Why are people so hard on sequels nowadays?

[surfsatwerk]

No.

You and the one other person in the world that feels this way should start a club.

 

[norseamd]

Elder Scrolls has been out for twice as long as Call of Duty but doesn't have half the sequels. I could probably throw Metal Gear and Final Fantasy ib that mix. Stop pumping out shovelware.

The only problem with that thought is that every game from Bethseda has gone more and more downhill since Morrowind.

 

[norseamd]

You and the one other person in the world that feels this way should start a club.

BG 2 did not have the size and exploration of BG. They went for smaller more polished content than a huge more freeform game.

 

[Anteaus]

Sequels were not invevitable once upon a time. If a game did well, then they looked into it. Today we have what I like to call the "Marvelization" of gaming. Today, companies likes EA and Ubisoft aren't going to waste their time making solid, great one-off titles that likely won't generate profit over long periods of time. They would rather play it safe and dilute a franchise into 3 or more sequels that will generate consistent revenue even if it means reducing the impact of individual titles within said franchise.

The CEO of Ubisoft has already admitted as much.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/15/ubisoft-not-interested-in-games-that-arent-franchises

While I would never presume to tell another gamer what games they should purchase, the simply truth is that as long as games such as Call of Duty make billions there is no business incentive to perhaps go in a different direction.

 

[Anteaus]

The only problem with that thought is that every game from Bethseda has gone more and more downhill since Morrowind.

Downhill is subjective, but at least Bethesda is still releasing feature rich products that contain many times the content before resorting to DLC. So far, no one can easily accuse them of removing content to sell after the fact. I do think that Bethesda has dumbed the games down a bit to accommodate the masses which could be perceived as going downhill, the plots are still rich and locales varied. Skyrim could arguable be seen as their greatest triumph and worst at the same time. I'm a huge Morrowind fan and as far as I'm concerned is the greatest of all the Elder Scrolls releases, but I put over 100 hours into Skyrim so that says sometime.

At their worst, the single player Elder's Scrolls games (no ESO) are still far better than the dribble we get from many companies.

 

[Subyman]

I don't think people are against a few sequels, its when an IP turns into a yearly franchise that it gets old. Millions are spent on the same game year over year that could have been spent creating something new.

 

[Red Storm]

Downhill is subjective, but at least Bethesda is still releasing feature rich products that contain many times the content before resorting to DLC. So far, no one can easily accuse them of removing content to sell after the fact. I do think that Bethesda has dumbed the games down a bit to accommodate the masses which could be perceived as going downhill, the plots are still rich and locales varied. Skyrim could arguable be seen as their greatest triumph and worst at the same time. I'm a huge Morrowind fan and as far as I'm concerned is the greatest of all the Elder Scrolls releases, but I put over 100 hours into Skyrim so that says sometime.

At their worst, the single player Elder's Scrolls games (no ESO) are still far better than the dribble we get from many companies.

It is thanks to modding though. If we couldn't mod ES games my opinion of them would be much, much lower.

 

[BSim500]

It is thanks to modding though. If we couldn't mod ES games my opinion of them would be much, much lower.

^ This. I loved Oblivion & Skyrim, but if it weren't for DarnifiedUI (Oblivion & Fallout 3) & SkyUI (Skyrim), the inventory, trading, etc, would barely be usable with every line of text in size 30 font viewed from 2ft away...