We've all seen sequels. They're everywhere. Usually, as is often the case in the film industry, sequels take what was good about the original and try to recreate it. This only works rarely. In the gaming world, things can be reversed, with the original acting like a dry run for the sequels. This is something that I've started calling the Assassin's Creed Doctrine.
Companies know what games will sell (usually brown FPS games with steroid-riddled protagonists, but I digress), and whenever a brand-new gaming concept arises, people get a little twitchy.
Since full-fledged AAA games take so much time and money to make, companies usually stick a toe into the creative pool before diving in. Successful ventures are praised for their creativity, and their faults are easily overlooked. Failed attempts are ridiculed and quickly forgotten.
While this school of thought isn't strictly a bad one, it has a major flaw: it stifles the original game's potential. The first, innovative game is good, but it's not all it could be. If it was given the time, money and attention it needed to become completely fleshed-out, it could go from good to great.
Following the Assassin's Creed Doctrine keeps games like inFAMOUS from being Bioshock. It builds solid franchises, but stops that original game from being a lofty legend.
I understand the risk that's involved with committing that amount of resources to a project with an unsure chance of success. it seems like a gamble, and it takes faith in your product. When that faith isn't misplaced, greatness happens. It's been done before, and an amazing first game will sell sequels, even if the sequels are inferior. Just look at Prince of Persia.
Since full-fledged AAA games take so much time and money to make, companies usually stick a toe into the creative pool before diving in. Successful ventures are praised for their creativity, and their faults are easily overlooked. Failed attempts are ridiculed and quickly forgotten.
While this school of thought isn't strictly a bad one, it has a major flaw: it stifles the original game's potential. The first, innovative game is good, but it's not all it could be. If it was given the time, money and attention it needed to become completely fleshed-out, it could go from good to great.
Following the Assassin's Creed Doctrine keeps games like inFAMOUS from being Bioshock. It builds solid franchises, but stops that original game from being a lofty legend.
I understand the risk that's involved with committing that amount of resources to a project with an unsure chance of success. it seems like a gamble, and it takes faith in your product. When that faith isn't misplaced, greatness happens. It's been done before, and an amazing first game will sell sequels, even if the sequels are inferior. Just look at Prince of Persia.
I don't think every new game even has the potential to become great no matter how long you leave it in the pot. The pattern I see is that great games come from mastered concepts and not innovative ones. Also, there's no point prolonging development of a game when the extra time won't necessarily enhance it. Look at DNF, the extra time was a detriment assuming 3DR even had a clear goal in their minds to begin with.
ReplyDeleteUsing your examples, Assassin's Creed and InFamous (one) couldn't be great games because it was new ground that needed to be cultivated and studied first. Bioshock was a great game because it wasn't the first of its kind, it was what...the 3rd? Similarly, look at Call of Duty. Fan or not it's no coincidence that it took until the 4th entry for it to finally take off even if the genre isn't all too new or innovative.
The only developers that can make great titles the first time are ones like Blizzard and Valve. How? They build their games multiple times, they don't listen to shareholders, and they test the hell out of their products. Basically, they keep building a product until they've perfected it until they launch it where few other publishers have that luxury.