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Does a Game Have To Fail To Get a Real Ending?
Posted by
Soulskill
on Tue Mar 03, 2009 06:49 AM
from the whatever-happened-to-pacman-anyway dept.
from the whatever-happened-to-pacman-anyway dept.
After the closure of Tabula Rasa over the weekend, the Opposable Thumbs blog asks if that's what it takes for a game to have an actual ending these days. Quoting: "It's no surprise that most games hope for a sequel, as it's the easiest way to get some of that money back while taking advantage of the staff, engine, assets, and other advantages you've banked while creating the first title. The problem? This has lead to a generation of cliff-hangers at worst, and endings that hedge their bets at best. ... As all the game's characters die, as the servers are shut down, as the data is erased or backed up and then boxed or whatever happens to MMO data once the game is done, it's hard not to be a little sad. The sights and sounds of the world of Tabula Rasa are gone, forever. All the memories written into those ones and zeroes will quickly be forgotten, and no one will walk those grounds again." Massively put together a few screenshots and videos to commemorate the ending of the game.
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Tabula Rasa Going Out With A Bang 162 comments
Mytob notes that sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa is set to close down tomorrow, and the development team has something special planned for the game's final hours. The decision to close the game was made in November, and it went free-to-play a month later, while the developers continued to roll out the new content they had planned. Now, after a round of patches and server merges, the beleaguered MMO has reached its shutdown date. The game's primary enemies, the Bane, are launching an all-out offensive on Allied forces, which will culminate in a battle beginning at 8PM on Saturday and lasting until midnight. All players are being called in as reinforcements in this apocalyptic fight, though the final announcement says, "Penumbra has been informed of the situation and is standing by on the use of their last resort weapon. We can not afford to be complacent or uncertain, but if it is truly our destiny to be destroyed, we are taking them all with us."
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Not just - or primarily - games that this affects (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd go broader than games. Pretty much any mass market entertainment these days has to fail to get a real ending, and even then it doesn't usually manage it.
When was the last time you went to the cinema to watch a major release that didn't end with a blatant hook for a sequel? When was the last time you saw a TV show end without some form of cliff-hanger? And yes... when was the last time you saw a game end without a plug for a sequel?
I think TV has it worst. The push to wring as many seasons as possible out of a particular intellectual property has destroyed the capability of a generation of screenwriters to actually write an ending for a story. They write a strong beginning to get people going, then just sit down and churn out "middle" for season after season until the ratings drop and the network starts to swing the axe. Then, if possible, they write in an ending from whatever point in the story they'd managed to get up to.
I remember when I got into watching anime, back in around 2001, the first thing that struck me was that many series did actually have endings. Sure, in some cases the endings were incomprehensible, but at least they were there. However, even with anime, as time has gone one, the classic stand-alone 13 or 26 episode series has fallen from favour in recent years.
The problem is that we are creating a body of cultural products which will not stand the test of time. Now, ok, you can write off 95% (at least) of modern pop culture as ephemera, but it would still be nice to think that we might actually be creating a few things that will still be watched, read or played in fifty years time (and beyond). But unless things have ending, it just won't happen.
Can you imagine if Hamlet never came to an end (ok, if you've ever sat through a bad student production, it might have felt like that) but instead ran on for 17 plays, with 8-12 comprising the little-loved Finland arc, play 4 introducing a new love interest who got written out in play 9 and then the whole thing stopped abruptly after play 17 because the Globe burned down? How many modern TV stories have been ruined by this kind of thing? The X-Files? Lost? Buffy?
Ironically, given what sparked this discussion, MMOs don't actually need an ending. They're not usually intended as a story as such - more as an ongoing, but usually static, world that players participate in. They generally kind of exist in the same continuity-free zones as daily-gag comic strips in newspapers and the like. That they ended Tabula Rasa in the way they did is actually kind of cool and probably rather better than the shoddy game deserved.
Re:Not just - or primarily - games that this affec (Score:3, Informative)
2001? Long anime has been around before that. For example, Detective Conan started airing in 1996, and still is. Dragon Ball, though a bit shorter at ~150 episodes, aired back in the 80's in Japan.
On the other hand, there are still way more "stand-alone" animes than long ones. Though, if a stand-alone anime becomes really popular and well-received, they'll produce a second season for it, such as with Code Geass. I see nothing wrong with that as long as the second season is good as well (and in the case
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Sadly I can point to George Lucas as a good example of that. He's clearly stated that he wont make eps 7-9 for starwars because he wants to do something else before he dies!
Ah, in a rare moment of lucidity, he saves us all...
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Re:Not just - or primarily - games that this affec (Score:5, Insightful)
Authors may also want to decide whether they are actual people who deserve to have a life of their own, or simply story vending machines which exist to provide people with a lfew hours entertainment and then fade away.
And he has this to say on the subject [livejournal.com]. Given the choice between hearing about how GRRM has been watching football all day, or reading a hacked up finale to an otherwise great series of books which he just felt he needed to put together even though he was miserable doing it, I'll be one of the first to order him some beers and pizza and hand him the remote.
Parent
Re:Not just - or primarily - games that this affec (Score:4, Insightful)
Authors also have to decide whether or not they want to eat. Once one story has sold, it's a lot easier selling sequels to it than to sell something entirely new. If they don't sell stories, they don't eat. So sequels and long-running series are the norm.
Parent
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And I think that the bigger part of the issue is that this so called 'obligation' is a load of crap. If you sign a contract with a publisher to write a certain number of books then you should fulfill that contract, but the act of reading a book does not somehow place the author in your debt.
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I don't feel Martin owes me anything. And by the same token I don't owe him anything. He lost the plot with the last volume of Ice & Fire and so I won't be reading any more. I wish the hell he'd never even started the damn saga. Hard luck on me.
After that and the Wheel of Time I won't be getting caught a third time.
From now on, it's only finished stories for me. None of the ones I have read could be described as failures.
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And even sadder, this is not new. In my opinion, Dune never really ended, either. It was only terminated by the death of Frank Herbert, and I know from historical articles that he had other stuff planned. That stuff is all lost, now and will always be.
No, the Brian Herbert books don't count. They're not a continuation of the original in any way; they're inspired by the original and in some ways are a reasonable attempt to close the gaps and tie up the loose ends that were left when Frank died.
The lack of an
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Can you imagine if Hamlet never came to an end (ok, if you've ever sat through a bad student production, it might have felt like that) but instead ran on for 17 plays, with 8-12 comprising the little-loved Finland arc, play 4 introducing a new love interest who got written out in play 9 and then the whole thing stopped abruptly after play 17 because the Globe burned down? How many modern TV stories have been ruined by this kind of thing? The X-Files? Lost? Buffy?
The inherent assumption that you are making is that Shakespeare would would have a bad sequel. I don't think this is true. Shakespeare was in the business of making money. If he had thought he could make money through making prequels or sequels for some of his popular plays, say Young Hamlet or How We Miss Caesar, he would have, and some of them would have been excellent.
However, I really think that you're missing the point. You're really comparing apples and oranges when you compare Shakespeare's plays
Re:Not just - or primarily - games that this affec (Score:5, Insightful)
"When was the last time you went to the cinema to watch a major release that didn't end with a blatant hook for a sequel?"
The only films this statement really applies to are the "Blockbuster" style of films. I would say that the majority of films don't end in this fashion (then again, I am rather choosy regarding the films I watch these days, so perhaps I just don't notice).
What's perhaps worse are those films that are not expected to have sequels, but because they're successful, you end up getting a bright spark claiming it's time for a sequel.
That small gripe aside, you're spot on. I remember an interview with Dominic Monaghan (from Lost) who was saying (around Season two or three) that the original script for Lost was intended to end after Season Three or Four, but the studio executives objected and told them to stretch it out much further. Funnily enough, this was around the same time I lost interest in the show.
I find this approach alienating. It decreases the chance of new viewers being attracted to a show (how many people want to play catchup with a weeks' worth of viewing just to figure out what's going on), not to mention that the "indefinite" approach is likely to encourage a high fall-out rate as people either get bored, annoyed at the never-ending and increasingly more unbelievable plot twists, or simply fatigued.
Oh, and yeah, kids, get off my lawn!
Parent
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In Japan... (Score:2)
> I think TV has it worst. The push to wring as many seasons as possible out of a particular intellectual property has destroyed the capability of a generation of screenwriters to actually write an ending for a story.
Anime may have leaned towards no ending series goes on as long as it can, but many still stop at one season. Berserk. Fruits Basket.
Japanese Live Action dramas usually only go for one season. Stories are so much better with a beginning, a middle and an end.
c.f. The X-files. a beginning, midd
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I, for one, am looking forward to the end of Battlestar Galactica in a few weeks time...
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The first series of 'Sledge Hammer' ended with a nuclear explosion destroying LA. And it STILL came back for another series! So writers should not be afraid to end stories if they wish - you can always explain your way out of it if you get another chance.
Re:Not just - or primarily - games that this affec (Score:5, Funny)
Ooooh, surveys! We're getting so MySpace these days.
"When was the last time you went to the cinema to watch a major release that didn't end with a blatant hook for a sequel?"
Changeling
"When was the last time you saw a TV show end without some form of cliff-hanger?"
Off the top of my head, Life on Mars which is extremely ironic since the TV show has a sequel and the sequel is actually pretty decent once you get past the first two episodes.
"And yes... when was the last time you saw a game end without a plug for a sequel?"
Mario Galaxy (also ironic since there will no doubt be a sequel)
"Can you imagine if Hamlet never came to an end (ok, if you've ever sat through a bad student production, it might have felt like that) but instead ran on for 17 plays, with 8-12 comprising the little-loved Finland arc, play 4 introducing a new love interest who got written out in play 9 and then the whole thing stopped abruptly after play 17 because the Globe burned down?"
Yes.
"How many modern TV stories have been ruined by this kind of thing? The X-Files? Lost? Buffy?"
42
Now pass this along to 6 other friends or you will be cursed forever and your wang will fall off (if equipped).
Parent
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I agree with you on The X-Files and Lost, but Buffy had a very strong ending. The characters continued to develop throughout the show's run until a very climactic ending.
Buffy suffered more from losing focus in the middle of the seasons. A couple of them start strongly, lose their way a bit in the middle and then have a strong ending. But that tends to be true of a lot of shows that work to a standard 22 episode seas
Re:Not just - or primarily - games that this affec (Score:2)
When was the last time you saw a TV show end without some form of cliff-hanger?
Avatar: The Last Airbender. But then, they actually planned their arc. Before that, Cowboy Bebop. Before that, Firefly. Before that, Babylon 5.
when was the last time you saw a game end without a plug for a sequel?
Fallout 3. Mirror's Edge. Dead Space.
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The immediate story (getting Kate off the hook for Pope's murder) was resolved, but the news report during the credits saying Faith and Kate were on the run is just begging for a Mirror's Edge 2.
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Don't forget Stargate Atlantis. That had a great ending imho.
Like Seinfeld? (Score:2)
You're probably right for shows like 24, but I don't think you're right for most sitcoms.
The TV show Seinfeld had a pretty definitive ending (despite the spinoffs that followed). It sucked.
Contrast that to South Park and Family Guy, where although there's a tiny bit of ploy carry-over from one episode to the next, each individual episode tends to have an ending that completely wraps up that episode's story arc.
So the thing common to Seinfeld, South Park, and Family Guy, is that they do have good endings: a
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How did the Seinfeld finale fail? The characters were thrown in jail for doing what they'd always done: nothing. There was really no other way it could have ended satisfactorily. Typical sitcom endings where all of the stories are wrapped up (Jerry and Elaine getting back together, or Kramer finding his long lost father, for instance) would have been completely out of style for the series.
Did you expect something else?
I say it failed because, from what I saw anyway, a significant majority of the fans said the ending sucked.
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Sequels, when done well, allow for the characters to evolve and become more complex. Normally for a Movie a good chunk is establishing the character. Then less time with actual plot in the 1 1/2 - 3 hour block of time. Sequels allow for the character to go from where they left off, or further down where their character background is already known.
Prequels, on the other hand are for more dangerous, As the plot usually stinks as they need to establish the characters again for their younger self, and try to ma
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MMOs don't actually need an ending. They're not usually intended as a story as such - more as an ongoing, but usually static, world that players participate in. They generally kind of exist in the same continuity-free zones as daily-gag comic strips in newspapers and the like.
This, in an nutshell, is the problem with MMOs. I love RPGs, but I have no interest in a perpetual grind.
Re:Some shows DO have an ending (Score:4, Interesting)
Star Trek Voyager also had a good ending where they made it back to earth (and beat the Borg as well IIRC, its been a while since I watched the show). I havent seen enough TOS to know how that one ended as a TV series. The real ending to TOS is where Kirk passes the mantle on to a new generation in the NCC-1701A in Generations and also dies in that film (and it was a proper ending at that)
The Voyager ending was a lot of Deus ex Machina for an ending. TOS died without any ending. The "ending" in Generations was a rushed way to kill off Kirk so they could never make another TOS sequel. Tada, Prequel!
The only passable ending I remember to a TV show that was not a cartoon is from Quantum Leap. They actually had enough advanced warning that they could create an ending. Live TV shows have good endings too. Since there's no preparation time, "this is your last week" means they can make the last day special, even if it's a video montage.
Parent
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Quantum Leap's finale definitely remains my favorite. But I'd like to add to that: Babylon 5 and Angel. Both productions had advance notice that the series were ending. In "Babylon 5", J. Michael Straczynski closed a major story arc and gave us a chance to watch some core characters remember the past in a very respectful way. It was actually a bit of a tear jerker for me. In "Angel" Joss Whedon ended on a cliffhanger, but it went out in style, leading you to believe that there was no way for the protagonis
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Oh come on. Enterprise? That only got an ending because they were given some advance notice and cobbled together an ending as quickly as possible. The entire show was intended to be milked for years, but lack of popularity killed it when the execs decided they'd had enough. It was only because they knew the fanbase was rabid enough that they agreed to let the show end when the season did, thus allowing that rather bolted on ending.
I mean, really. Is there any of the seasons of Enterprise where that ending w
Re:Some shows DO have an ending (Score:5, Interesting)
TOS - canceled by NBC, revived by fan campaign, canceled again. Was intended to be "Episodic", such that Episode X being broadcast before Episode Y really didn't mean much. There was no "ongoing story" intended.
TNG - A tad of ongoing story but not really enough intended to matter. The "ending" I thought was a pretty damn well-done episode.
DS9 - one hell of an ending, especially after the "switch" from episodic (early seasons) to arc-driven (later seasons, cardassian/dominion war stuff).
Voyager - only existed because it was Berman & Braga's toy. Also, Seven of Boobs. "Ending" was a fanwank from Berman & Braga
Enterprise - could have gone on a lot longer, ESPECIALLY after Paramount execs finally got the message and kicked Berman & Braga off the franchise to get some real writing staff in. Sadly, they were too late and most viewers couldn't be won back.
If you'd like a series that REALLY never ends, try Doctor Who.
Now as for the rest of sci-fi and the rest of writing in general, you have a few different scenarios:
#1 - "Drag it on forever" - arguably you can put shows like Cheers, Frasier, Simpsons (which has jumped the shark so many times the damn thing is just getting bored) here. Also, Dragonball/Dragonball Z/Dragonball GT, or InuYasha/Bleach/Naruto.
#2 - "Oh crap the creator just left but it's still popular" - see West Wing (which got crappy within a season of Sorkin leaving but dragged on two more seasons), or Smallville.
#3 - "Why won't they let it die?" - Lost, Heroes, etc. Caused by desperate networks that know damn well they have nothing palatable to replace it with and we're bored out of our gourds with so-called "reality TV."
#4 - Last, but definitely not least, the rushed/tacked ending, personified by a number of tropes from anime such as the Gainax Ending [tvtropes.org], Mandatory Twist Ending [tvtropes.org], and similar. Basically where you have the writers "counting on" a 2-3 season arc, doing the 3-4 episode "premise and characters" intro, 16-18 episodes of happy silly fluffy slapstick, and then needing to "turn the show serious" at the end. Great examples: just about any anime out there, including (but not limited to) Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion (though that was also the result of Anno going off his meds)...
Now if you want to see a series that had multiple seasons all of which had a real ending, and which kicked the ass of all of these conventions, pick up Slayers sometime.
As for video games... it doesn't have to fail to get a real ending. Some games get an ending, some don't. The Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale games all had pretty encapsulated stories. Legacy of Kain has a definite cyclical storyline - sure there was "room" for a game centering on Kain afterwards, but they wrapped up Raziel in a nice neat package and there's no harm in leaving the "what happens now" question behind: the focus of contention ever since Soul Reaver (given that the original Blood Omen had a "definite ending" pair and the rest of the series is premised on assuming which ending the player chose and running with it) has been resolved. Hell, we even got to take care of the unfinished business and kill Turel.
Parent
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Where do you put Babylon 5 and Avatar the Last Airbender? Two series with definite, planned story arcs and seasons? Avatar was always going to have three seasons, and the story reflects that. Babylon 5 was always going to have 3, 4, or 5 seasons (JMS wrote hooks into the story that would have allowed for abortive wrapups, unfortunately he pulled the line too quick and ended the show with season 4 and it was unexpectedly renewed for a fifth)
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I'd be on board for a Coraline 2 - Bedlam Strikes Back.
Cliff-hangers are dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
It possible to end a story and still leave enough open for a sequel. A cliff-hanger doesn't end a story, it just stops it. And with the time it takes to create a sequel people will have forgotten about the cliff-hanger when they start the sequel.
Memories... (Score:2)
All the memories written into those ones and zeroes will quickly be forgotten, and no one will walk those grounds again
All the more reason to make sure you're actually having fun playing. Too many people think they're accomplishing something and end up ignori...
.... BOP EPIC!! Finally, about time that trinket dropped. I mean really they need to up the drop rate, or make it boe, all this grinding is ridiculous.
What was I saying again?
Does a Game Have To Fail To Get a Real Ending? (Score:2)
Do Games With Real Endings Fail?
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Do Games With Real Endings Fail?
Only if they can't spin it into a low cost sequel.
If it was really closed off hard they may need to resort to time travel, alternate dimensions, or the ever popular "it was all a dream" approach.
Single-Player Games (Score:2, Interesting)
It appears that single-player games can afford to have real endings, yet be successful in a sequel.
Not sure about Warcraft though.
Others include movies (Indiana Jones, Star Trek) and books (Tintin, Asterix). Weird, huh?
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I forget, do we like final fantasy in these parts or not?
Final Fantasy, while the very definition of a game series that has been milked for all it is worth, is notable in the fact that almost all of the iterations of the franchise come to a concise ending. Characters die, are rejoined with their long lost whosits et cetera. The Dragon Quest series does this too, although they do tend towards three game story-arcs with a running theme.
Given that the two above series are two of the most successful franchises
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FF XII also rehashes the horrid world Ivalice From FFTA (as opposed to the war-torn Kingdom of Ivalice from the far superior FFT).
Whingy Bishonen weren't bad enough, they had to make a pseudo-MMO with furries in it...
Does a Game Have To Fail To Get a Real Ending? (Score:2)
Im saying this again : OPEN SOURCE IT (Score:2)
and it will live forever.
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On who's servers?
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On who's servers?
Presumably the same people interested in supporting it as open-source. Servers are very, very cheap.
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doesn't matter... within a few years you could emulate (if required) the cluster within a virtual machine. More to the point, if that was really the case you wouldn't have any unofficial wow or daoc servers available now like you do. (just google them)
The reason most companies do not want to open source is that ANYONE (including the fans) could take that code base, rewrite the code through love (or whatever else spurs these entities on) and bring out a better mmo than the company had planned as a sequel.
Wh
Leisure Suit Larry series (Score:4, Informative)
LSL is the counterpoint... these games were full of fail, and yet there was always a happy ending.
And they produced what, half a dozen sequels to it? Well, I'm including the missing one.
Missing option (Score:3, Funny)
It's not about a sequel (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's not confuse MMOs with "normal" single player games here. MMOs have no ending. You are supposed to play (and pay) forever. That's what they're about. Single player games need no cliffhanger to spawn a sequel. Did Call of Duty have a cliffhanger? Or Command and Conquer? The big nasty warlord needn't escape your grasp in the end to allow a sequel, wars didn't go out of fashion just because Hitler was beaten in WW2, there's plenty of nasties to start new wars. And just because the princess was rescued in the first part you needn't let the bad guy escape to have her kidnapped for a sequel.
MMOs continue for a simple reason. It's not about the game and "beating" its content. You can do that fairly easily and in relatively short time (depending on MMO). It's about items. What makes people play MMOs over and over is that they don't have the last item for their set yet.
That's also why TR failed. No item hunt. You could actually "finish" this game. You have seen all the instances after a fairly short time and ... well, why bother doing it again, it's not like you need to get some ultra-super-duper-rare drop from some boss monster in a 8+ hour 25 people instance.
MMOs today also do what single player games offered for the longest time: Different difficulty levels, for better rewards on higheer levels. You could play on harder modes for better scores for quite a time. Then single player games came equipped with "unlockable" goodies like concept art or better weapons or graphics. MMOs do pretty much the same these days, usually you can choose your difficulty to increase your chance for a drop or to unlock different, more powerful drops, on higher difficulty.
TR failed to deliver any of that.
And that's why TR failed.
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That's what annoys me about the trend of big studio games, it's like the more money you throw at a production, the more it's gonna have to look like a movie. Take GTA IV for example. It's just a huge movie in which you get to partially play the scenes and dick around pointlessly in between scenes for the sake of fun or boredom.
Yeah, it's a great game, but it tries to hard to be just like a movie, so hard it ruins the fun. "You failed the mission? Yay, you get to try it over and over again until you succeed!