Sequel Fatigue Cause of Slow Sales?

The NYT has a piece which argues that the new console iteration is not the cause for slow sales at the end of the year. Rather, gamers are tired of all the damn sequels. From the article: "... In an industry that has a reputation for growth, the decline certainly clashes with expectations. And there is also evidence that gamers may no longer be as enticed by the type of games that publishers have been putting on store shelves. For the first time in several years, the industry did not have a breakout hit in 2005. Two releases from 2004's holiday season, Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, generated enough anticipation among hard-core gamers that they lined up to buy copies. 'Last season you had some events that drove people into stores,' said Josh Larson, director of industry products for GameSpot, which tracks interest in new games; he was referring to the last two months of 2004. 'There wasn't anything that filled that void,' in the 2005 holiday season, he added." Update: 02/08 18:07 GMT by Z : As much as I like the letter 'q', fixed title.

Because $SPORTGAME $year+1 isn't enough

[hattig]

Sorry, but with online gaming the updated team details, players, stats, etc, could easily be accessed by a game and used to update the relevant details.

People know this, and they aren't going to pay $50 for an update which is basically only that.

When they have a next generation console, they will buy the game however, because it will have better graphics. Again, they'll do this only once. That's if they bother with the next generation console.

Sports games are the worst offenders here, but it is hard to get excited about any sequel unless it brings something new to the scene. And this type of originality is what is lacking. It is hard to get excited by TheSameGame... 3!!! Think back to Tomb Raider. Each game was better than the previous one, adding features, until pretty much all the modern 3D platformer features were added. You can't get much further. There's only so many ways to jump/climb/etc. The current consoles don't have the power to get to the next level of immersiveness.

Again, Nintendo will bring out a whole ramp of '$Sequel Revolution' games, and they'll all have new controller features as well as new graphics, and they'll be bought by the boat load.

Re:loss of imagination

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that the reason that so many of us love classic games (other than nostalgia) is precisely the lack of hardware. Developers in earlier times were forced to be innovative, or "work with what you've got." These days photorealism is hyped up so much that it's become more important to just make pretty games, rather than anything creative or well-designed. Besides that, let's face it: alot of the good ideas have already been done. What else is left, writing on the screen with a stylus? Replacing the joysticks with a remote?

The real cause of sales drop is...

[BinaryOpty]

In my opinion the real cause of smaller sales is not because of people not caring about sequels, but because the consoles are reaching the end of their lifespan and a new one was released. the $400+ dollars one would spend to get an Xbox 360 could have usually been spent on 8 or so games. Of course, there weren't that many good games to purchase anyway because producers are winding down current gen support and evaluating whether or not they should port their game to new systems or just move it entirely over to the new system. So there's less games out, a new moneyhole just opened, and sales are down. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Call me if this happens 2 years from now when companies are back in the swing of things and then I'll believe the retards who buy Madden XX for every console they own and the people who when you mention "Halo 3" simultaneously orgasm and start to drool have suddenly dissappeared from the earth.

Re:Sequel FatiQue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs to take more reading classes.

He said: 'I've had people tell me that using "it's" instead of "its" (e.g. "that's not one of it's better qualities") is a typo'

Maybe it's the parentheses that are confusing you. 'I've had people tell me that using "it's" instead of "its" is a typo.' Is that more legible?

He was absolutely right. His point was that people are using "it's" incorrectly, as in the example. When called on it, they say "it's just a typo, lemme alone."

I don't know about you, but my typos don't usually include pressing extra keys with the wrong finger on the wrong hand and in the wrong row. It's not a typo, it's bad grammar. You can't chalk everything up to being a typo.

Hybrids

[caffeination]

Game industry, I hear your cries begging me personally for advice on what you should do about this problem. Fear not, for here is my wisdom:
We're sick of sequels, but we're not receptive to things that feel too new. You need to create hybrid games that use popular elements from existing related games. For example, most people don't play Grand Theft Auto $number because of a love of all things criminal. What keeps us coming back to those games is the overwhelming freedom they give you. We're not playing MMORPGs out of our love of Tolkienesque fantasy, but because MMORPG coop gameplay is fun.
We need network-capable, non-linear gameplay that puts trust in players, instead of making us choose "DEATHMATCH MODE", or "RACE MODE" before entering the world. Games need to evolve so that players can hang out and decide for themselves how they want to use the engine. Your job as game programmers should to provide us with tools to enjoy ourselves, not to write us a rigid schedule which inevitably leads to an "end point" when apparently at the whim of some game designer we are to stop playing.

Good sequels, and bad ones

[vasqzr]

Most of the greatest games ever are series

Megaman, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Ultima, Mario, PacMan, sequels are nothing new.