Yearly Iterations Of Games By David

They've now become a common staple of the video games industry, but are yearly iterations of franchises a good idea? Or do they stifle talent?

I suppose the most obvious answer would be yes they do (though I don't necessarily agree with this). Companies, probably most notably Activision stumble upon a good idea, or popular game, then churn out title after title until there’s no market left. Just look at Rock Band and Guitar Hero. These games were initially very popular and most of us have at least one plastic guitar lying around gathering dust in a corner, but just recently we've seen a massive decline in sales as the market either reaches saturation point, or people have just become sick of the games. This lead to Harmonix recently being sold off for only fifty Dollars.

The most notable yearly iteration of them all, Call of Duty, has now spawned vast numbers of games, and now we’re surely reaching the saturation point of the genre, and this can only be a bad thing for its fans, the genre is now becoming very stale, with Call of Duty resting on it’s laurels, and it’s competitors only trying to make carbon copies. This will lead to an inevitable drop in sales, and as a result developer support will drop as well, naturally leading to less investment and talent being pumped into the genre.

I also feel that the yearly releases of sports games are also interesting. It’s well known that developers have plenty of ideas to implement on future releases, but they hold them back so that they have something to add next year, surely depriving it’s customers of the ultimate experience?

There are, however, solid pros to this approach that some people may not have thought about, and the haters of these iterations also need to take a look at themselves.

Today we live in a consumer driven economy, where supply and demand is paramount. These titles obviously sell, so why shouldn't companies release these games? At the end of the day they're there to make money, and not sit around for the fun of it. If you don't like it, vote with your wallets, and don't buy the games, but more often than not, these games are actually quite good, even with the small incremental improvements.

I do feel that although the yearly iterations can become tiresome and frustrating, especially at the beginning of 2011 as we are looking at one of the best years ever in gaming, most of what we see are sequels. The yearly iteration has a very important role to play in gaming today. The revenue that these games provide may push publishers towards releasing more of the same type of game over and over again, but it also gives the developer a massive cash pile that they can invest in high budget new IPs. If it wasn't for games like Madden of Fifa, we certainly wouldn't have seen games like Dead Space, or at least not with the polish and high production values that the game has today and as a result we may have had a watered down version with poor visuals and gameplay. Making us much poorer for the experience.

However, that philosophy is only effective if developers actually carry it out. Sure we have new IPs, but are there enough? Or are new games becoming too much of a risk? Singularity came out and was widely well received by the press, but with little publisher marketing support, the game got little coverage. When was the last time Nintendo produced a new IP?

So yes, enjoy your rant about publishers running games into the ground, its annoying and we all hate it, but sit down and enjoy LA Noir and give those ten copies of open world sandbox games sitting on your shelf next to GTA a tickle under the chin, because they've played their part brilliantly.