Irate Gamers V Part 2: The Bottom Line
All gamers depend on publishers to give the metaphorical "green light" to each and every game they have in development. In this day and age publishers are an absolute necessity. They hold the purse strings, funding projects under them and monitoring progress as they see fit. Without publishers, the majority of today's games wouldn't be able to feature the stunning visuals and whiz-bang effects that we have all come to expect, let alone the high production values gained by a competent debugging team. Developers just wouldn't have the funding or stability to create games of the level that players have come to expect and demand.
However, publishers aren't as innocent as they appear. Many abuse their authority to ensure that projects (games in development) are mainstream enough to appeal to the masses, stay within a set budget, and hit shelves on a set date, more often than not giving no regard to the quality of the product they ship out. Canceling projects deemed "too risky" or requiring developers to alter their vision to fit a target age group or gender stereotype are also commonplace for many publishers. With so few original and innovative games on store shelves these days, is it really out of the question to wonder what the gaming world would be like if there were no bottom line? We need to ask ourselves why publishers release the same old thing time and time again.
Surely, if there were no bottom line there would be many more original titles out there. Without the fear of termination or ridicule, developers would be more open to going in directions never before imagined. Cash-ins, rehashes, and copycats would give way to imagination, fun, and innovation. There would be more games like Viewtiful Joe, Pikmin, Jet Grind Radio, and Animal Crossing. All of which push their respective genres to new levels, with Animal Crossing going so far as to create its own. If developers were set free, originality and gameplay would become the defining factors in the judgment of a game, taking the place of the superficial importance gamers put on visual splendor. But, alas, this is not the case. Very few titles these days are anything more than sequel upon sequel, rehash upon rehash. Originality and innovation are nothing but a dying breed.
I am not against the concept of a sequel though. I'm all for seeing new and exciting sequels like Pikmin 2 or fresh re-imaginations of classic games like Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. In fact, many times, a sequel (or prequel) will allow developers to build upon and refine the core originality of its predecessor. There is nothing wrong with this. It is the use (and subsequent abuse) of a franchise as a cash cow that bothers me to no ends.
Majesco's (a publisher) port of the classic Super Nintendo games Earthworm Jim to the Game Boy Advance is a prime example of milking a franchise for all its worth. Majesco cared nothing about retaining the quality of the original Shiny developed classic it had bought the rights to. The company created a brand new (and inexperienced) development team to port the title to the GBA. What could have been an honest recreation of the original Earthworm Jim became nothing more than a mockery of its former self. The animation was bad, the control horrid, and, to top it all off, no one seemed to realize or care that perhaps a "save" feature should have been added, being that they were porting it to a handheld system and all.
As if Majesco (this time with newly created Super Empire as developer) hadn't done enough damage the first time through, the company ruined yet another classic Earthworm Jim adventure with the port of Earthworm Jim 2 to the GBA. With newly created developer Super Empire at the helm, the companies showed just how low some publishers are willing to go to increase profits. The game played even worse than the first Earthworm Jim port and was full of bugs and glitches, pretty much rendering it unplayable. Examples of publisher greed and irreverence like this are all too plentiful.
Then there is the sports genre, where nearly everything is a sequel and little is original. Is it really worth the fifty dollars to buy a new version of Madden football each and every year? Sure each new edition is different from its predecessors, but overall what you are getting is much more of the same. Updated team rosters, slightly improved graphics, and a "new feature" every other year is pretty much all that separates the new from the not so new. If Electronic Arts (EA) desired, it could release a truly new version of its sports titles once every few years, with roster updates being available in the off seasons. Yet this hasn't happened. EA would much rather make consumers pay full price for a new version of an old game. Their plan is working quite well too. For each and every yearly edition of Madden football sells in the millions. As a result, teams of developers the world over are essentially forced to develop the same game year upon year. This must be a great thing for the gaming industry. I mean the bottom line is money, right?
Even non-sports games get the obligatory "new features" slapped onto them almost every year. For an illustration, look no further than Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Though innovative and original in its initial installment, the series has been slowly deteriorating into something nearly as absurd as EA's yearly sports games ever since. How many new levels and customization options will it take before gamers finally realize that they could have just as much fun if they dug up the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater? From the looks of things, it will be quite some time. For, I can guarantee that until the lack of innovation and originality hits the bottom line, the publisher Activision will continue to churn out more of the same.
Even Nintendo is guilty of milking its franchises, though to a lesser degree. The company develops no shortage of innovative games, but few of them are entirely original. From Luigi's Mansion for the GameCube to Wario Ware for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo has shown that it cares about developing innovative titles. However, virtually every Nintendo game published over the past few years has been based upon a preexisting game series. Do fans really want a Donkey Konga or is Nintendo simply trying to ensure sales of an innovative conga drum game by slapping the Donkey Kong license onto it? I would venture to say its the latter.
another characteristic many Nintendo games have in common these days is that a whole lot of them are ports. GBA fans have been graced with four Super Mario games since the handheld systems launch, yet none of them have been anything more than ports of old Super Nintendo (SNES) games. Now there is nothing wrong with re-releasing classic games to a generation that may not have had a chance to experience them, but Nintendo has gone about it in the most selfish manner possible. Instead of opting to bundle three or four classic Mario games into an All-Stars bundle like it did back on the SNES, Nintendo has decided to charge gamers the full thirty-dollar price tag for each and every title. Has new content been added to justify such an expensive price tag? Not in the least. all four GBA Mario titles are direct ports of their original 16-bit counterparts, with the same (small) multiplayer game packed into each version.
The story doesnt end there though. Nintendo has also begun to port several of its few original Game Boy Advance titles to the GameCube. Both Wario Ware and The Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords (an additional multiplayer game packed in with a port of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the GBA) are headed to a GameCube near you. While there will be notable differences between the GCN and GBA versions, the core concept remains the same. Nintendo is developing more and more low risk titles with each passing day and shows no signs of slowing. at least, not until it begins to hit their bottom line.
Gamers depend on publishers to fund and endorse the games we all know and love. Without them, the quality of games we have come to demand wouldn't be possible. Yet, with so few original and innovative games on the market these days, is it really out of the question to wonder what the gaming world would be like if there was no bottom line? We could ask ourselves why publishers release the same old thing time and time again or, instead, do we need to ask ourselves a different question. Would publishers release the same old thing time and time again if we didnt buy into it?
Sometimes even the unbroken needs fixing.
Have publisher angst of your own you would like to share? agree that publishers really do hinder game development by publishing by the bottom line? Think Mark and Jeff are a bunch of complainers who need to get a life? Send us your letters or questions at jeff@n-sider.com. If we get some interesting ones, perhaps there will be a follow-up reader response article. So send your thoughts!