Sequels ruin gaming.

[The Hive Mind]

As a result of its surprise retail success, Borderlands' creative director Mike Neumann told VG247 that there is a chance of a Borderlands 2, adding that the decision "seems like a no-brainer."

This quote in my opinion displays a major problem in the gaming industry: too many sequels.
The creative director of borderlands here makes the assumption that there should be a sequel to borderlands simply because it sold well.
Does this seem to anyone else like totally the wrong attitude?

It is this viewpoint that is and has lead to the total over-saturation of games that has killed entire genres (see: music games). It is almost a given now that successful games will spawn into behemothic franchises with potentially dozens of sequels given in yearly instalments: to date there are 7 "proper" Call of Duty games with many more on hand-helds, dozens of instalments in sports franchises such as Fifa or Madden and the worth of the aforementioned music game genre plummeted drastically with multiple releases within a single year. I'm just going to ignore Nintendo completely; who can even count the number of Mario games there have been any more? To contrast, how many (popular) films do you know of with in excess of 15 films in the series?

The film industry rarely has this problem -- even with successful films, the likelihood is that there will be no sequels: can you see there being a sequel for Inception? Possible, but unlikely. How about the King's Speech? Black Swan? All of these were well received films that made a huge amount of money, yet a sequel seems unlikely. The reason for this is artistic integrity -- although many would disagree, *most* films are still regarded as works of art and not there SOLELY for the sake of creating money. Gaming needs to overcome this distinction -- games must be viewed as art and not just products. But thats an entirely different arguement.

The sequels are an issue as they cause stagnation: With the Fifa games, EA has been holding developers back from adding too many new features to their games each year in order to increase the longetivity of the franchise by as much as possible whilst the past four CoD games have been nothing more than reskinned versions of the old ones. Games like Halo: Reach, Bioshock 2 and Fallout: New Vegas are pushed through with barely any improvements and changes at all just because they will make money.
"because they will make money". This is at the root of it: the job of the developers and publishers is to sell as many games as possible for as much profit as possible, and as a competitive market only the ones that do this really well survive. The problem is that WE keep buying these games, year after year.

There has been slight backlash against this, such as the "boycott" of Left 4 Dead 2 when Valve announced they were to release a sequel to Left 4 Dead within a year, however this was in the end a failure. Other boycotts of games (with, but not necessarily because of, yearly instalments) such as Assassin's Creed II (due to dislike of DRM) and Modern Warfare 2 (due to lack of dedicated servers) have also largely been failures.

There are, in my opinion, two solutions: one is largely out of our hands, and that would be to have a director of sorts in charge of the development of games. I know there already ARE directors, but can you name any? Having this as a role based largely on prestige (in the same way the role of a film director is) would force some kind of artistic merit into the medium -- the high profile step of Guillermo del Toro into gaming was definitely a move in the right direction.
The other, of course, is simply to stop buying games that are practically identical to the ones you already own

TL;DR:
There are too many sequels; people should stop buying games that are nearly identical and to give the medium artistic merit some form of director figure is needed. Yeah.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

Sequels done wrong ruin games, but without good sequels the gaming industry would not be where it is now.

What I mean is that yes, sequels can ruin their genres or the original game, but it works both ways.

Also I reckon the flood of Call of Duty in particular is a good thing, shooter dev's are trying to make FPS's different from each other because of it.

 

[Irridium]

Sequels are NOT the problem. The problem is that developers don't bother to innovate much in sequels, and the fans shun any form of innovation in sequels.

Example: Dune 2. It essentially created the entire RTS genre as it is today.

Sequels aren't the problem, its that developers don't bother to try anything new with them, and fans cry foul when they do try something new. There's also the issue of marketing and focus tests, which piss all over everything. It sucks and it needs to change. I know I've done my fair share of bitching about sequels not being like their originals, and from this moment on I'll try to hold my tongue until I play them.

But I want to see developers do some interesting things with established franchises.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Sequels allow for the evolution of gameplay, which is something films and books don't need to worry about to any great degree.
In the end, a game is still a game. And nobody complains when some Japanese RPG gets 10+ sequels, with little or no gameplay evolution.

I do agree to an extent, though. We need fresh IPs, and not all within the same effing genre

 

[carnege4]

Not all sequels are bad.

Take for example Abe's Exoddus
Or Dead Space 2 (my opinion)

Or Kotor 1-2

 

[Kair]

Capitalists keep capitalizing.

 

[Best of the 3]

Sequals are not bad, it's sequals for the sake of the sole reason that you can. If it's a good sequal, it should also be a good game. New and improved.

 

[Reed Spacer]

Depends: For instance, the sequel to Dark Cloud was incredibly improved to the original, whereas in the case of Final Fantasy, it may be good or bad. But the Final Fantasy games tend to be unique games and generally not "true" sequels, so it may not apply.

Some sequels are good, some are bad; the same can be said of movies as well. I agree though, that some simply shouldn't happen: sports games are essentially the same thing, except with different names and basically translate to a waste of plastic: once they come out, the previous version is immediately dumped by all the fans of the game.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Sequels done wrong ruin games, but without good sequels the gaming industry would not be where it is now.

What I mean is that yes, sequels can ruin their genres or the original game, but it works both ways.

Also I reckon the flood of Call of Duty in particular is a good thing, shooter dev's are trying to make FPS's different from each other because of it.

Which makes one wonder just how much innovation can be applied to the premise of 'run around with a gun and shoot things.'

Sequels are NOT the problem. The problem is that developers don't bother to innovate much in sequels, and the fans shun any form of innovation in sequels.

Example: Dune 2. It essentially created the entire RTS genre as it is today.

Sequels aren't the problem, its that developers don't bother to try anything new with them, and fans cry foul when they do try something new. There's also the issue of marketing and focus tests, which piss all over everything. It sucks and it needs to change. I know I've done my fair share of bitching about sequels not being like their originals, and from this moment on I'll try to hold my tongue until I play them.

But I want to see developers do some interesting things with established franchises.

So essentially you're saying the Fans are the problem. I concur.

 

[emeraldrafael]

I dont see sequels in any medium to be inherently bad. Star Wars V was far superior to Star Wars IV, and I rather enjoyed Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom over Raiders of the Lost Ark (I know, prequel), and much more the Last Crusade over the previous two.

Another example is Toy Story 3 over Toy Story 1 (I went into a lot of Lucas above).

In games its the same way. Battlefront 2 was superior to battlefront 1 (star wars), Persona 3 Fes superior to Revelations: Persona, and Persona 4 to the two listed. Halo 2 was better then Halo CE (though I didnt play halo 2, its what I hear alot, and I will swallow my pride and say that it did play a large advancement in the shooter genre).

So any sequel, when handled properly, can be good. Its all about advancing a story and plot. Even bad sequels are good for that, as in the Soul Calibur series. It follows the story of Seigfried and the classic Hero role. From infestation to damnation to revelation to salvation, Seigfried falls into and rises from his evil inside and tainting of his life.

So yeah, I have nothing against sequels, as long as their good.

EDIT:

The film industry rarely has this problem -- even with successful films, the likelihood is that there will be no sequels: can you see there being a sequel for Inception? Possible, but unlikely. How about the King's Speech? Black Swan? All of these were well received films that made a huge amount of money, yet a sequel seems unlikely. The reason for this is artistic integrity -- although many would disagree, *most* films are still regarded as works of art and not there SOLELY for the sake of creating money. Gaming needs to overcome this distinction -- games must be viewed as art and not just products. But thats an entirely different arguement.

but how many movies do you see that are just like another? Dating movies like Eat Pray Love and most action movies like The Expendables were pretty much the same average movie that (while not sequels) pretty much stagnate the market.

Besides, they dont need sequels, they just get re-released (Titanic) or imitated to the point where it feels like each movie is just a clone of the one you saw before. you also get movie adaptations of tv shows (A-team) which take place either during or after the show, and can be viewed as something ofa sequel.

 

[Irridium]

So essentially you're saying the Fans are the problem. I concur.

Not the problem, but definitely part of the problem. Like half. The other half is publishers with their fear of doing anything that might not make as much money as they want.

 

[Aiden_the-Joker1]

I see your point however there are a lot of very good sequels out there. In my opinion if a game goes past four or five, that is when it starts to stagnate. like you say there is a new fifa and call of duty every year. Your point about films, yeah there are virtually no film franchises out there however films tend to copy each other a lot more than games do.

 

[OrokuSaki]

Okay, I know people seem to hate sequels, but I believe that in some situations they should be allowed, but in most cases they should be discouraged.

For instance, Borderlands should NOT get a sequel, the game was a completed thought, they hunted the vault, found the vault, game over. (Except the DLCs which I found fun) But some games absolutely NEED sequels such as Psychonauts that ended on a cliffhanger.

I suppose what I mean to say is that sequels should be used as a device to complete a story, not to capitalize on the success of the former. If a writer has a plan to make an epic trilogy, then let them make an epic trilogy, no matter how well the first game sells there's always a chance the conclusion will be a stand-alone masterpiece. But don't just make a continuation because the original did surprisingly well. (For instance Modern Warfare 2 wasn't just another Call of Duty because Modern Warfare was such a hit. The Force Unleashed was intended as a single game but when millions bought it they created MORE bullshit nonsense to shove down our throats just for an easy buck.)

 

[Arkhangelsk]

Final Fantasy VII, Assassin's Creed II, Starcraft II, Jak II, Shadow of The Colossus (a spiritual sequel, but my point stands!), Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Resident Evil 4, Ace Attorney: Trials And Tribulations, Kingdom Hearts II, Super Metroid, Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, Super Mario Bros. 3, Saints Row 2, and so on.

Perfect examples of sequels done masterfully. And many of them are my favorite games of all time. If no sequels existed, gaming would be sufficiently more boring. You're only thinking of the bad ones. The good ones give a continuation of a great story, an improvement of a previous formula of gameplay, and more of what was good from the previous one.

Also, if sequels weren't made, most of them would have the Ico - Shadow of The Colossus relationship, in that the gameplay is similar, the style is similar, but the story isn't the same. When a company finds a niche, you can't force them out of it just because you want originality. Never sacrifice good gameplay and story for originality.

Bad sequels? Sure, throw them out the window. But also remember that Black Ops and the latest FIFA sold well, which means somebody, and not just somebody, many liked it. Developers can't just neglect the demands of the public, they have families to feed too. Games, just like movies and music, are half art form, and half industries that make money.

 

[Racecarlock]

I think that you mean that sequels that only make minor tweaks or are shoved out purely for monetary profit are ruining gaming, and I agree. However, you really need to focus in and generalize less to get your point across better.

 

[Netrigan]

Without sequels there would be no Super Mario Bros. Wonder if the NES would have been successful without it.

And depending on how you define sequels, there might not have been a Mario Bros. to begin with, since that was a spin-off of Donkey Kong.

 

[Xanadu84]

Name, on one hand, the sequels where the sequel is actually, truly bad

Now, name all the sequels where the game play is better in the sequel.

Lets me go to my Steam list. Where the game play is better in the sequel, I have Battlefield Bad Company, Dead Space, Total War, Left 4 Dead, Civilization, Just Cause, Team Fortress, Rainbow 6, Saints Row, Mass Effect, Brothers in Arm, Bioshock...okay, im not going through the whole list.

Where the Sequel game play is worse, I have Deus Ex, F.E.A.R...whoops, I'm done.

We may desire new, innovative ideas, but the fact remains that sequels polish existing ideas, and make better games. We need new IPs, but iteration is the lifeblood of game design. Im all for new and exciteing ideas, but in many ways, it is better to be a master in one area then a jack of all trades.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

So essentially you're saying the Fans are the problem. I concur.

Not the problem, but definitely part of the problem. Like half. The other half is publishers with their fear of doing anything that might not make as much money as they want.

Well if we stopped buying the recycled shit they kept pumping out they'd be forced to try something new in order to figure out what would make us start buying again, wouldn't they?