More and more nowadays games are one of the three things the title of this post describes, a sequel, part of a franchise or a reboot of an old series.
Now, I'm not saying all sequels or reboots are bad, that would be ridiculous. If there were no sequels, gaming would go nowhere, no new ideas would be birthed and we would still be stuck with the stuff we played back in the 80's and 90's. Now those games weren't bad but by today, those games have spawned a myriad of sequels, spin offs, movies, collectible card games, you get the picture, there is a lot of excess.
When did gaming become about churning out more of the same stuff over and over again? Well, it's really always been like that. Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Sonic, Metroid, Mega Man, Street Fighter, even my beloved Final Fantasy... They are all guilty. But that's because people buy it! The worst offender, to me, is Call of Duty. Every year, there is a new CoD game, now tell me that isn't slightly obscene?
The same, I have noticed can be said for the movie industry, the amount of remakes of classic movies, or even some movies that didn't need to be rebooted as soon as they were, I'm looking at you Spiderman. The Toby Maguire ones aren't even that old for Heaven's sake!
For my liking, there aren't enough original ideas and when there is they are over shadowed by that years sequel or remake/reboot. Even if that idea is a complete masterstroke! If the world would celebrate creativity and fresh, original ideas more, we would see more new games but then the cycle self perpetuates... A good game, with a lot of fan feedback is likely to get a sequel then turn into a trilogy and then BOOM! We have a franchise and a movie and a TCG or CCG, figurines, special edition consoles.
I guess, when I really think about it: Sequels and franchises and reboots are necessary, they keep the industry churning... But wait! What about indies? Ah, the lovely independent game studios, they aren't afraid to take risks, look at Fez or Minecraft! Both widely different from anything on the market at the time and they killed the markets. Even Super Meat Boy, although a tad formulaic still destroyed the market. Purely because the game control was tight, the story was creative (I am aware Minecraft had no real story, but that was the beauty of it, you created the own lore for your world.)
If independent games companies aren't afraid to take risks when more than likely they can't afford to fail, why don't big studios take more risks?
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