Wednesday, 15 September 2010
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Game Franchises Run on Too Long
The launch of Halo: Reach marks the fourth installment in the critically and publicly acclaimed franchise. The prequel has been anticipated for months, as gamers can pick up new weapons and square off in battle for the next few years.But I’m not here to hit you with a review or give you my thoughts on the latest chapter (or first chapter, technically) in the Halo series. Instead, I want to address a larger issue:
When should developers end a franchise? When does a game series reach the saturation point?
The obvious motivation for any company to continue to pump out installments of a video a game franchise is to make money. Gamers like me will continue to shell out 60 bucks for the new game even after we’ve exhausted the previous one for 20+ months.
But at what point do the game creators pass the point of “giving us what we want” and cross the line to “saturating the market and inundating us with too many iterations of one game”?
Think about it. For those of us who love Halo, another game is like giving candy to a little kid; we’ll eat it up no matter how much we’ve already had. But do we really need another Halo?
Halo: Reach is essentially the same as its predecessors. Sure, there will be new weapons, multiplayer maps and single player storyline. But does it justify another full price game? New maps and guns could just be put into patches for Halo 3. Again, it comes down to money. Instead of giving gamers free patches or charge them $10 for a multiplayer map pack, the developers force us to pay $60 for a whole new game.
Good thing my roommate bought this game and I just mooched off of him.Was Halo 3: ODST really worth full price to get a few extra maps and a storyline that filled in a few plot details here and there? Probably not. That’s not to say it was a subpar game, but it didn’t have to exist. At a certain point, quality suffers for the sake of quantity. The Guitar Hero/Rock Band franchises, for example, have gotten to the point of beating a dead horse.
I’m not trying to pick on expansions or subtitled games, either. Okay, if this were Halo 4, I may not be writing this post. But the only true addition to the Halo franchise for that game would be a continuation of the main storyline (which I love, for the record). After a while, though, it becomes too much, and the developers should just walk away on a high note. Trilogies work because they have an intrinsic narrative arc and, if done properly, encapsulate the entire story while still giving gamers an increasingly rich multiplayer experience.
But developers will never end it sooner rather than later. Not when there’s more money to be made.
Do you think game franchises run on too long nowadays?
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- From: NYOrangemen28
- About Me: My name is Andrew. I'm a huge sports fan and my greatest passion is writing. If there is anything else you want to know, feel free to ask!
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Comments (9)
i have to agree with this, so franchises just don't know when to stop. Than again they probably don't see a point in it since people are still buying, I guess that's all that matters. Maybe if the game had an amazing single player story that just keeps you glued to it like Half Life for example. But when it seems like all that a new game introduces is new weapons and gear... yeah that gets lame
Yay for PC games that can finish within a max of 4 parts?
Why? If the games are good, why stop? Compared to the original Halo formula, you've got some serious changes being made that would not have been covered in a patch (crosshair bloom and load-outs are the big two), as well as graphics upgrades and a better map editor. Although I think ODST should have been a DLC, Reach is a good example of what a FPS franchise can continue to do. Mario, Link, and Master Chief still sell and have offered enough changes to keep players interested - keep 'em coming. (By the by, the trilogy works for movies, not games. Games were founded upon unfinished narratives so sequels and prequels could be made. The market doesn't support trilogies, and, realistically, neither do the players.)
How about we cancel Madden? There's a franchise that's a gross abuse of annual non-changes.
I definitely agree that some franchise have gone on for too long, the Dynasty Warriors franchise comes to mind right now but there are others. However I think Halo is not one of these, not yet at least. Halo 1, 2, 3 where all Bungi products as was ODST and Reach, Halo Wars was Microsoft's baby, but that is besides the point.
Bungi has made it clear that Reach is their final entry into the series. I haven't had a chance to get my copy yet (damn homework to hell) but from what my friends have told me its the best one yet. While Microsoft is saying that will take over the series and most likely produce more games, that's Microsoft talking, they're aim is to make as much money as possible. They are, after all, a business.
Bungi is in the business of making great games, they recognize the fact that to push Halo any further would do a disservice to a really sold shooter franchise. For this I applaud them.
Also, from what I've seen and played so far, they are plenty of changes in Reach. They go beyond simple customization (which has been taken to an almost ridiculous level this time), you have a much more straight forward campaign, firefight mode which (though it was stolen from Gears of War) is still an excellent mode and has been taken to its full potential in Reach. Finally there is the multiplayer which, while not drastically different from Halo 3, adds enough new features and gameplay device that it feels completely fresh when you pick up the controller.
Microsoft will of course find a way to ruin the franchise by releasing as many games with Master Chief in them as there are Mario games, but for now we can enjoy what is rightfully the most popular shooter online today.
I don't game as much as I used to, but I think as long as there are some serious, quality progressions in gameplay and storyline going on, then a company can make (almost) as many games as they want. Yeah, games cost a lot these days, but they also take years to make, by a group of not just a few people.
But I do wonder. Resident Evil, for example, has about a dozen titles, with another one on the way.
Some shouldn't though..especially if their stories are different from one another in the series like Final Fantasy and whatnot. Some should stop but really..I don't play most of those games to really really care.
I think it all depends on the game itself. Halo is a good example, if Halo 4/Reach had Master Chief as the main character then I would not care for it, but I'm glad we get a to be other characters in this game. and if game developers do this with a game then its fine.
For example, the Metal Gear Solid series Solid Snake was only in MGS 1,2, and 4 and Big Boss in MGS 3. And with the new MGS game coming out with the main character being Raiden who was in MGS 2, and 4(NPC), which I think its a smart thing. Because Big Boss and Solid Snake have been used to their fullest with MG n MGS and all the other games.
Or there's the Red Faction series, each game story has a 20-40 year gap between each other, which gives you a new character and the setting on Mars(not including RF2) which you get to see Mars evolve. I could go on but if game developers do things like that then its okay for the game series to keep going.
@AKIO13@xanga - i actually almost wish it was MC, that is to say, if you played through the whole game only to find out in the end you were playing the origin of master-chief. and i would still like to know what happens to him after halo 3.
In terms of multiplayer, Halo Reach is actually leagues above all the previous Halo's; that in itself was worth being an extra game. I'll have to shake my head at ODST.
Sometimes, it's just the naming convention that needs to be revamped and not the franchise. Look at the differences between COD4: MW and COD4: MW2 and the rest of the COD series.