more standalone properties.
But they also illustrate the problem goes well beyond just sequels. Hone in on rockstar. Compare GTA, LA Noire, Red Dead, Bully, etc. Remove midnight club and essentially you have the same fundamental game under the hood with niche respective coats of paint with only stylization and a few divergent mechanics to separate them. This comes from a company who basically claims to be living the philosophy Jim is wanting here, Yet more and more of the same gameplay mechanics, writing depth, and other fundamental elements of their products.
Rockstar shows that you dont actually need franchises, But in doing so still manages to illustrate most of the ills that most people are talking about when get all tweaked over sequelitis. Reprocessing and repackaging the same tired thing with the notion of to make as much profit off of it as possible.
It does not matter how you present "Some dude screwed you over, so you have to chase him down before he gets away with your Egg Mcguffin". On a bicycle, a studabaker, on horseback, or with a hooker riding shotgun. You are still doing the same thing.
But they also illustrate the problem goes well beyond just sequels. Hone in on rockstar. Compare GTA, LA Noire, Red Dead, Bully, etc. Remove midnight club and essentially you have the same fundamental game under the hood with niche respective coats of paint with only stylization and a few divergent mechanics to separate them. This comes from a company who basically claims to be living the philosophy Jim is wanting here, Yet more and more of the same gameplay mechanics, writing depth, and other fundamental elements of their products.
Rockstar shows that you dont actually need franchises, But in doing so still manages to illustrate most of the ills that most people are talking about when get all tweaked over sequelitis. Reprocessing and repackaging the same tired thing with the notion of to make as much profit off of it as possible.
It does not matter how you present "Some dude screwed you over, so you have to chase him down before he gets away with your Egg Mcguffin". On a bicycle, a studabaker, on horseback, or with a hooker riding shotgun. You are still doing the same thing.
That's a true and fair statement. I suppose such games don't have to maintain the old school difficulties (that were often times unnecessarily hard).Chaosritter said:It was more the frustration of getting into fights you can't win in the very beginning. Could be fixed easily enough, but not every game back then had an easy mode.
Then your criticism is based on the mechanics of the game? For me, the first person mode really opened up the experience for me but turn based games aren't generally compatible with first person modes. While I do enjoy the style of FO1 and FO2, I enjoyed the setting it took place in more and the real time action in general was welcome to my immersion in it. I felt like the V.A.T.S. sufficed my love of strategy/planning in this kind of scenario.
But if turn-based combat is why you liked the first games then I totally understand your frustration at this change. It isn't necessarily that the game is bad to you but that it's a different genre now. My favorite game of all time is likely Final Fantasy Tactics so I can sympathize (Lion Wars, not the advance crap, my apologies if you liked the advanced ones, I found them overly kiddy but also didn't give them a fair shake after the opening). I would personally be open to having both styles of games being produced going forward. I'm not sure why we couldn't have the big budget FPS styled Fallout games AND the smaller budgeted Isometric type. But the fallout world really lended itself to first person gameplay and I have loved these games. I just don't think isometric RPGs have the same following they used to, certainly not for $60 per game. I wonder if it'd be possible to create a game that allows both. That would certainly be interesting if you could toggle between the two in the same map. Aside limiting the number of moves the character has in addition to the number of VATS shots, the difference is just user interface if you really get down to it. There are a number of hurdles that would have to be passed to align the two and the only question is if it'd be worth it.
But yeah, if turn-based is what you wanted then they certainly took a bad move from your perspective. I personally love the move despite my appreciation of turn based scenarios. The world is just too worth exploring for me to get caught up in the mechanics. Isometric RPGs really make exploration a lot less intuitive. From the first person I just see something in the distance and walk towards it.
COD games in particular do have full and often interesting storylines . Same with asscred or whatever you kids are calling it nowadays. Yes, the gameplay is the same in both that's also kind of the nature of their respective genres. COD IS going to be a FPS. So a sequel is going to look like an updated version of the previous one, naturally, and the difference is going to be even more minimal now that graphics have been so realistic for so long lately.
Have you played either of those series for any length? I have enjoyed COD for some time, particularly the black ops Multiplayer games which have significant advancements in the mechanics each time (including one of the first viable times I've been able to play with bots. Assassin's Creed has had some serious advancements since the first game but I must confess that recently they had all these weird side-releases that confused me just enough to keep me from buying them (because I shouldn't have to google/wikipedia research games with titles like Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed 2, Assassin's Creed 3 just to figure out which Assassin's Creed 3 is the next in a sequence). Crysis also did that mess and was the first series I hated for doing it. I am a lot more forgiving about that with games that are not part of a numbered series. But there's no reason to have games numbered AND make other games like that.
COD at least has two different developers and a Modern Warfare Game is not a Black Ops game. I generally like the Modern Warfare single player games more than the Black Ops single player while the Black Ops Multiplayer wins out. Definitely a great game when you have friends over. But as long as these games are fun and do have original content, I don't have a problem with them. It's not like the world is a worse place for their existence and the actual numbered different games are significantly different environments. It's these [Game Name Here] 2.3 crap that needs to stop. If it's DLC, it's DLC.
I don't entirely blame Ubisoft for that attitude.
It's just what a business wants to do ideally; find something that's the most reliably profitable and exploit it for as long as they can.
On the flip side, a fair number of gamers just want to find a game series that's familiar and reliably fun, and they want that game to last.
But video games are a creative medium. Barring personal insanity, nothing can remain enchanting forever.
One can only revisit the same scenic vistas so many times before they start to look too familiar and mundane.
I don't have a problem with a gaming market that includes annual blockbusters; I have a problem with that market trying to make nothing BUT annual blockbusters. It's why I sigh every time I see a new military shooter or God of War clone announced because even if that game were given extraordinary time care and creative effort, it would still seem diluted just due to the sheer number of other games like it.
It's just what a business wants to do ideally; find something that's the most reliably profitable and exploit it for as long as they can.
On the flip side, a fair number of gamers just want to find a game series that's familiar and reliably fun, and they want that game to last.
But video games are a creative medium. Barring personal insanity, nothing can remain enchanting forever.
One can only revisit the same scenic vistas so many times before they start to look too familiar and mundane.
I don't have a problem with a gaming market that includes annual blockbusters; I have a problem with that market trying to make nothing BUT annual blockbusters. It's why I sigh every time I see a new military shooter or God of War clone announced because even if that game were given extraordinary time care and creative effort, it would still seem diluted just due to the sheer number of other games like it.
I am a afraid I will have to disagree with you on this, and here's why: Coffee
One of my buddies works for the evil green empire (starbucks) but also wants to start his own coffee shop. I was confused about why starbucks doesn't fight back against the rise of the small coffee shop, which survives by being different, and in most cases by offering objectively better coffee. So I asked him why doesn't Starbucks add a little bit of personality to each of it's branches, modify the decor, offer different coffees at each branch ect. His answer surprised me, because A. they would make less money, and B. it would kill the industry as whole. People go to starbucks for a consistent experience, in addition to that starbucks draws people in to drinking coffee. You don't start drinking coffee at hipster coffee house #37, you start by drinking starbucks coffee.
I think the same thing could be applied to video games. FTL is a great game but I don't think it's going to convert people to gaming. As much as I hate to admit it CoD, WoW and their ilk have done more for reaching out to new blood than all the indies ever. But it get better than that because these companies are so concerned with making a consistant product it allows the smaller developer to come in and do crazy stuff and change the industry.
And yes, I do thank God for you
Magic Bacon Fairy
One of my buddies works for the evil green empire (starbucks) but also wants to start his own coffee shop. I was confused about why starbucks doesn't fight back against the rise of the small coffee shop, which survives by being different, and in most cases by offering objectively better coffee. So I asked him why doesn't Starbucks add a little bit of personality to each of it's branches, modify the decor, offer different coffees at each branch ect. His answer surprised me, because A. they would make less money, and B. it would kill the industry as whole. People go to starbucks for a consistent experience, in addition to that starbucks draws people in to drinking coffee. You don't start drinking coffee at hipster coffee house #37, you start by drinking starbucks coffee.
I think the same thing could be applied to video games. FTL is a great game but I don't think it's going to convert people to gaming. As much as I hate to admit it CoD, WoW and their ilk have done more for reaching out to new blood than all the indies ever. But it get better than that because these companies are so concerned with making a consistant product it allows the smaller developer to come in and do crazy stuff and change the industry.
And yes, I do thank God for you
Magic Bacon Fairy
Unfortunately, the product that you mention like Starbucks need to create the consistent personality in order for the consumer to realize their existence. Plus, trademark issue need to be taken care before they able to change their way early nearly, unlike video games that can follow certain type of genre without the need worry about copyright problems, but only if they experience the issues like Interplay and Mojang.Magic Bacon Fairy said:
It is true that a company like Activision and Ubisoft that indulge in a consistent sequel fatigue gave other people to bring their own innovation to the table, but most game developer especially the AAA company will insist on following the success of this known company with the proof of their huge sales, even if they produce the same thing. They have no motivated reasons to make something else, other than diminish their game series and making a reboot.
There was a time when video game companies have created hundreds of innovating and unique games that people have make but not usually succeed, but those games bring good ideas that most game companies always looking pass them, and some game companies actually refer these ideas that already have been done before such as Dark Souls (do you really think that this kind of games have never been done before?). Yet, From Software are now have the goal to compete with Skyrim that may cause a different outcome than they were before, which is risky. But it is understandable if they don't want to be removed off the consumer's radar.
Right now, the only thing that may prevent sequel fatigue is to make sure the publisher and the developer will consistently making exceptional games that give them the moment to shine. Naughty Dog have proven their quality through the Uncharted series, and they able to make a different product with The Last Of Us, which received instant success with good reasons unlike COD.
As good of an argument as Jim makes on this, I think using a single person's words from Ubisoft - employer of several thousand - reveals an overblown reaction. Ubisoft gave us Farcry3: Blood Dragon, that breath of fresh air Rayman Legends, and I Am Alive very recently is proof they are still a net good despite a few immature heads at the top not understanding the nature of the beast and the difference between respecting a medium and devouring all of it for themselves. A slip of ignorance isn't a record, just a slip.