What is it with these damn revivals?

[Wyrmlord]

Why are they making sequels to decades old games for absolutely no reason?

Why are they making an action sequel to XCOM?

Why are they making a real time sequel to Jagged Alliance?

Why are they still trying to make games with Fallout in their name, despite Fallout having come out FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, and despite these games looking nothing like Fallout?

Look at this retarded logic:

1) We want to bring back an ages old franchise, because those old fans are yearning for it.

2) We want to totally change these games, because there is nobody who can recognize or enjoy those old format games.

What the hell? First make a sequel to an old-ass game that few remember? Then change it completely, because few remember ? So WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY did they make the sequel to an old ass game in the first place?

 

[Bluebottle]

Column inches. The indignation from certain quarters is as much a part of this as idiotic and contradictory "I want a fallout game that isn't a fallout game" that comes from the other quarters.

Think of it as a giant lovecrafitan beast that feeds on both butthurt and incessant fanboyism.

Unless you fuck up the game to such a degree that it becomes one of the bi-yearly press whipping boys, then you're on to a winner (financially).

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I imagine most old fans just like seeing their franchise alive again, regardless of whatever changes it goes through.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Marketable names allow them to sell 5000 units more.

 

[Vagiel]

I do not realize why people get so upset about this. This is business, it is better to put a name on a new title that will remind people of something than bringing in a completely new ip.

Anyway, we live in time where you have information overload. You know what type the new game will be and how it will play well before it is released. So take a look into a preview, see if it suits you, buy it or ignore it.

I realise it can be kind of offending to take on of your old memories and twist it into something completely different but, honestly, apart form ignoring it, you have no other choice.

 

[Renegen]

You have to think like a publishing exec. You have this name "X-Com" sitting around and it's worth something. Then you have this shitty FPS that you want to release without a name. You brilliantly decide that maybe, you could release the shitty game but with the X-Com name! It's like mixing a cake or something, a cake of profits. You pat yourself on the back.

The New X-Com has nothing to do with the old one. Nothing. But the very fact you heard about this game means the exec won. You will now check the reviews, he won, you lost! You want to stick the middle finger to them? Just forget about it, don't even care.

Remember when some people were saying that Dragon Age 2 would've been better received if it wasn't called Dragon Age 2, but a spinoff? What kind of a series "spins off" after 1 game? Another example where the execs at EA thought to change the game and then tack on the DA "IP", the Bioware aura, and hope that it made them more money. And most people cared, in fact the game is even talked about on Codex.

As for the RT Jagged Alliance, I don't mind RT that much. X-Com 3 was fun in RT (I know it wasn't scary), and so was Fallout Tactics.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I imagine most old fans just like seeing their franchise alive again, regardless of whatever changes it goes through.

Yes, I too enjoy seeing X-Com turned into a jaggy, bloomified cover shooter about gay australian liberals struggling to integrate into Bioshockian AmeriKKKa.

I said "most fans", Mr. Center-of-the-world. As in, I don't think the NMA guys and the Codex are a sizeable portion of Fallout fans.

edited out the rest because I can't write a coherent sentence before coffee

 

[Serious_Business]

I do not realize why people get so upset about this. This is business

Because business is prostitution, you fucking parasite

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

You have to think like a publishing exec. You have this name "X-Com" sitting around and it's worth something. Then you have this shitty FPS that you want to release without a name. You brilliantly decide that maybe, you could release the shitty game but with the X-Com name! It's like mixing a cake or something, a cake of profits. You pat yourself on the back.

The New X-Com has nothing to do with the old one. Nothing. But the very fact you heard about this game means the exec won. You will now check the reviews, he won, you lost! You want to stick the middle finger to them? Just forget about it, don't even care.

I agree with you. I think they are purposefully trolling old fans to get attention. They haven't succeeded with getting enthusiasm from the name itself so the try to provoke anger by talking shit about the old games. It's the best to ignore them and pretend that they don't exist.

 

[Vagiel]

Because business is prostitution, you fucking parasite

Prostitution consists of a client and a whore. Which one is which to you? Also, a "fucking" parasite in the Serious business of prostitution, so many connotations....

 

[torpid]

I do not realize why people get so upset about this. This is business, it is better to put a name on a new title that will remind people of something than bringing in a completely new ip.

I never understood this line of argument: "it's good business, so why are you upset?" Since I'm not a shareholder of the company, I don't see why I should be happy for the company that they're going to make more money from raping a series I like.

 

[Vagiel]

Business is not good for you but for them, what i am saying is all you can do is not buy the product.

 

[Zed]

Joe, 30-something, never really played any games as a kid besides Mario and a sports game, comes home from work.
- "I'm so fucking bored", says Joe. "Let's look on the interwebs what games prestigious websites are recommending. So I can buy them. With my Money".
Joe reads, y i remember xcom fucking awesome game my childhood and by extension life overall got a million times better thanks to this game go play it. if you haven't played it you're a fag with small dick.
- "Wow, that sounds great!", Joe exclaims. "Now to buy them X-camm games with my Money."
Later that day, Joe has finally managed to download and install the game. He's now a minute into X-Com: TFtD.
- "What the fuck do I do."


Names and franchises sell. They get bought and turned into FPS and shitty games because that's the sort of stuff that's easy to get into. It's accessible. Streamlined. People like Easy, so it sells. Jews make more money.
You all know this.
God, what an unnecessary thread.

 

[torpid]

God, what an unnecessary thread.

Who made the thread?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I disagree. Whilst I'm well aware of this problem (hello Total War fans who think what's said on twcenter is representative of CA's consumer base), what makes you think anything approaching a sizable portion of Fallout or X-Com fans were happy to see their franchises raised in this form?

Based on what I see on the net, only a few select groups go "augh franchise rape", while it's way more common to see "oooooh, I used to like this game back then. What's that? Updated gameplay? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY :D" reactions.

 

[Renegen]

I disagree. Whilst I'm well aware of this problem (hello Total War fans who think what's said on twcenter is representative of CA's consumer base), what makes you think anything approaching a sizable portion of Fallout or X-Com fans were happy to see their franchises raised in this form?

Based on what I see on the net, only a few select groups go "augh franchise rape", while it's way more common to see "oooooh, I used to like this game back then. What's that? Updated gameplay? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY :D" reactions.

Let's be fair, most "gamers" are morons. I watch a lot of Youtube, and you have this whole business of gamer vblogs and other channels that pony up on the video game culture. If you listen to those videos, the'll make it seem like playing CoD means you're "hardcore". Or what about those stupid Mario or Zelda tattoos? Do I want to talk to those people? No. But to them, the tattoo is some kind of expression of their hardcore tastes.

And actually, the biggest video game forum out there is NeoGaf, and their opinions are a lot less derp derp than The Escapist, PA, etc So it seems that there are a lot of discerning gamers after all.

 

[commie]

Fuck, another WUMlord thread raging against the bleedin' obvious...

 

[Hobo Elf]

"We are bringing X franchise back" makes for a good head line. Even if someone hasn't played the originals, they are tricked into thinking that the series was good enough to be brough back into modern times.

 

[MetalCraze]

Arcanum needs revival. Just imagine:

You are running in third person, diving behind the specially pre-placed stone bricks in a single corridor and blind-firing the fuck out of enemies that sit behind their boxes and not moving with your lightning cannon. All with support of quest-compass and enemy radar. The writing is done by 15 years old and there are no C&C...

Codex: FFFFFFUUUUUUUUU-

...and it has Obsidian logo on it!

Codex: -CKING AWESOME!!!

 

[Wyrmlord]

My annoyance is not with old franchises "getting raped". My annoyance is with the stupidity of the argument behind reviving old-ass games in the formats they revive them. As it is, I am not a big XCOM fan and barely played XCOM much.

Yes, trite and unimportant. The issue here is understanding the bizzare non-logic that permeates game studios today. Yes, Vagiel, I don't intend to buy these revival games made by these marginal, low-budget studios anyway - I want to understand what the hell are they thinking.

I see several arguments put forth in this thread and I don't believe they don't adequately answer the bizzare motivations behind such revivals.

It's a business.
I am the first person to admit that gaming is a business, and that games are made not just with my standards but with other people's standards in mind. But how the hell is reviving a 15+ year old franchise good business? As a 21-year old, I am pretty much the average gaming demographic, and the fact that I have played old games is pure accident. Some of these games were released when I was barely old enough to understand them.

Old franchise names help new games sell.
Well, who made Fallout 3? Not some obscure studio. It was Bethesda. Fallout 3 sold well as a Bethesda game. That Fallout name would have meant nothing if it were another average studio.

An old brand name will help boost a lousy project.
This one sounds most plausible. However, business is a discovery procedure. Meaning that you don't know how useful a particular sales tactic will be until you actually put the product on the market. The Sony Walkman was a terrible product on release, but it turned out that customers didn't mind its poor sound quality and tendency to malfunction. Vogel made several unprecedented changes to Spiderweb games that were unanimously objected by his forum fans, but each successive Spiderweb game sold well anyway. Franchise revival is not a tried-and-true tactic - we don't how well it works.

My best guess? These were deliberate loss-making projects to do a tax write off. To do so, they made use of an IP lying around.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

bros they should revive master of magic as a DoTA clone

it will be mad customisable with your choice of spellbook combos and traits for your wizard heroes and have all the complexity of the original while letting you capture nodes in real time realistically

awwwwww yeaahh

 

[Oriebam]

I imagine most old fans just like seeing their franchise alive again, regardless of whatever changes it goes through.

Yes, I too enjoy seeing X-Com turned into a jaggy, bloomified cover shooter about gay australian liberals struggling to integrate into Bioshockian AmeriKKKa.

I said "most fans", Mr. Center-of-the-world. As in, I don't think the NMA guys and the Codex are a sizeable portion of Fallout fans.

edited out the rest because I can't write a coherent sentence before coffee

The people who are "fans" of X-COM are probably mostly part of the big group of discerning gamers(the ubermenschen who only like well-written and tactical games such as the ones made by Bioware,Bethesda or Valve and shun Call of Duty whenever they have the chance) which are exactly the guys that rage over X-COM being turned into a FPS, provided they didn't hate it or hate the genre.

I mean, generally when franchises are (actually) raped the guys who defend the game either didn't like the originals very much, have changed their perceptions over time or just didn't like the genre that much. Those guys are generally the guys that fucking love games like CoD. You know, the guys who make response-threads on the escapist whining that people can't have fun and a optimist view of things and/or don't realize that games are just games and/or that old shit is abandoned for a reason

And remember that when franchises are radically changed people usually don't do a good job, people can't even develop simple sequels properly sometimes, the stupid fucks

old Fallout fans that really like the new games probably most likely just don't see much difference from the old game to the new game.

 

[Shannow]

God, what an unnecessary thread.

Who made the thread?

Well, we raged against this when they decided to make Oblivion with guns and call it FO3 and the trend is keeping strong. So, yes, it's not new and it is obvious, but I still have to hear a satisfactory reason.
The only halfway understandable one is: They're too stupid and untalented to come up with new ideas.