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Games Entertainment

The Worth of the GTA Franchise 128

Posted by Zonk from the what-is-it-worth-in-hooker-units? dept.
GameDailyBiz has a piece analyzing the value of the Grand Theft Auto Franchise for developer Rockstar and publisher Take-Two Entertainment. At something like $900 Million over the next five years, the franchise is almost 80% of Take-Two's market value. From the article: " ... While it's hard to blame Take-Two for its reliance on a blockbuster franchise, eventually gamers are likely to tire of the GTA formula, or the games will no longer feel fresh when placed side-by-side with titles that perhaps improve on that formula. To be fair, Take-Two has made attempts to diversify itself through acquisitions and new IP, but the publisher's value right now is heavily dependent upon GTA and that could be a double-edged sword for potential suitors, or investors in general. "
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The Worth of the GTA Franchise More

The Worth of the GTA Franchise

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  • Bah. (Score:5, Funny)

    by RandoX ( 828285 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:07PM (#14671660)
    GTA's not worth a cup of hot coffee.

  • GTA rocks! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:11PM (#14671692) Homepage Journal
    GTA, IMO, is one of the best games ever. Not just for it's content but for it's gameplay. It is open ended in ways other games only wish they could be. I'd love to see Take Two team up with someone like Square to product a really open ended RPG style game that has a Final Fantasy feel and GTA's attitude. Something for us big kids. I think GTA itself is destined to become a great online game. City of Villians wants to be but doesn't have what it takes but I think GTA could do it because it's already open ended and fun. They just have to make it multiplayer which doesn't seem to much of a stretch for the game. You don't need to be the hero in GTA so the stories work better for the masses than in a game like Final Fantasy online. Gang wars, lone gunmen, etc could all be a lot of fun.

    • Re:GTA rocks! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:18PM (#14671754)
      I'd love to see Take Two team up with someone like Square to product a really open ended RPG style game that has a Final Fantasy feel and GTA's attitude.

      I think what makes GTA fun is that it is leaps and bounds ahead of other real life simulators. If you take something that engrossing and then replace "kill all the hatians" and "shoot up the mafia mansion" with "find my fish" and "deliver this block of wood to the next town" quests, it'll quickly dull :(
      • Progress Quest [progressquest.com] much?

        Xogkraev, 76th level Hunter-Stranger, Double Wookie

      • Progress Quest [progressquest.com] is all about "find my fish" and "deliver this block of wood to the next town" and it's never gotten boring. Maybe that's because one of my quests was to "placte the fire giants" and the next was to "exterminate the fire giants."
      • You could give it a theme though without making it less realistic. That's the whole point. Most online RPG's are BORING AS HELL because they give you stupid little tasks to do and the game isn't much fun if you're not doing those tasks and the tasks themselves are usually more repetitive and frustrating than fun. You should be able to have open ended, basically pointless, fun. Get in fights, pillage, kill, steal, etc or if you enjoy it more form a citizen police force and go around catching people pillaging
        • Hell they could make three distinct types of themes, the Regualar GTA guy (criminal, builds criminal orgs) The Law (this would have to be new as the cops in previous GTA's have either been bumbling or "evil") And then some kind of mix between the two....so that in theory not only would it be the greatness of openended GTAness...but you could move around the ethical spectrum

          Oh and PS love the idea about player made quests, I always have thought that would be a great way to build community and I guess I don't
    • Forget Multiplayer... what about making it massively multiplayer?

      Wait... that'd be a bad idea. You'd end up with a lot of griefers running around sniping people.

      FYI - there's already an online multiplayer game for GTA: SA http://www.mtavc.com/ [mtavc.com] is an online racing game :O)

    • Re:GTA rocks! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Max Threshold ( 540114 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:51PM (#14672029)
      GTA isn't really that open-ended. It's just that crashing cars and killing cops and prostitutes never gets old.

      • Re:GTA rocks! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @03:25PM (#14672342) Homepage Journal
        That too. Still it lets you run around and do quite a lot without any real goal. More so than say Quake.

      • Re:GTA rocks! (Score:2, Insightful)

        by 4D6963 ( 933028 )
        Ever heard about stunting? A whole lot of people use GTA to make stunts in them and make videos out of them.

        Actually I knew well what I'm talkin about since I'm doing a video too (to be released around when the next GTA comes out), and that's pretty much all I'm doing in GTA.

        Was what what the game was designed to do? Was it really meant to be such a great stunting game? I doubt it, and that's what's cool about GTA, you can find it uses that the game wasn't designed for, and that you might call open-ended

        • Well, obviously the designers had stunting in mind a bit, which is why they stuck a number of ramps about, as well as "insane stunt" bonuses.

          I agree stunters have pushed the envelope.

          I love the one video that has an intermission that gets the cops to do lots of stupid stuff, usually ending up with them in the water, either in their car or not...

    • Re:GTA rocks! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:55PM (#14672070)
      A GTA style RPG is what I'm after, too. Kind of how the last two Zelda games had lots of little nooks and crannies to go and find stuff. Maybe Grand Theft Auto - Hyrule? ;-) I like exploring the back alleys and hidden canyons of well designed game worlds.

      The wonderful thing about GTA3 and onward is that in addition to a good game, the game world is a fun *toy* to just mess about with. I got obsessed in GTA-SA with capturing gang turf. There was dozens of ways to pick a fight with rival gangs and execute the assault (landing a helicopter on some homies was a good one).

      • I got obsessed in GTA-SA with capturing gang turf.

        So you capture all the turf and are finally glad it's all over.
        Then you get kicked out of the city, and have to re-capture it all again :(
        • Thats even better...bitches took my turf...makes it more satisfying...I think i'm on my 4-5th playthrough this time i'm going for the 100%, and this is the only GTA that hasn't been more fun to cheat...though running from the cops with the jetpack is very fun, but nothing beats getting in the back of a pickup, scaring the driver, then sitting in the back shooting people while the cops chase you.

      • Grand Theft Auto - Hyrule?

        Grand Theft Triforce ?

      • I love Zelda for what it is, but all the nooks and crannies feel very planted....you get the feeling Hyrule wouldn't exist withou a guy link to run around in it, but GTAs' worlds seem much closer to "living breathing" cities...
  • I think we're starting to see the inevitable dilution of the GTA franchise. GTASA was a good game, but I'm not sure really how much further they can go with the same idea over and over. It's not enough to have better graphics and stuff, they need to evolve the gameplay, and not just in minor tweaks. I know the prospect of GTA LCS was not enough to get me to buy a PSP, because it didn't really sound like anything new.

    • Remember London? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:21PM (#14671774)
      It's not enough to have better graphics and stuff, they need to evolve the gameplay, and not just in minor tweaks.

      I recall GTA: London 1969, which is still probably my favourite GTA game - simply because it let me play at being Michael Caine. I drove madly around that map on a variety of exciting heists all the while singing The Self-Preservation Society very loudly. And then got on a scooter and zipped around with some Mods. And then there were James Bond missions. All a wonderful parody of a certain era.

      It was too short. It was too easy. But damn, it was fun while it lasted.

      So: my proposal for the next instalment of GTA?

      GTA: Tokyo 2050.

      Just imagine it. GTA... except the most expensive sports cars can fly, and if you piss off the military then they turn up in tanks that transform into mecha. A futuristic GTA playing off anime and SF cliches, with fully destructible buildings - which will, of course, have been mysteriously repaired by the Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division when you come back to the same spot ten minutes later...

      • GTA: Endor, you can go around as a wookie and beat up Ewok hookers, run away from storm troopers etc.
      • great idea, but word on the street is that the next GTA will probably take place in london.
      • It might take place in Tokyo, but certainly not in 2050.

        There's been a thread on it on some popular GTA forum, and we all agreed to say that setting it in the future would suck.

        However, the destructible environnement thing that respawns magically is a good idea, although you're not the first one to have it ;)

        • Personally, I rather liked GTA2. But I don't think it sold particularly well, because the fictional SF cars didn't have anything like the character of the 60s stuff.

          So I agree, going back is better than forwards. I still maintain that San Andreas should have been set in the late 60s hippie era.

    • I think we're starting to see the inevitable dilution of the GTA franchise. GTASA was a good game, but I'm not sure really how much further they can go with the same idea over and over. It's not enough to have better graphics and stuff, they need to evolve the gameplay, and not just in minor tweaks.

      I think you're one iteration short of true. GTA:SA sold rather well simply by being "bigger, and with more vehicles". That on its own won't work again, but MTA:SA (multiplayer race mod) is a very popular mod

    • Re:I think GTA is getting watered down (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Golias ( 176380 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @03:29PM (#14672389)
      GTASA was a good game

      GTA:SA Sucked!!!!

      I loved the series up to that point, but then the first mission on GTA:SA began.

      You go through a way-to-long series of really boring cut-scenes (which sadky lack the humor of the preivious two games), and then you find yourself running from a rival drive-by game by riding a bicycle.

      Let's stop right there for a moment.

      The whole thing that made GTA so beautiful was the open-ended nature of it. If you wanted to take the "obvious" path to complete a mission, you could, but it encouraged lateral thinking.

      Classic example: In GTA-III, there's a mission where you are "supposed" to use a sniper rifle to assasinate a rival mob boss as he leaves his favorite restaurant. While there are a couple of vantage points from which you can pull this off, you can also steal a big vehicle (like a bus), go to HIS HOME, block the entry to his garage, and you lob grenades at his entire entourage while they try to pound their way through the driveway.

      Back to San Andreas.

      So, I'm on this mission where I gotta follow the other kids in my gang on a sad-looking bike, when I decide to say "screw this" and boost a car.

      The moment I step off the bike, I can't continue the mission! The little nav guide I was following fanishes, and an urgent "GET BACK ON THE BIKE" message flashes on the screen. To use any means of transport, other than the crappy bike I stole, is forbidden.

      Lame, lame, lame.

      It's especially lame when you consider that riding little bicycles is BORING. They are slow to begin with, and waaaay slower when you try to take a hill. (Getting off the bike and walking it up is not an option, even though it would sometimes be faster.)

      Then, if you want to be able to use these gay-ass bikes with any utility at all, or even if you want to run more than twenty paces or so without grabbing your knees and vomiting, you have to go to a gym and work out!

      Who the hell thought it would be fun to play a weight-training simulator???

      GTA used to be about being a clever, cold-blooded, hardened mafia goon who would joyride in hot cars and often had to McGuyver his way out of tight scrapes. That was the game I fell in love with.

      GTA:SA is about being a mush-mouthed, scrawny, out-of-shape, dead-broke loser thug who needs to do hours of pilates just to pedal a sissy-bar bike up a resivior embankment. Put up with hours and hours of this crap, and you don't get to infiltrate the mob or yakuza or anything nearly that cool... no, you get gain cred with a bunch of california street hoodlums. Yay.

      Their games are moving in the wrong direction. The game has become more rigid, less fun, and more reliant on cut-scenes to pad out a game with very little replay value. If this trend continues, their "franchise" will be worth less than that of Duke Nukem.

      IMHO, YMMV, yadda yadda yadda

      • Re:I think GTA is getting watered down (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Put up with hours and hours of this crap, and you don't get to infiltrate the mob or yakuza or anything nearly that cool... no, you get gain cred with a bunch of california street hoodlums.

        O RLY? Funny, last time I played, you do end up infiltrating the mob. Plus working with the Triads, some crazy hippy dude, and even a handful of missions for some mysterious CIA agent, etc.. All of which are a far cry from 'mush mouthed street hoodlums.' Either we played a different game, or you got bored and gave up befo

        • Either we played a different game, or you got bored and gave up before passing the first tenth or so of the game.

          The second one.

          Which tells you everything you need to know about how boring that game is.

          I finished the other two, and enjoyed every minute of it. With SA, I got tired of waiting for the fun to start after a few hours.
          • in the first few missions on GTA3 and Vice City, you start out doing stupid stuff, too.

            I didn't like how SA started out at all, because I'm more into the gangster rather than the gangsta.. but.. once i got through stealing rapper's rhymes for my fly friends, i started to enjoy the game a ton more. Except for flight school. Making the farking flight school mandatory would've had me quitting the game if I hadn't been able to download a saved game after that point. I was able to complete all the flying miss
            • Yeah flight school was really hard. But look at it from another perspective. When was the last time you accomplished a goal in a video game that made you feel proud of your achievement afterwards instead of fading into obscurity with every other easy run and gun mission?
              • i had several times with SA, where I just put the game away for a day or two, and came back to it, because i was having such a hard time with some of the missions.. i didn't feel bad about skipping flight school one bit, i tried it like 6 times a day for a week, and then went and dl'd a save game .. doh.

                now that i'm running thru GTA3 (this time I'll finish it.. some day) i kinda wanna go back through vice, too, and see if i can do Vice without cheating.. though i think the endgame in vice would be
                • How is it that people are angry that they can't run through a game without challenges...thats why games are starting to be crap now...no challenges...and GTA: SA...is still Ridiculous in how easy it is...the worst thing I had to worry about was my crappy 1st gen Xbox locking up. Now I have one of the ones that actually works and its fine...the flying is kinda disorienting at first...but its like any other game where you have to learn how to handle the vehicles...bah...if it was too easy you would be complai
                  • i'm not complaining that it was difficult, i'm complaining that it was -impossible- :P

                      Everyone I play against on MTA:SA that's any decent at flying, says that the only way you CAN fly is with a controller, instead of keyboard.. *shrug*
                • I'm surprised that some people had such a hard time with the flight school. The only thing I did for my flying missions is remap my keys so my attitude control would be done by the arrow keys, not split up for both hands. I had a much harder time trying to pass the last mission in the driving school than any of the flying missions (though Heli-Hell was a bitch).

                  Also, in vice-city, do yourself a favor and collect all the hidden items - that'll give you the chaingun at the mansion, and if you've got enough
            • Now there's a question...what the hell was CJ's motivation for helping out that dork who needed the rhymes? Everyone knew he was a posing idiot, but CJ does his bidding like the other guy had dirty pictures of him.
      • I agree they should have started your base strength/endurance level out higher, but the weight room aspect was fun in that if you did it, you got fun perks: you can pretty easily (maybe 30 minutes total of weight training, spread over a week) build yourself up to kill people with one hit with a blunt instrument, jump over cars with the bicycle, and pedal faster than many cars.

      • Some pros and cons of GTA:SA:

        + Bigger
        + CJ could swim and climb over walls. (and parachute) Swimming stopped boats from being deathtraps. Knee-high hedges no longer stopped you from running away when getting your ass kicked.
        + FPS style aiming (combined with auto aim). You could move while being ready to shoot at any moment.

        - Working out and eating. Nice idea to be able to customise your character, but was there any advantage to being morbidly obese or really scrawny? I just went to the gym for a few days to
        • There are straight "roads" between all the towns if you are prepared to include railroads in your assessment. Getting from LS to SF and back is a breeze along the rails whileas the road is a nightmare. Getting from LS to LV is pretty much straight north all the way on wide roads and if the slight dogleg along the route annoys you, you could always use the rail bridge. LV/SF is nice, straight wide roads all the way.
      • "Put up with hours and hours of this crap, and you don't get to infiltrate the mob or yakuza or anything nearly that cool... no, you get gain cred with a bunch of california street hoodlums. Yay."

        Wow. To those who played San Andreas more than an hour, here's how this post sounds:

        "Star Wars is just a stupid movie about a couple of droids walking in the desert. Sand, hot weather, bitching about needing an oil bath. What a stupid ass scifi movie. It didn't even have spaceships!"

    • GTASA was a good game, but I'm not sure really how much further they can go with the same idea over and over. It's not enough to have better graphics and stuff, they need to evolve the gameplay, and not just in minor tweaks.

      Well, given processing power, and future media with larger storage, it has plenty more iterations left.

      We could have full sized real cities, perhaps even a country where you can explore. This could include buildings, tunnels, subways, sewers, etc.

      That alone without any additional gamepl
      • well, we had an entire state to cover with SA, and unless they get you an airport where you can just board a plane and be at your destination in a real life minute or so, I don't think I want to play an entire country in this scale :D
    • I'm not sure really how much further they can go with the same idea over and over.

      I guess it's fair to say that the PSP version amounts to watering down, because it was sort of a "lite" version. But I don't think anyone was expecting them to beat their old games on a portable device. That's really an apples and oranges comparison. The innovation is clearly going to come on the new generation of home consoles, or on PCs.

      And the ways that they can expand the franchise are pretty obvious. Some of th
      • I for one don't WANT to be a unique character.

        I hate managing my character like a damn dressup doll. Just give me something fun to do, don't make me worry about how I look doing it, or if I've spent enough time in the gym...

        Plus, to really pull that off, they'd likely need to go back to a silent main character...or else have a very limited set of voices.
      • The most surprising thing about the PSP version is that it has a number of features that the previous versions do not. Most importantly, it has proper multi-player, but it also has a number of generic side missions that are brand new. Unfortunately, it seems based more on VC than on SA as you can't swim, jump fences, etc.
  • Into an online massive world, where you strive to be a gang leader / mafia leader / etc against other real players. Think GTA:SA Gang Wars, but with real people, real gangs, real gang members.

    Yeah, gang == MMORPG guild, deal with it.

    You could be a hick gang leader in the boonies. You could run a business pimping, or selling drugs/etc.

    Of course, the car is the central point. Getting cars will be harder, none of this 'run up and get car' business. You'll need to learn how to do it. You'll start off on a bike,
    • The problem with a game like that is the inevitable 12-year-old-running-a-brothel phoenomina like what happened in the Sims Online. Except for EA had a defense of "This wasn't supposed to happen!", whereas Rockstar will be pretty fucked and the resulting lawsuits and scandal will come barreling at them with great force.

      Not that they're not used to that.
      • 12 year olds shouldn't be playing the damn game.

        Certainly the next GTA game, online or not, will be very clearly labelled 18. The install will make this very clear too, and disclaim all liabilities for underage players playing the game. Maybe Take Two could make a campaign for parental responsibility at the launch as well, to draw off the inevitable 14 year old who shot someone in real life claiming that GTA did it.

        On a side note, how can an unrated post be modded 'overrated'?
        • Yeah, they shouldn't be playing the game. But somewhere, somehow, one of them will, and when the story breaks, no one's gonna say "Well, his parents should have done their job." Instead, its gonna be "OMG WTF Rockstar is teh evil and is corrupting our poor precious childrens' fragile minds!" and people like Jack Thompson will go on CNN talking about how the entire problem is caused solely by the game developers and we need to have laws requiring mandatory lobotomies for anyone in the gaming industry.

          Really,
    • Getting cars will be harder, none of this 'run up and get car' business. You'll need to learn how to do it. You'll start off on a bike, try to join a gang ... eventually get a car, you've got to look after it, or you'll lose it in an accident.

      Screw that!

      The main thing that made the GTA series fun is the "drive it like you stole it... because you did" recklessness of the whole thing. If swiping cars isn't every bit as easy as stealing apples from a neighbor's tree, then the game has no reason to exist anymo
      • If swiping cars isn't every bit as easy as stealing apples from a neighbor's tree, then the game has no reason to exist anymore.

        The natural price of cars in GTA is zero: anything you can get for free, you will get for free.
      • I wouldn't mind it if, like they did in GTA3, the people fought for their cars a little bit more. In GTA3, if you ganked a Mafia Sentinel, even before the Mafia hated you, the guy would draw his gun and blast you a couple times before you got out of his range. Sometimes if you didn't get out of there fast enough, the original owner would take it back. And the funniest thing, I was sitting on a timed mission in GTA3, waiting for something or other to happen, and a normal citizen just walked up to my Senti
    • Into an online massive world, where you strive to be a gang leader / mafia leader / etc against other real players. Think GTA:SA Gang Wars, but with real people, real gangs, real gang members.

      The problem is Rockstar North have basically no experience making MMO's, and very limited experience making online games at all (Wild Metal being one exception - even GTA:LCS was ported by Rockstar Leeds). They have steadfastly resisted adding any real online modes to the GTA series, claiming each time that they can't
    • Into an online massive world, where you strive to be a gang leader / mafia leader / etc against other real players. Think GTA:SA Gang Wars, but with real people, real gangs, real gang members.

      Yeah, gang == MMORPG guild, deal with it.

      You could be a hick gang leader in the boonies. You could run a business pimping, or selling drugs/etc.

      Of course, the car is the central point. Getting cars will be harder, none of this 'run up and get car' business. You'll need to learn how to do it. You'll start off on a

  • Anyone know when/if a new GTA game is coming out and what it will be about?
      • I don't know about it being in just London? London is about the same size as LA and SA had LA, SF and Vagas in it.
        • Those cities weren't built to scale though. They just placed it in three different settings like that for variety. If they try to build London to scale, say on a grander scale than the getaway, then there will be plenty of variety for everyone. You just have to see SF, Vegas, and LA as neighbourhoods of GTA:SA. If London will be the new setting, there will be plenty of neighbourhoods and variety to keep you interested.

    • Re:Next GTA game? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:29PM (#14671830) Journal
      The next game should be "GTA: Minding your own business".

      Instead of starting off as a smalltime thug trying to make it big, you're an upper-middle class guy driving home from work to his nice house, wife, dog, and 2.5 kids when suddenly some smalltime thug yanks you out of your Lexus at a stoplight and speeds off. You aren't going to take this lying down, are you? After all, you're 40, underappreciated, and the guy in the next cubicle over keeps smacking his gum all day long. You're overdue for your midlife crisis, and it's time to snap.

      You're going to take on that gang single handedly. Your PDA's got a lock on the lojack signal, and no smalltime thug is a match for your fearsome arsenal of staplers, tps reports, and the powerful LAW(yer) rocket. You're getting that car back, if it's the last thing you do.

      Besides, you've still got $15k of payments to go on that baby.

  • As much as I loved GTA3 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by guspasho ( 941623 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:19PM (#14671758)
    I couldn't bring myself to spend the time to finish Vice City, or get more than a few hours into San Andreas. They didn't seem like anything new, just more.

  • Franchises are OK (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:33PM (#14671871)
    "While it's hard to blame Take-Two for its reliance on a blockbuster franchise, eventually gamers are likely to tire of the GTA formula, or the games will no longer feel fresh when placed side-by-side with titles that perhaps improve on that formula."


    Well, iD seems to be barrelling along just fine on the strength of the same game. Epic is doing Gears of War but that's probably the first non-Unreal game to come out of them in the past 8 years. (To be fair, both of these companies, to my knowledge, derive or derived income by licensing their game engine).

    McDonald's seems to be doing OK only selling hamburgers.

    Take Two's reliance on a blockbuster franchise is only bad if having one bad game can crumble their company. If they can publish a GTA game that sells only "OK" (say, 1 million copies) and still run the business profitably, then they're fine. Otherwise, they're a bloated company with few cash reserves. GTA is not the problem in that case.

    • McDonald's seems to be doing OK only selling hamburgers

      There's a big difference between selling a hamburger and selling a piece of entertainment media. People are more willing to come back to get the same thing to eat than they are willing to play the same kind of game that eats up hours of their free time.

      First of all, we need to eat, we don't need to play GTA.

      Second, eating at McDonald's is a lot less of a time sink :)

    • Franchises are OK to a point (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wandazulu ( 265281 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @03:13PM (#14672233)
      ...which is what I think they were getting at. I bought every id game from wolfenstein3d to ...wolfenstein redux. I did not buy doom 3 nor quake 4 and have no desire to do so; I'm just not interested in either one anymore. Walk, get spooked, shoot, repeat. Graphics look awesome but it seems to me just a rehash of the games I played in the early 90s.

      Same thing with GTA...GTA 3 was fun, Vice City was *really* fun, SA was neither here nor there for me. Besides, where can they go with it?

      I went nuts with Unreal Tournament, even designing some levels, but UT3 and 4 didn't impress (why they take away the *best* weapon in the game (snipers rifle) is beyond me). I still play the original UT because it "felt right". Years after the fact and I'm still haunting the halls of CTF-November.

      The only franchises that I've seen work over time are the "story"-type ones of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and the like. If Doom had a story (I mean a *real* story, a la Half-Life) I might be interested to see "what happens next", but they didn't do that.

      Sadly, the one true franchise that relies on a continuous story, Shenmue, doesn't seem like it'll see the light of day.

      People will come back for more if there's a reason to come back for more. In the age of OpenGL-based desktops, dual core processors, gigabytes of ram, SLI video cards, etc. etc., graphics are no longer the "more" and any franchise that doesn't see that is doomed.
      • Same thing with GTA...GTA 3 was fun, Vice City was *really* fun, SA was neither here nor there for me. Besides, where can they go with it?

        I agree with you, mostly. I thought all the GTA's for PS2 were pretty fun in their own rights. (I didn't really like Vice City as much as the other two because the land was so flat and streets seemed a lot more cramped). All in all, though, they were the same game with a change of scenery. What I liked about San Andreas was exploring the countryside, and finding the

      • ..which is what I think they were getting at. I bought every id game from wolfenstein3d to ...wolfenstein redux. I did not buy doom 3 nor quake 4 and have no desire to do so; I'm just not interested in either one anymore. Walk, get spooked, shoot, repeat. Graphics look awesome but it seems to me just a rehash of the games I played in the early 90s.

        Gotta disagree on this point... For me, having played the original Doom and Doom2 back when they originally came out made Doom 3 even more enjoyable for me. For
      • Most of iD's games are, in fact, intended to be merely tech demos for the engine, which they license to other developers as their primary source of income. A number of other developers follow this model as well. That the tech demos usually tend to be good enough (if not always original enough) to stand on their own right as commercial games is more of a fringe benefit.
    • McDonald's seems to be doing OK only selling hamburgers.

      No. They now sell alot more than just hamburgers. Remember a few years ago they were losing huge amounts of their profits and growth (probably around the time Upsize Me was released). Then they came up with the profound idea of giving people a healthier alternative, ala McSalad and McPiece of Fruit or whatever they call their new menus.

      people do get bored, but often they are slow to realise they're bored. It will happen eventually to GTA.
    • McDonald's seems to be doing OK only selling hamburgers.

      In the Fifties Mcdonalds did ok selling only hamburgers. And fries. And Shakes.

      Now they sell burgers, burritos, sausage sandwiches, pancakes, chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches, chicken strips, steak & cheese, salads, yogurt parfaits, ice cream, milkshakes, sundaes, cones, pie....
  • This is true, but I kind of thought the same thing after GTA 2. I figured since GTA 1 and 2 were already so controversial they would never be able to top themselves and if they did, they wouldn't be able to use good graphics to do it. I was proven wrong when GTA3 came out. At first I wasn't too accepting of the new GTA series, but after playing it for a while I loved it! GTA:SA goes down in my book for the best game ever. But it is definitely time for a major revamp of their engine - particularly the w

  • Opposite Problem... Not enough of games... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RexRhino ( 769423 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @03:32PM (#14672418)
    Games just aren't long enough, don't have enough content, or are too short between the sequals.

    When I play a game, I have to develop a whole new skill set. Each game has it's own physics, rules, key-configurations, etc. ... Once I spend the time developing a basic proficiency in a game, I want to enjoy as much content in that game world as possible.

    Most of the games I enjoy, I could play them for years without getting bored, so long as someone kept developing new content. My favorite games are GTA series, or Morrowind, or games with big open worlds and lots of content. But if a FPS had a subscription services where I could purchase new levels each week (and especially if it was all part of some continuing story), it would take an extremly long time to get bored.

    And I think a lot of people agree with me. Look at MMPOGs... people like them because of the human interaction of course... but people also like them because the game content never runs out (once you complete the quests, you can play meta-games such as guild politics, trading for profit, and there will also be expansions coming along)
  • "eventually gamers are likely to tire of the GTA formula, or the games will no longer feel fresh"

    Umm, so the, carjack, drive, shoot/hit, smack ho formula could get old and tired?!? *gasp* no, really?!?

    For cripes sake GTA has been old and tired for some time to everyone but pre-pubescent boys who aren't really worried about much more than guns, boobies, and "flogging the bishop"... well, I guess that describes most of /. too... but I digress.
  • I think that as long as we live in a repressed society and form of entertainment that allows the opressed to strike back at the opressors will sell quite well, be it roasting pigs with a flamethrower, or dropping corrupt politicians with a sniper rifle.... games like GTA will lose popularity as soon as our government and society quit repressing our base urges to use drugs, engage in prostitution, and such through laws.... vice is not a crime, it is an affront to the basic concepts of freedom, and in a apath
  • When are we going to see MMOGTA? It would be an awesome idea and would probably generate a lot of extra revenue, given the general addictiveness of other MMOGs.
  • I don't know about you guys, but since the early Ultima Online days, I havn't been able to play a single player game all the way through. I just get sick of puzzles that seem artificially hard/annoying. Nothing, in my book, stands up to the challenge of facing other people.

    GTA Online could be fun though. "Only 3 more dead hookers and I can level up!"

  • Am I the only one who still likes GTA? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I didn't think I'd ever hafta defend GTA on slashdot, but from the responses it seems like more people are dumping on the game than supporting it. Or maybe there's just some vicious moderators out there :P

    At any rate, Vice City was a huge improvement on GTA3 - the way you could purchase property and generate income. Money actually meant something in this game and so mugging someone on the street or holding up the pizza joint actually helped you to progress through. As per usual, the story was well-script

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