Re: Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection

On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 20:40:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 13:26 this Friday (GMT):

On Thu, 14 Mar 2024 17:10:02 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
>

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 18:34 this Tuesday (GMT):

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Ah. I've seen that kinda "sequel being worse in every way" a lot of
times, tho the only thing that comes to mind rn is Paper Mario Sticker
Star..

>
It's an understandable happenstance.
>
Game is popular. Customers want more. Developer makes sequel that's
the original game but gussied up. Game sells well. Customers want more
(but hey, maybe add a few new features?). Developer makes new game
with new features. Game sells well... but not as well as original.
Customers happy, but starting to eye other games. Still, they want
more. Developer makes new game, adds even more new features. Core
audience happy, but sales are down. Publishers panic; franchise dying!
Quick, do something! Developers revamp game dramatically, often with a
much smaller budget (because last game didn't sell that well and
publisher confidence is low) and with less time to test. But popular
franchise name and "new" is all that's needed, right? Customers hate
it, game bombs.
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(Twenty years later, remaster old game, maybe reboot franchise)
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This problem becomes exagerated if the franchise is farmed out between
different developers, some of whom may not really understand what made
the original so captivating in the same place.
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What so many developers - and gamers - forget is that there's a
limited longevity to games. The tastes and trends that made a game so
popular originally won't necessarily apply in five or ten years.
Similarly, a franchise is often associated with certain ideas and
mechanics, and if you stray too far from them, you'll alienate your
core audience, and if you stick too closely, you won't attract new
customers. The end result: you can't keep milking a franchise and
expecting it to sell indefinitely. It's better in the long run - for
both developer and customer - to start investing in a new IP (bolster
it by saying, "created by developers who made Old IP!") than dragging
out an old franchise long past its sell date.
>
There are exceptions, of course. "Resident Evil" and "Final Fantasy"
have had unusual resiliency (although the latter benefitted from not
being a consistent franchise from the start; each game in the series
was different enough - in tone, mechanics, and setting - that players
never came to expect 'more of the same' from a Final Fantasy game to
begin with. Another example would be the "Call of Duty Games", whose
lasting longevity baffles me. ;-)

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COD is probably surviving off the brand and nostalgia? FF seems
interesting, but I prefer the Mario RPGS (and PMD) (and Earthbound/M3)
(and undertale/deltarune) over the traditional stuff.

It's not really that.  COD always provided good multiplayer for the
crowd that enjoys a good hand-eye-coordination challenge.  It's always
been more twitch than tactical.. I can't even call it tactical at all
because everything moves that fast.  But, for those that like the
genre they seemed to have tapped into a recycleable formula:

1-Vary the maps
2-Improve graphics (slightly) over time
3-Retain the basic mechanics, but tweak them slightly so the player
feels they are somewhere new

Within the realm of this genre of multiplayer shooter, that's "all"
they have to keep doing.  I put "all" in quotes because keeping things
feeling new and different given a set of constraints and finite
variables is not as easy to do as some would have you to believe.

It's a lot like music production.. there are only a certain number of
musical chords and scales available (possible) on a given instrument.
What makes the difference in the final outcome is how each note is
played.  A really talented artist knows how to add something that the
listener both relates to, yet at the same time finds newness in.  A
mega-talented artist knows how to take basic elements the listener is
already familiar with, and send them somewhere new they'll never
forget.  Problem is, the incentives for the "mega-talented" have been
diminishing for a long time now, so in certain genres at least, the
pool of options has been diminishing for some time.

COD, for whatever reason (maybe good funding for talent?  maybe good
management?) has been doing a reasonable job of at least delivering
consistency to its fans.  Yeah it's sort of the same ole in terms of
gameplay but it's become kind of a dependable staple.

COD sort of reminds me of the "Tom Petty" of the gaming world.  Not
everybody was a fan, but if you did appreciate his work, my god... his
ability to deliver more of same was like this never-ending flow that
kept giving decade after decade.  Then he was gone, all at once.  That
seems to have happened to the Battlefield franchise, I hope it doesn't
happen to the COD franchise as well.

But no... for those like me who still enjoy it, and the mental
benefits of keeping our twitch skills current (hand-eye coordination
fends off dementia supposedly.. or at least we use that as an excuse
:)..  It's not just nostalgia.  In fact in the latest release, there
are a lot of remastered maps from MW3.  I'd rather see them create new
maps.  I think they concluded that the old ones were designed better
than the Gen Zs of today were capable of, thus recycled them with a
facelift.  And that may not be a good omen for gaming in the long run,
but for those that like COD, its not a bad release at all.