Are Ports/Remakes of games like Bacteria?

[Strain42]

I've found that the quickest way to get fans to start wishing for ports/remakes of older games is to present them with one. So it multiplies quickly and gets out of control. You present them with one, suddenly more pop up.

Let me give a few examples of what I'm talking about.

In Pokemon: FireRed and LeafGreen lead to fans begging for Gold and Silver remakes (which we got of course) and since Black and White I've seen people begging for Ruby and Sapphire remakes

In Persona: Persona 1 getting ported lead to people wanting Persona 2 (which again, we got) and the existence of P3P has lead to people begging for P4P at any chance they get.

In Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3DS has of course lead to people saying how much they want Majora's Mask 3DS and from what I understand it actually has a pretty strong following.

Obviously there are a lot more examples, but I think you get the idea now.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to want any of these ports and remakes to exist, but I always just find it really peculiar when I start seeing more people wanting those over brand new games. Going back to Zelda, I admit I don't look around the fanbase much but I've seen more support for Majora's Mask 3DS than I have for Skyward Sword.

What are your thoughts on ports and remakes and how fans react to them?

 

[stebsy]

I'm not sure where I stand with remakes I like them.and don't like them. For instance I love the the idea of Sony remaking some great psp games for the ps3 like chains of Olympus and metal gear. These remakes make sense to have because they were on psp which well sucked lol and many people didn't have. But on the other hand i wish that all the remakes from the last Gen were actually remakes like halo anniversary not just the same game but now in HD...

 

[Joel Soh]

I'd only vouch for remakes if they bothered adding new content and updating it like it were a new release. I don't mean expand it so the game is two times longer than what was being remade. Just, do SOMETHING to make it worth shelling out the money again.

e.g. Zelda 3DS. How about some extra dungeons or something. Some decent new content would be nice. Yes, I know, boss rush is there, but that doesn't trump exploring a whole new area for the first time imo. It's just what you've done before, again, consecutively.

The reaction tells me that our old consoles are busted or the older graphics make our eyes bleed. I can't pick up FF7 anymore for that reason. But hey, if there's demand and profits sitting there for the taking. Take it.

 

[Guilherme Zoldan]

Remakes are okay. People like old games and they want to see how they would look like with modern technology applied to them.
They are quick cash-ins for any company but I cant say I dont enjoy them and they are overall harmless.

 

[Rad Party God]

Our industry has it's peculiarities. Why does more and more people want remakes?, because we're not like the movies industry and not many of us own all of our beloved games' consoles anymore. They wear out over time, the batteries die (for cartdridges), the laser mechanism dies, the thumbstick of a controller is no longer well calibrated anymore, the discs can no longer be read by scratches, you get the idea.

So the best way to relive our childhood memories, and I won't deny it, the perfect way to cash in our nostalgia, are remakes or older games for newer consoles.

 

[AyreonMaiden]

No, never at all. Give me more ports and remakes of the best games. I have so many games I'm interested in and would pay for the convenience of not jumping through a million hoops to emulate them.

I'm firmly of the mind that preservation and reintroduction of the best games of yesteryears is just as important as new games. I'm no art guy or anything, but gamers want nothing but new IPs AND want to be considered an "art medium?"

Art has "classics." To get "classics," you need to bring the old back into relevance by way of reintroduction to the current generation. People hang old shit on museums all the time right next to the new art, and no one bitches. People rerelease novels, movies and music albums to nary a complaint. What's with us gamers?

I feel like the vocal ones either overexaggerate how little new IPs there are, or really have the worst case of ADD in the world. Either way, I say look harder. I'm not saying things are ideal for new IPs, but there aren't NONE and there are far from none as it is with the indie boom and people like Suda51 and the folks at Atlus, to name the foremost two in my mind.

 

[badgersprite]

Eh, some are good, some are bad. Compared to film remakes and cash ins, we're doing pretty well. And, with games, you have a legitimate reason to do remakes; lack of backwards compatibility. Games and consoles from the past break or get sold or get thrown out over time, so it's entirely reasonable that people would want to play old games but don't have the ability to because there's nothing they can play it on, as opposed to movies which are basically all on DVD now anyway.

So, yeah, I'm generally pretty positive towards game remakes, if they're made by the same people who did the original, and not one of those "Hollywood" remakes, where you just take the name of something, stick it on the box and have it be completely unrelated to the original. Of course, I'm also just fine with rereleasing the old game on new platforms, as with the PSOne classics on PSN, but, hey, if you have the ability to upgrade the graphics, add new things, add more challenges and make it interesting for people who have already played, then why the heck not?

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Rayman 2: Revoltuion was much better than The Great Escape for many reasons. But aide from it I can't think of many good remakes...

 

[LordRoyal]

I have an off again on again relationship toward remakes

On the one hand you get good remakes like Serious Sam HD. Which change very little besides updating the graphics, making everything look more pretty, creating an actual physics engine, etc.

On the other you get bad remakes, like Tomb Raider Anniversary. Which change or "Modernize" too much and remove the things we liked about the originals in the first place.

Not to say that Anniversary was a bad game or anything, it was certainly better then Legend. But that compared to the original it was hardly a remake as much as it was just a new game taking place in similar maps to the first game.

Generally speaking nowadays I tend to look at remakes as the publisher running out of ideas and trying to get a quick cash grab. Granted I would prefer a bad remake to a bad sequel any day of the week.