Jimquisition: Sequel or Slaughter

OniYouji

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Off Topic: What is that game with that white cloaked figure fighting monsters that kept getting shown?

On Topic: I couldn't agree more with this. If sequels are justified, if it is intended to be a series for artistic reasons, then more power to you. If it wasn't intended for sequels from the start, but you can come up with an artistic reason to continue, then that's perfectly fine as well. But if you are making sequels and intending them to be series because that's what makes money, then you're doing it for all the wrong reasons.

It's why I was so apprehensive when they announced a sequel to Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, despite wrapping up just about everything. It's why I'm cautiously optimistic at best at rumors of a sequel to The World Ends With You. It's why I actually appreciate David Cage for taking a stance against sequels and just doing what he wants. Because I'm worried about what may happen when one is driven not by what one wants to do, but by how much money they want to make.

One of my favorite games is Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon. It had great atmosphere, wonderful story, beautiful graphics and music, especially for a Wii game...and not a sequel in sight. Because it doesn't need one. It will never need one. It is perfectly good on its own. So why do so many game developers fear the very concept of something done in one? Well, obviously for greed. But some of the best games out there are ones you don't need to slap a new number on every year.
 

Lightknight

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Lilani said:
Lightknight said:
Not sure why you think he farts cinamon and can do no wrong.
Because he already has everything. He has nothing left to gain, and he never set out to gain much in the first place.
This has not been the case for even the wealthiest people on the planet. Gates still slogged into work a decade after being a Billionaire because there was more money to be made. He only recently decided to start doing things he really wants to do with his time and make the world a better place. I'm afraid you're mistaken regarding human nature. There's always more to be had. As of 2012 Peter is apparently worth around $400 million with nearly half of that being made from the LOTR series:

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/directors/peter-jackson-net-worth/

Just the first Hobbit movie has already made over $1 Billion at the box office. If Peter Jackson managed to negotiate a higher pay rate then he could be looking at a tremendous payday. Like with King Kong when he negotiated $20 million up front and then 20% of the box office.

He can always have more and what if having a TON more means he can start funding his own movies without fear? $400 million net work is a lot, but it isn't enough to pay for the kind of movies he's been making. Or maybe for just one if he's not shooting for LOTR porportions.

Because they had enough material to make three movies, I imagine.
You didn't feel like the first movie dragged on? Spread thin like, I don't know, butter spread over toast? It seems like $3 billion gross sounded better to everyone than $2 billion. I don't blame them.
 

Callate

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I understand and appreciate the point, and I agree... But I'm not sure anything was said that couldn't have been said in, say, six minutes rather than nine and a half. It felt rather like for every point, sub-point, clarification or support, there was an attached moment of "and that sucks and people suck and the industry sucks and these games suck and these programs suck and it's all so screwed up and aaaarrrrgh."

I can't entirely pin it down, because there are definitely times when hearing Jim go off on a subject that he feels passionately about fills me with glee and a warm sense of shared righteous indignation. This time, I found myself sort of tuning out, despite my general agreement with the sentiment. Maybe it's me?
 

Jimothy Sterling

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Arnoxthe1 said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
Left 4 Dead is nowhere near the level of Battlefield 3. It does not matter.

You're asking me to understand things I already understand, which is patronizing, and clearly off-base considering you're assuming I've said games are cheap to make when I have not. People go where the games are best, not where they look best. Another case -- PS2, last in its class in the tech department, best in show when it comes to success.

Besides which, we're supposedly arguing about the cost of making a game people perceive to be good. Modding a source engine is not as expensive as building a new one. You're saying I don't understand that a game must spend extra money to hang with the big dogs, then telling me Valve games can hang with the big dogs because they can use their engine that doesn't need extra money to be rebuilt. Telling me you need to spend a ton of money to be in the same ballpark as a successful game, then telling me Source Engine can be tweaked to look good, does not compute.

What YOU're not considering is that engines can be reused for many things, and can last a long time, so unless you decide to build every new IP on a new engine, the costs just aren't gonna stay the same.
But most engines aren't made to be reused. Here's a brilliant example. Halo 4 was built off of the Reach engine. While they got it to play nice for the most part, they couldn't get Theater for campaign or Spartan Ops to work right so they had to cut it because the engine wasn't meant to be modified so. And that's not exactly a small feature to cut.

Can Publishers make adaptable engines? Certainly. Do they? Most of the time, no. I don't really know why though. Most likely because it's cheaper. If a publisher has a good old engine they can use, more power to them but not all publishers have this luxury.

Yes, engines can be reused but as I stated in the above point, it can cause a lot of headaches if it's not meant to be modified. Further, making a new engine, eeven if you do have a good modifiable engine, is inevitable sometime.
Which all goes back to the wanton waste that feeds into overspending. Meanwhile, the makes of Unreal, and CryEngine, and Source are doing quite well making and also licensing their engines, so they can make money rather than just cost it.

It gets to the point where I'm gonna have limited to zero sympathy for a company that makes disposable, expensive engines.
 

mjc0961

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Ubisoft could at least have the decency to end one shriveled up husk of a franchise when they move on to another. Is there any need for MORE Assassin's Creed at this point, especially when all they've done is stray further and further from what made Assassin's Creed Assassin's Creed in the first place? I can understand not officially ending Assassin's Creed just in case Watch Dogs bombs (sure looks boring as fuck, I don't want to play it) and they need to go back to it to make more easy money, but is there any reason why AC couldn't have had the year off so the focus was on Watch Dogs? Instead they're shoving another rushed and completely unpolished game out to maintain the one a year thing they have going because for some reason they want to obtain the same scorn gamers have for Call of Duty but without making the same amount of money as Call of Duty.

Speaking of Call of Duty, stop making new engines for everything. People may whine about how Duty uses the same engine over and over, but it keeps development cheap and that's part of how they make money.

It really just amazes me how bad all of these big publishers are at doing their jobs.

Johnny Novgorod said:
I like to see Shadow of the Colossus and ICO cited but I'm not sure they deserve to? Shadow was marketed as a "spiritual prequel" to ICO after all. And Sony's making Last Guardian, the third in a trilogy of similarly-themed games. So why cite them as examples of one-off stand-alone games, Jim?
Maybe we watched different videos, but I didn't see Jim mention any of those games.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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mjc0961 said:
Ubisoft could at least have the decency to end one shriveled up husk of a franchise when they move on to another. Is there any need for MORE Assassin's Creed at this point, especially when all they've done is stray further and further from what made Assassin's Creed Assassin's Creed in the first place? I can understand not officially ending Assassin's Creed just in case Watch Dogs bombs (sure looks boring as fuck, I don't want to play it) and they need to go back to it to make more easy money, but is there any reason why AC couldn't have had the year off so the focus was on Watch Dogs? Instead they're shoving another rushed and completely unpolished game out to maintain the one a year thing they have going because for some reason they want to obtain the same scorn gamers have for Call of Duty but without making the same amount of money as Call of Duty.

Speaking of Call of Duty, stop making new engines for everything. People may whine about how Duty uses the same engine over and over, but it keeps development cheap and that's part of how they make money.

It really just amazes me how bad all of these big publishers are at doing their jobs.

Johnny Novgorod said:
I like to see Shadow of the Colossus and ICO cited but I'm not sure they deserve to? Shadow was marketed as a "spiritual prequel" to ICO after all. And Sony's making Last Guardian, the third in a trilogy of similarly-themed games. So why cite them as examples of one-off stand-alone games, Jim?
Maybe we watched different videos, but I didn't see Jim mention any of those games.
The video shows clips of both games while Jim's talking about original IPs near the beginning.
 

mjc0961

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Arnoxthe1 said:
Jim, you keep having this misconception that these games are cheap to make. Cliff B. mentioned a great video on used games in one of his recent blog posts and I think you should watch it. It may seem disconnected from what I'm saying at first but trust me, it will all connect in the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G_f8YBy39M
You have a misconception that games have to be expensive to make. That's part of the point of this video and many of his other videos: games cost to much to make because publishers suck at their jobs, not because games are actually expensive to make. Jim himself made a great video on this and I think you should watch it.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7121-Dark-Souls-and-Dark-Sales

Johnny Novgorod said:
The video shows clips of both games while Jim's talking about original IPs near the beginning.
I guess he shouldn't have mentioned prawns in this video either, right? There's also a part where he specifically mentions Sony and doesn't bring up Team Ico at all. I think you're reading a bit too much into video clips and not paying enough attention to the words.
 

Rebel_Raven

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As per usual, Jim has a fantastic point, and the ever appreciated apreciation for Dynasty Warriors.

Also, guilty. I want a Remember Me sequel, a sequel to Tomb Raider, and so forth.

Still, there is room for both one shots and sequels.
RJ 17 said:
Ohhhhhh GOD! It's dripping! xP

As a fellow lover of Dynasty Warriors, I know exactly where you're coming from Jim. On the other hand, that's kinda a guilty pleasure seeing as how the DW games are almost all exactly the same, therefor failing your "need to be made" test. I like the improved graphics, the new characters, the various tweeks in interpretation to the stories and characters, but in the end if you've played one DW game you've pretty much played them all.
I'm not too sure I can agree on this. Yes, when you get to the root of the series, it's basically the same hack and slash, but having played since Dynasty Warriors 3, and branched out into other Warriors series, I can safely say that experiences will vary from game to game, even if it is slight.
I think more changed than actually changed than stayed the same. Heck, Dynasty warriors started as a 1 on 1 fighter.
Then considering the difficulty tweaks, deepened fighting system (ex attacks to say the least), the various weapons, the changing musou systems, the ability to switch to and use near any weapon, the ability to customize your loadout, the ever improving roster, the new items/items system, the new game modes like Conquest Mode, online mode, 3d graphics option, the adjustments to the battlefield tactics, the evolving sound track, and so forth. There's been a lot of changes that few seem to notice.
Then there's a few of the concepts that didn't stay like the occassional arena/cage duel between officers.

It's safe to say that the series is evolving slowly and steadily, and Tecmo-Koei are willing to experiment without changing the core concepts of it revolving around RotK, being a brawler, and the ever welcome X-treme Legends, and even more welcome Empires standalone/DLC content, and the idea that if you have the original game, that the extra content can merge, thus kinda rewarding consumers.
Dynasty Warriors -deserves- sequels. Each one is justified in having enough alterations around the core concepts. While at the very basic, the gameplay and story are the same, Koei does not stagnate.
Lets not forget the Strike Force spinoff of Dynasty Warriors.

Frankly I think Koei has one of the best strategies for sequels. Don't fix what isn't broken, but add ingredients and season to taste.
 

Lightknight

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Jimothy Sterling said:
Which all goes back to the wanton waste that feeds into overspending. Meanwhile, the makes of Unreal, and CryEngine, and Source are doing quite well making and also licensing their engines, so they can make money rather than just cost it.

It gets to the point where I'm gonna have limited to zero sympathy for a company that makes disposable, expensive engines.
I'm not 100% sure why you have any sympathy for them now. You're too good to them, Jim. A company that doesn't understand budgeting or leveraging existing assets in new projects deserves to lose the money they foolishly throw at a problem they've already solved. Feeling sorry for them is like feeling sorry for a bankrupt person who bought a new car to get to work just because he's forgotten it's in his garage and ready to go.

Not to Jim in particular:
Some of the most successful companies already understand this. Bethesda's a nice example of a company that makes good use of licensed engines.

Example: Morrowind, Fallout 3, Oblivion, Fallout 3: New Vegas (made by Obsidian, published by Bethesda) were all made on the Gamebryo engine. That's a pretty impressive spread of time and quality while being a great example of a company who can work wonders with licensed engines.

Skyrim was developed by an in-house engine and it looks like they're going to try and use some other titles in it. Either way, once the cost of the engine is sunk, making more games on that engine is significantly less. If you can spread the cost of an engine over multiple games then it's a good investment. If you can't then licensing is the way to go, not engine creating.

The best company would be able to create an in-house engine that is good enough to also license out.
 

Lightknight

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orangeapples said:
Another video where Sony are the heroes of gaming? I mean, yeah sure they are, but still...
Haha, it is interesting what kind of things they invest in. I'm really happy that they support little games and seem to see value in it. But with recent successes like Journey that they've published, they'd be stupid not to see the value in it.

It's funny that I had such a very different opinion of them four years ago. Hopefully they don't revert if they become drunk with power this coming gen.
 

RJ 17

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Rebel_Raven said:
I never said they didn't change anything at all, in fact I'm pretty sure I covered just about everything that you brought up, albeit in a much less detailed manner.

What I was getting at is what you say is the strength of their formula: all they do is tweek each new incarnation a little. Slap on a new feature, change the map layouts, add some characters, swap in some new moves. You're still playing the same game though. You're still hitting X a bunch and occasionally Y (for me, at least, as an Xbox player). You're still fighting through the Yellow Turban Rebellion, taking down Dong Zhou, engaging in the battle of Chi-Bi. It's all the same, just with little tweeks here and there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm up-to-date on my DW franchise, I've been with it since 4 and I'm up through 7 (having heard that Strike Force sucked, I skipped that one, and I haven't had a chance to get 8 yet). I've even got all 3 Orochi games and Samurai Warriors 2 (never could find 1). Look at the core gameplay mechanics of all of them, though, and they're all essentially the same just with minor alterations from one to another (i.e. the weapon-swap in 7). The biggest innovation that they've had in a LONG time was actually continuing the story all the way out to it's actual end with the establishment of the Jin Dynasty, and that just happened in DW7.

Personally I was one of the few the liked the continuous motion of the Renbu move system in DW6, but then they actually took a step backwards and returned to the system of having 6 normal attacks with the choice to throw in a charge attack somewhere in there. I'm not saying I don't like series because of the rather straight line it's taken, but to deny that all the games are essentially (that being the keyword, not "exactly") the same is just naïve.
 

Fappy

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Oh come on Jim, you can't even pretend the taste of jizz would make you gag ;D

I mean, what is a god that cannot stomach the taste of his own seed?

Amirite?
 

GonzoGamer

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Quiotu said:
WashAran said:
Love that you included the consumer as a part of the problem.
He pretty much has to. This wouldn't be a problem if people didn't mindlessly snatch up the next FIFA or CoD or Assassin's Creed. I like these games, and I wouldn't mind wanting to play another game in their world again. But for FUCK's sake, I don't need one every year. Give me some time to appreciate and grow fond of the goddamn thing before you push the next one in my face.

It's why some series get a bigger pass than others. GTA4 had a load of problems, but it still sold over 20 million copies because people waited 4 years and longed for it again, and GTA5 will sell just as well because it's been another 4 years. This is why Rockstar can also try out other ideas and give others chances, throwing out games like Manhunt or Bully or RDD... or hell even LA Noire. They try those out because they know GTA will bring in a mountain of money, and they can experiment in between the iterations.

Assassin's Creed I'm done with, because they're pushing too many out for me to grow fond of them again, and the more they throw the same tired gameplay at me the more I see its problems and loathe them.
This was pretty much exactly what I was going to say. Even though I feel R* games have gotten a little pretentious this gen I like the fact that they have continued to do new things. Sure it's almost always some sort of open world GTAish thing but at least it's not the exact same thing.

Assassins Creed, CoD, I like these games but I don't have time to play every one they come out with.
 

OtherSideofSky

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You know what would be cool? If they still did all that re-using of assets and engines from ridiculously expensive AAA games, but used it to let developers make weird, interesting things unrelated to the original game instead of just churning out sequels.

Actually, I'm pretty sure this is the model that gave me Blood Dragon for $15. I would generally describe myself as a fan of business models that give me a game like Blood Dragon for the price of a particularly good sandwich.
 

LordMonty

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Now I totally agree, some games even blur the lines like bioshock who just uses the name and more or less reworks a new story entirely(yes i know they nod to the original but it wasn't something you had to get) but in general variety is the spice of life, don't close a door just bacause you like it easy, its just lazy. Anyhow cheers Jimkeep on truth saying.
 

Sehnsucht Engel

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tehpiemaker said:
Wenseph said:
It is ridiculous that the hobbit, a children's book much shorter than LoTR was turned into a freaking trilogy. I don't even care to watch it, because they're overdoing it. Simpsons should have ended long ago too.
Damn it, I hate it when people call The Hobbit a kids book. Have you even read it? Let me tell you that although it may not be as long or elaborate as the Lord of the Rings doesn't make it any less of a great story. Just because a game is rated E doesn't mean only children can play or like it. Lord of the Rings was thought to have been impossible to film before Peter Jackson adapted it and if anyone can do it for the Hobbit, he can.
I've read it twice. I called it a children's book because that's what it is. That's what it was written as, and marketed as. It doesn't matter what you think. It is a children's book. Although you clearly think less of things for children, doesn't mean everyone does.

Anyone could do the hobbit, without turning it into a trilogy.
 

Orks da best

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Jim these the episodes of your that I love. When you discuss a very important topic for both the industry and the consumer not just the industry.

And truthfully speaking many of the games are one offs just as many being a sequel or a prequel, such as Deus ex HR.

It about Varity and moderation, not black or white all or nothing, something that most people seem to get wrong...
 

Rebel_Raven

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RJ 17 said:
Rebel_Raven said:
I never said they didn't change anything at all, in fact I'm pretty sure I covered just about everything that you brought up, albeit in a much less detailed manner.

What I was getting at is what you say is the strength of their formula: all they do is tweek each new incarnation a little. Slap on a new feature, change the map layouts, add some characters, swap in some new moves. You're still playing the same game though. You're still hitting X a bunch and occasionally Y (for me, at least, as an Xbox player). You're still fighting through the Yellow Turban Rebellion, taking down Dong Zhou, engaging in the battle of Chi-Bi. It's all the same, just with little tweeks here and there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm up-to-date on my DW franchise, I've been with it since 4 and I'm up through 7 (having heard that Strike Force sucked, I skipped that one, and I haven't had a chance to get 8 yet). I've even got all 3 Orochi games and Samurai Warriors 2 (never could find 1). Look at the core gameplay mechanics of all of them, though, and they're all essentially the same just with minor alterations from one to another (i.e. the weapon-swap in 7). The biggest innovation that they've had in a LONG time was actually continuing the story all the way out to it's actual end with the establishment of the Jin Dynasty, and that just happened in DW7.

Personally I was one of the few the liked the continuous motion of the Renbu move system in DW6, but then they actually took a step backwards and returned to the system of having 6 normal attacks with the choice to throw in a charge attack somewhere in there. I'm not saying I don't like series because of the rather straight line it's taken, but to deny that all the games are essentially (that being the keyword, not "exactly") the same is just naïve.
Call me naïve if you want, but I still think you're being too hard on the series. I get what you're saying in that it retreads the same story, and at the very base, is the brawler we've all come to know, and love, but pretending playing Dynasty Warriors 7 is the same as Dynasty Warriors 4? I think that's a bit of a leap.

I wouldn't call weapon swap a minor alteration, nor the perks system, nor the ability to have improved attacks based on affinity with a weapon. The ability to jump differently based on your weapon can be something of a game changer.
EX attacks might be a minor addition, but a second musou added recently, and I hear a 3rd Musou in DW8?

I played Warriors Orochi 3 recently after a stint of DW7 Empires, and it was, aside from the very very basic combat ideas, very diffirent from 7 and it's expansions. Yeah, I was still hitting people with combos, but the mechanics beyond that was what made the game practically something else.

I'm not sure what they could do to the story since it's based on the historical novel, and history, "what if" missions aside. It's like WW2, except it's probably more sacred in Asia. Granted Koei does take considerable liberties with characters, I think they're trying to be careful about it.

Dare they change the game into a FPS, or something so the base gameplay isn't the same? Though they kinda did for Samurai Warriors Katana, though I never played it.
At the point it's at, asking Dynasty Warriors to change gameplay is like asking Madden to stop being about football.

I'm not saying all the changes are in your face, and obvious, but Play one Warriors entry long enough, and go to another, and there will be a difference you can feel, IMO.

Strikeforce series was okay, but I wouldn't try it for full price. It is a real departure from traditional Dynasty Warriors.

I'm looking forward to getting my mitts on Dynasty Warriors 8 as every character is supposed to have a unique moveset, and possibly weapon which seems pretty amazing for 70 some odd characters.

But opinions are opinions. You have yours, and I have mine. :p We'll prolly have to agree to disagree on this one.