I think it's the opposite of the statement.True. One would think that would mean a company would try to branch out to all demographics. Like I said, larger fanbase, more money. A wise company, by that logic, would be one that doesn't alienate an existing fanbase, because an existing fanbase is still a fanbase. Those are people who are familiar enough with what ever product you're selling to be a loyal customer. One would think the true goal, if a company INDEED seeks more money, is to keep their existing fanbase(because scaring them away means loosing valuable customers) AS WELL AS reaching out to new fans.
It's not "Companies Exist to make money".
It's more like "Companies need money to exist".
I'm still mad as hell with EA for killing Westwood studios. Westwood had the heart and the soul of the Command & Conquer series and then EA raped it with sacrileges like Tiberium Wars and Tiberium Twilight. The two were still enjoyable games with cool gameplay. The story, however, sucked major bollocks.
Sometimes people act like it can't be done. Either one way or the other, and you have to feed the old fanbase to the fire as a blood sacrifice if you want to gain the admiration of new fans. I think that's a load of shit. You can appeal to both old and new. I think it might be harder to do so, and might take more effort(certainly more effort than mindlessly throwing one fanbase to the lions and marking a big "X" on an older franchise canon just to start anew from scratch and act like you have no baggage), but it's entirely possible. Might take a little blood, sweat and tears, but anything of true quality does. Does seem strange, like the points I made above, people seem so much more content in the quick sacrifice and reboot than trying to do something different. It's always "reboot this" and "reboot that!". IMO, reboot is the lazy way to "do something new" without doing something "new". It's basically, "I have a great NEW idea, but I'm too much of a pussy to apply it to a new IP, so I'm going to find an existing franchise, kill it and restart it, but make it MY way, revolving around MY idea! Because, even if my idea sucks, the recognition of the familiar franchise name will be enough to sell my idea without the gamble of the 'new IP' thing.".
I don't think you get it, TheCruelAngel. It's all about The Big, Evil Corporation. The Big, Evil Corporation. Remember that.
There are no people; it's only fat-cat swindlers.
All too often I see people bitching and moaning about stuff but then they grudgingly fork over the dollars anyway. So long as people do that, companies will continue to do stupid shit as long as it makes them money.It's like, if you can literally take a shit and discover that people will step on each others' faces just to buy it off you, what insentive do you have to sell anything other THAN shit? If you can sell your own steaming pile of dookie and people love it, you're going to sell shit. If you can cut corners and release a crappy product, and people still praise you for it, why even feel the need to change? People are buying your stuff, are praising it despite it being bad. That's all that matters. There's no strive for excellence if the general consensus lowers it's standards. But like I said, soak society into this way of thinking and, sooner or later, without change to show newer generations there's "another way", this "way" becomes an inevitability. As so "all believe", then "it is so".
So gamers are stuck between a rock and a hard place: Do you choose not to support a company like that? Or do you swallow your pride and buy their game and try your best not to think about it?Of course, fandom has no qualms about putting each other under the stress as result of this. You have no right to rant about a bad game unless you've played it, but playing it means you either have to buy it or rent it, which is aiding the funding of these bad games. And a lot of those bastards love to rub your face in it either way.
It's a tough call.
It isn't just the game companies that are bowing down to mediocrity just to make sales.
Look at the movie industry: sequels, threequels, prequels, spin offs, edited versions of existing stories, remakes, etc.
Is it going to change? Not while there's a gross amount of profit to be made. Basically, I'm trying to say industry giants are slow to move, there's a lot of "I wanna do this too because they made a lot of money!" and just plain greed. The little guys are who we are probably going to need to look out for in the future in terms of innovation and birthing new genres. And I do recommend supporting them with your praise and cash! ;DOh, I found myself supporting indie games far more this generation than big-studio games. I find it interesting that my joy in this past generation has Indie projects which, I personally feel, encompass the spirit of what it means to be a "gamer" and what it means to "innovate gaming" in general.
It isn't just the game companies that are bowing down to mediocrity just to make sales.It IS kinda strange because people kinda make it a point that innovation is really a gamble. Every choice one makes is a gamble, and let's not try to pretend that every sequel, prequel or reboot has done well. I would say the gamble is as fair as it is with a new project, 50/50. Either it's going to do well or it's going to bomb, franchise name or no-name aside. I would even say, in some cases, it would harm the franchise name. If you release a movie or game as a reboot of a classic franchise, then it does poorly, where does all that hope of reinvigorating a long dead property by breathing new life into it to(hopefully, propel it back into the mainstream spotlight) go? It's dead. If people hated the reboot, no chance they are going to want a sequel to the reboot. There goes all that planning, and because the new audience will associate the reboot's failure to the franchise as a whole, better open the vault and toss the property back in, because it's not going to be a while until we revisit it again.
Look at the movie industry: sequels, threequels, prequels, spin offs, edited versions of existing stories, remakes, etc.
If you offer something new to the market, it is either people like your innovation or most likely, you will be shoved to the side to make way for the works of the big companies.
I feel, in the past decade or so, everybody's suddenly gotten more soft-skinned and afraid of everything. It's like we've entered the "over-protective mother" era.
I don't think you get it, TheCruelAngel. It's all about The Big, Evil Corporation. The Big, Evil Corporation. Remember that.
There are no people; it's only fat-cat swindlers.
We are in that era. Society now fears failure. Innovations even in other industries are fewer compared to several decades ago.
Yeah you're missing out if you skip Final Fantasy 9. It's the last hoorah for traditional non sci-fi style Final Fantasy. It was originally going to be a spinoff but the quality was such that they made it a numbered game. Plus I think Sakaguchi once said it was his favorite in the series, though that could have just been for advertising.
Seriously though great characters, touching story. Some of the best artwork and music on the PSX. Worth playing to say the least.
I hated Necro(Did I get that right?) though, he seemed to just popped out of nowhere, and said I'm the boss, beat me!blitzball was great. never beat shinryuu :::::snaps fingers
9 was awesome for me because of 2 things.... Vivi, and the Black Waltz! Okay, maybe 3, the Bahamut Alexander fight was awesome.....
I hated FF13 though. And while I liked some of FFX, most of it was meh. Gotta love the To Zanarkand theme though.
Final Fantasy X OST : To Zanarkand (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-0G_FI61a8#)
I also really liked Lost Odyssey, but I never beat it. I kept getting stuck at one place or another then I stop. Can't say the same for Blue Dragon though.
Sakaguchi really is a missing element from the FF series, and I think long time fans can really feel it when they play through the games.It's funny, because I see a lot of people online saying the same thing, "Make and release games the fans are asking for, don't make games NOBODY'S asking for!". I don't think anybody truly wanted a FFXIII-2, because the end of the first one was pretty closed-ended(even though certain characters were rendered into a specific "object"). You'd think, logically, if a game does well(FFXIII, for being bad, did alright), the next logical step(since FFXIV was obviously going to be MMORPG) would be to focus on a sequel to the SERIES, not to FFXIII specifically. I think the "direct sequel" thing was what really started to annoy me. FFX-2 being the first one to churn my stomach. It just felt like an obvious sellout move, in the way Disney did in the late Eisner years when we got crap like Cinderella 2 and Aladdin 3. Who really wanted Lady and the Tramp 6?! I don't give a friggin DAMN about Ariel's daughter. For me, when the original movie ends, finito, that's it. Move on to the next new movie. Same for Final Fantasy. Square, IMO, needs someone to shake up their sensabilities like when Eisner left Disney. Someone to come in and try to put the pieces back together. I think Wada's one of the main culprit hindering Square.
And yeah, while The Last Story isn't the end all be all RPG experience, it has so much charm and character that you really can't help but love it. :)
Also, Square Enix is posting bad numbers again (http://www.joystiq.com/2013/02/05/square-enix-posts-62-million-nine-month-net-loss-net-sales-up/). =\ I wonder how this bodes for (imo) development hell Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
I would argue, to an extent, that Nomura doesn't help much either. Another horrible entity that, I think, is really stifling Square are the fans.I think, sometimes, the minimalist approach works better than trying to make a story and world so complex, chocked full of ideas, it becomes just too much to handle. I can understand, you have an imagination, Toriyama. Imagination is a great and wonderful thing, but you gotta know how to focus. You can't just pop out ideas and try to stuff as much as you can into a game or game world. Especially if it hinders the story. I recall people saying, "Oh, FFXIII's story makes sense to why they don't explain everything, because not only do the characters KNOW about their world's 'logic', the fast paced story(as in, they are on the run and don't have time to smell the roses) doesn't allow it!". Still, though, you have to think, any REAL, capable writer not only COULD squeeze in exposition to let the player(who is unfamiliar with the world) in on everything without resorting to the lazyass cliffnotes datalog, a REAL writer could do it so good WHILE retaining the pacing of the story.
Now, I don't mean casual fans of Final Fantasy, or long term old school fans, who understand that each Final Fantasy should be unique and there shouldn't be any direct sequels. Once the game is done, you're done with that world. I mean, rabbid horrible fans that live, breathe and eat materia for breakfast.
You know the type I'm talking about; "We want more Final Fantasy VII!" "Where's Final Fantasy VII HD?" "Kyaa~ Sephiroth and Cloud are my waifu/husbando, otp, etc. etc." They cry the loudest and foulest when a FF title doesn't meet the criteria for their penultimate FF, since clearly they have the most sugoi taste (yeah, now I'm getting out of hand).
Who care if FFVII has dated graphics? It still works, you can easily get it on PSN, and possibly Steam in the future. Square has better, and more deserving titles that could use a HD remake (and in all honesty, none of them need it, because rose-tinted glasses). I understand world building is difficult business, and takes a large amount of time, but I think a lot of FFXIII's world was superfluous. FFIX's world wasn't that intricate with all sorts of weird terms, rules, etc.; and I don't think anyone really cared.
I think, for a lot of us FF fans from yesteryear, we enjoyed a compelling, and at some times, deep story. Exploring a skewed version of our world with fantastic technology, magic, or even magi-tech! Combat was never super deep, and we could always grind for hours on end to make any battle a breeze. We loved the music, the art, the characters. So...where has it all gone? Why am I suddenly trudging through a hallway where everyone is talking about these...weirdly named things? Sure the combat is unique and can be excited, but...what do I care about these people? One's a whiny brat who can't express himself, the other a half-cocked show off to cover his uncertainty. What do I care about the fate of their... Cocoon? Is that...a planet? Country? Oh wait, it's a giant biosphere thing...in the sky...with airships inside of it? What?
Back in...2005? We heard about XIII, Versus XIII and how they were going to share stuff together, and it was kind of exciting. Especially since XII was kind of a let down (it would of done a lot better on better hardware, i.e. more RAM for more environment and less loading). Then XIII came out back in...2010? Still no Versus XIII, and the title, was again, a bit of a let down. XIV came out shortly after and was a major let down. So...where was the announcement for XV (I imagine it's being held off for PS4/720 development)?
Financially, I can understand why they're doing sequels and not main series. For each new title, Square develops a new engine, from scratch (I imagine) and develops technology for that series based around that engine. So with something like FFX-2, FFXIII-2 and Lighting Returns: FFXIII, rehashing your old code, making a couple new assets, etc. is cheaper...but it's not something us fans really want.
Kojima Pro ran into this when developing MGS4, and so they created a new engine (FOX engine) that is more flexible. I believe Capcom did the same thing with their Unity engine. I hope Square uses this approach and create a dynamic and flexible engine that they can use across multiple platforms and to develop a variety of different titles. =\
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While the article *that* links back to is somewhat overblown (unethical videogame companies aren't exactly on the same level of harm as, say, unethical pharmaceutical companies), it raises fair points. However, I'd say that even if companies exist only to make money, that doesn't necessarily mean they'll abuse their consumers.