You know what's sad?

Look at the last three pages of this board; almost every single thread is about a sequel of some sort.

This is a sad day for an retrogamer.

Original ideas are hard, though!

Games are expensive, and customers don't like to take chances on some thing so expensive. As such, they stick with series they know. Hence, developers develop sequels to existing IPs. If games went down in price, we would likely see more OC.

What the hell is wrong with sequels? I want more sequels. I want to see a sequel to Human Revolution. I want to see a sequel to Half-Life. I want to see a sequel to Psychonauts. I want to see a sequel to World of Goo.

When I have a great experience with a game I don't want that to be a once off thing. I want a successor that will build on the good parts of that system and fix its flaws. Refinement is as important as innovation.

There are tons of non-sequels coming out. ZU just doesn't care about many of them.

Originally Posted by riomhaire

When I have a great experience with a game I don't want that to be a once off thing.

Chess is most certainly not a one-off experience, but it also does not have an indefinite number of sequels.

I want a successor that will build on the good parts of that system and fix its flaws. Refinement is as important as innovation.

Why not just refine the game through updates and patches?

Originally Posted by Andross

Chess is most certainly not a one-off experience, but it also does not have an indefinite number of sequels.

Chess is a competitive game. That's an entirely different beast to every game I just mentioned which are all focused on a structured campaign and progression. You can play a million games of chess a million ways with very competitive people and have them all be totally fresh. There is only so many times I can destroy the Temple of Nod with it feeling fresh.

Alright; Minecraft, for example, is not a competitive game, but does it need a sequel?

Why would it? You could just have 1,000 updates.

Originally Posted by Andross

Alright; Minecraft, for example, is not a competitive game, but does it need a sequel?

No. It doesn't even seem like a finished game yet to be honest. Who was suggesting a Minecraft sequel?

The point is that not being competitive does not justify sequels.

---------- Post added at 04:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:58 PM ----------

Did Minesweeper ever need a sequel?

New franchises are risks for game developers.

But honestly, just because a franchise is "new" doesn't mean it actually presents anything new or original. New game play is more important than a new name.

I love sequels and see nothing wrong with them.

Originally Posted by Protoman

This is a sad day for an retrogamer.

Come again?

Originally Posted by Andross

The point is that not being competitive does not justify sequels.

---------- Post added at 04:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:58 PM ----------

Did Minesweeper ever need a sequel?

Are you going to just cite examples of games that are irrelevant to my arguments or are you actually going to try and argue a coherent case? I am not saying everything should get a load of sequels, just that there is nothing wrong with sequels.

You know why there are more posts about sequels than new games? People anticipate sequels because they played and enjoyed the previous iteration. They know what they're looking forward to. They can recall their previous experiences with a series and it excites them to receive more of those. With something entirely new it can be more difficult to be excited about it. They don't know what to expect and have nothing to contextualise the new game and can't relate to it.

So yeah, people get excited over sequels.

You know what's sad?

We've fallen for a troll thread.

Originally Posted by riomhaire

Are you going to just cite examples of games that are irrelevant to my arguments or are you actually going to try and argue a coherent case? I am not saying everything should get a load of sequels, just that there is nothing wrong with sequels.

You know why there are more posts about sequels than new games? People anticipate sequels because they played and enjoyed the previous iteration. They know what they're looking forward to. They can recall their previous experiences with a series and it excites them to receive more of those. With something entirely new it can be more difficult to be excited about it. They don't know what to expect and have nothing to contextualise the new game and can't relate to it.

ehhhh I don't think they have nothing to contextualize the new game. They have whatever information they obtain through advertisements and glittering generalizations in the Gamerproformer magazines of the world (which ideally would be a lot of information). I will concede however, that sure, they do not have near an exact blueprint for the game to contextualize it, and naturally the game will sell less well than the Legend of Zelda Skyward Core's and Call of Duty: Combat Racings of the world. I think that sequels can be nice, but new IP's should be the heart and soul of gaming. To me it's truly an art, and this apparent lack of vision and failure to take risks is only contributing to its detriment.

I think this debate also raises the issue of how to define a sequel in video games. Usually a sequel is defined as the continuation of a story but we have what are called sequels in video games without this at all. It took until Final Fantasy X-2 till that series had direct continuation of the story of a previous game (correct me if I'm wrong) but subsequent games in that series are still usually called sequels despite having no direct story connections (only thematic and legacy ones). Is Bioshock Infinite a sequel to Bioshock despite being based in a completely new universe?

We, conversely, then have games which are made by the same people and with the same foundation of game mechanics but not referred to as a sequel because of a new story and name. Amnesia: The Dark Decent probably has much more in common (including the people who made it) with Penumbra: Overture than Final Fantasy XIII does to Final Fantasy VII so why is one a sequel and the other is not?

We need to be more careful about how we're defining sequels here. Are we just referring to a continued story or are we talking about thematic and gameplay similarities? If Ubisoft went and made a game exactly like Assassin's Creed but with a new storyline and a new name would that be a sequel or not? Are you looking for companies to stop reusing names or to keep coming up with new gameplay ideas all the time?

Are we defining what we call a sequel ourselves or are we letting a marketing team do it for us?

How is this even thread worthy?

I fail to see what's sad.