Poll: Change... dammed if ya do, dammed if ya don't

Orks da best

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While watching the mlp Celstia's ballad song and reading a me 3 ending post, and idea popped in my head, or at least a observation.

Why do we demand that a movie series, book series, tv show, or game series changes between the installments or episodes. Yet when it does change mroe often the naught the majority of the reaction to it is that off massive backlash.

Isn't that odd, we demand change and yet when it does we always react negatively to it. I'm not talking about the quality of the change in question. I am focusing on the fact that changes in any shape and form no matter the size are hatred, yet are also asked for beforehand. As if we have split personilty disorder.

Why does this happen? Why do we react so negatively to change and yet demand it at the same.
I know not everyone is like this, but it is no minority doing this, otherwise it wouldn't be a problem.

Think about one of the reason for stagnation in the entertainment industry, and not just games.

Of course there is a econimc recession and that more creative titles are being released, they just do not have the same amount of marketing avaiable. But does the general public reaction to change also makes series stagnate? After all why would you do change when a common result would be loss of fans, lessoning of views or buys, and lost of profit and therefore confidence with publishers and shareholders.

Think of how many series do after each installment change very little, of tv that by the end of the episode return to the status quo. Is the consumer's reaction to change the cause of this along with the recession?

Why is change hatred when it comes to entertainment? Cause I want to know why.
 

madwarper

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Orks da best said:
Why does this happen? Why do we react so negatively to change and yet demand it at the same.
I think a better question is why do you think that everyone who likes something, likes that thing for all the same reasons.

*Hint* - Different people can like the same thing for different reasons, just as they can dislike the same thing for different reasons.
 

Loop Stricken

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Jun 17, 2009
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>mlp
It gets changed because Hasbro wants to sell more toys and tells the cartoon creators they have to shoehorn in specific plots to get those toys sold.

>mroe often the naught
More often than not.
 

Nouw

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The 'we' that demand change and the 'we' that react negatively to it are often different 'we's.'
 

Laser Priest

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Mar 24, 2011
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Because change isn't universally good or bad? Really, it's not like it's the very fact that there's change that angers people. Well, at least not most people. But when the change is seen as selling out or belittling the franchise, yes, people will be a bit irritated.
 

Keoul

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There's good change and bad change.

An example of good change is innovations to the game series and such. I suppose what happened to ME2 would be an example of good change, or at the very least not bad. The Mako was removed due to complaints and the huge amounts of weapons were simplified, while this did indeed over simply the game to a degree it was generally well received as you could focus more on the action and less on the inventory management.

Bad change would be something that's a complete game changer in a bad way. Unfortunately I can't think of any examples. But I suppose it would be something that would seem better as a separate game on it's own instead of it being tied to the series. I guess some of those crappy racing games count? like that new sonic one or jak x.

But this is just personal opinion so take from it what you will.
 

DoPo

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Jan 30, 2012
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Orks da best said:
Why do we demand that a movie series, book series, tv show, or game series changes between the installments or episodes. Yet when it does change mroe often the naught the majority of the reaction to it is that off massive backlash.
But we...don't. Yes, I am sure we don't want to be told the same thing over and over again because I am sure we don't want to be told the same thing over and over again because I am sure we don't want to be told the same thing over and over again you get the idea. But aside from that, I don't think we have a burning desire for everything to change all the time. Unless you mean character growth and plot arcs but those aren't the same as actual "change" - just railroading and just jumping onto something completely different.

Like flowers. I really like flowers - they are so pretty to look at yet, still require care and emotions poured into maintaining them. I think that makes them even better - seeing not only something naturally beautiful, but knowing there was somebody ensuring that beauty and caring enough to preserve it and share it with the world.

And that was change as opposed to the evolution of what was previously established. While it can work, we aren't really expecting it - when you put on show X, you know what X is about and not Y. That's the entire appeal, isn't it? That's what you were sold on and that's the reason you were watching it. Same with books, games and whatever.

We don't go around stomping our feet on the ground demanding change for change's sake. In fact, if the public does want a change, they'll have a concrete idea in mind - I honestly think I've not heard of any instances where people went "WE WANT IT TO CHANGE! ANY CHANGE! NOW!"

So...I think your premise is really flawed there - we don't go around demanding change, certainly not randomly, we don't often expect change to be cropping up randomly.
 

shrekfan246

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Keoul said:
Bad change would be something that's a complete game changer in a bad way. Unfortunately I can't think of any examples. But I suppose it would be something that would seem better as a separate game on it's own instead of it being tied to the series. I guess some of those crappy racing games count? like that new sonic one or jak x.
The Sonic racing games are spin-offs, so I'd say they don't count. Not to mention that the karting ones, for whatever reason, are actually received well and don't specifically focus on Sonic characters.

A better example would be the change from Banjo-Tooie to Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Not only did N&B still contain quite a few elements of a normal B-K game, it did so while completely changing the core gameplay to something not even remotely related to the original franchise and in the first ten minutes of the game insulted not only fans of the older games, but the older games themselves. All while supposedly being all we were going to get of Banjo-Three.

I'm perfectly willing to admit it may be a decent enough game in itself, but it's a travesty as a Banjo-Kazooie game.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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People demand change because if a property doesn't change then it stagnates, and people get tired of doing the same thing or watching the same thing happen over and over again. At the same time if a property actually does change, then by definition it's no longer the same property, and people get angry because it's no longer the property that they were so attached to. If the change ends up actually being better or being interesting then most people accept it and enjoy it, but if the change is worse, or on par with the original then people end up hating it.

The solution to this is to just END series once they start getting stale. Don't rework them, don't change them, just end them and start over with something fresh and new. That way the series doesn't stagnate, AND no one is bastardizing it. Maybe if this happened more often there wouldn't be such a huge focus on "brand recognition" of properties, and people would be more open to trying new series, because they would be used to series being short lived, and overall creativity would be increased.
 

bafrali

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Dirty Hipsters said:
People demand change because if a property doesn't change then it stagnates, and people get tired of doing the same thing or watching the same thing happen over and over again. At the same time if a property actually does change, then by definition it's no longer the same property, and people get angry because it's no longer the property that they were so attached to. If the change ends up actually being better or being interesting then most people accept it and enjoy it, but if the change is worse, or on par with the original then people end up hating it.

The solution to this is to just END series once they start getting stale. Don't rework them, don't change them, just end them and start over with something fresh and new. That way the series doesn't stagnate, AND no one is bastardizing it. Maybe if this happened more often there wouldn't be such a huge focus on "brand recognition" of properties, and people would be more open to trying new series, because they would be used to series being short lived, and overall creativity would be increased.
This guy said it best. I for one am in favor of the spiritual successors. Something familiar yet different. Building upon the old ideas while not bastardizing the old story line and characters. See Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Bayonetta etc.
 

FalloutJack

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Change can only be judged in a case-by-case basis. There is no general view of change overall that can be so casually discussed away.