Hmm… title is a little bit clickbaity—author seems to be mainly going after live service games, not necessarily every video game.
Also, novels and movies don’t always end 😂 Not sure why they threw that into the title. Freaking Fast and Furious will surely outlast planet Earth at this point 😂 What about Star Wars? It’ll never end.
I agree with the general sentiment though: I think players are flexible and will be inclined to give your new IP a shot, but capitalism is risk averse, and will obviously disagree.
Nah, Fast and Furious’ days are numbered. They already broke the glass on the storyboard card that says, “Go to space”, and the only one left to break is, “Time Machine”.
I only watched the first 2 movies back in the day. They were OK, but I never felt the need to watch them again (or the desire to watch the later ones).
They briefly got a Fierro into space so they could mess with a satellite. Somewhere around the fifth movie, they became very tongue in cheek action movies, with one character whose entire job is to break the fourth wall.
Oh, fair enough. But it’s still only going to have so much gas in the tank, and a cliff-hanger or sequel potential is very different than some continual expectation, either by consumers or the developers that the game can or should be updated forever.
Yes, but it’s also devoid of creativity and takes up space that could be occupied by more creative endeavors, so it’s a similar path at the end of the day.
My point is pointing a finger at Fortnite and Epic Games is fair, but same finger should also be pointed at Universal, Disney, NBC… etc.
And the biggest finger should be pointed at capitalism itself.
I enjoy the Fast & Furious movies. The advantage to them releasing one movie at a time, or in games, one game at a time, is you can more accurately gauge the appetite for the next one, and they don’t have ongoing costs to keep the last one going. The ten F&F movies out there now are not in danger of disappearing if F&F11 bombs. The people who worked on those movies don’t have an expectation for or reliance on employment any longer than the time it takes to make one movie. And outside of Fast X, despite being pulpy and constantly recontextualizing and retconning old events, they all have their own endings with closure. Fast X does have a cliffhanger, and that is a bet that they made with their audience that they’ll be back, but the most likely scenario is that the next one offers closure. In some ways, cliffhangers can be closure themselves, too; I think more highly of Arcane season 1’s ending as closure for the series than I do of season 2, for instance. Meanwhile, the most likely scenario for a live service game is that it doesn’t have an ending or even exist anymore, only a few years in the future.
And all that said, it also doesn’t mean that I don’t understand your perspective, but I do see eye to eye with the author.
Hmm… but isn’t it an “ongoing series”? Like, you can have short or long arcs, but if the continuity is the same, the story technically hasn’t ended.
I agree gaming takes it a step further, but this is like comparing a worse example to a bad one… yeah, one is worse, but they both suck at the end of the day.
I’m glad you like Fast and Furious, but it’s only one example of many. It’s not the only movie franchise being milked to death, and won’t be the last.
It can be an ongoing series, but you can get a sense of closure each time. Star Wars had closure in 1983 and 2005 and 2019 as they kept adding on to it, each time seeming like it was done; and each spin-off had closure by the time credits rolled.
Hmm… I suppose I can just put this down to my disagreeing with the article’s headline: I say a lot of movies and novels don’t offer enough closure and are bad examples to follow—games can and should do better, IMO.
I’d rather get Project G.G. or Scalebound than the 15th Assassin’s Creed game in as many years or even Bayonetta 3, TBH.
Hmm… title is a little bit clickbaity—author seems to be mainly going after live service games, not necessarily every video game.
Also, novels and movies don’t always end 😂 Not sure why they threw that into the title. Freaking Fast and Furious will surely outlast planet Earth at this point 😂 What about Star Wars? It’ll never end.
I agree with the general sentiment though: I think players are flexible and will be inclined to give your new IP a shot, but capitalism is risk averse, and will obviously disagree.
Nah, Fast and Furious’ days are numbered. They already broke the glass on the storyboard card that says, “Go to space”, and the only one left to break is, “Time Machine”.
Wait there is a space fast and furious?
I only watched the first 2 movies back in the day. They were OK, but I never felt the need to watch them again (or the desire to watch the later ones).
They briefly got a Fierro into space so they could mess with a satellite. Somewhere around the fifth movie, they became very tongue in cheek action movies, with one character whose entire job is to break the fourth wall.
Ok, that might actually be worth watching.
Might have to check it out tonight. Thanks for the recommendation!
And time machine leads to multiverse, and multiverse leads to reboot. Never mind the spinoff potential…
Oh, fair enough. But it’s still only going to have so much gas in the tank, and a cliff-hanger or sequel potential is very different than some continual expectation, either by consumers or the developers that the game can or should be updated forever.
Yes, but it’s also devoid of creativity and takes up space that could be occupied by more creative endeavors, so it’s a similar path at the end of the day.
My point is pointing a finger at Fortnite and Epic Games is fair, but same finger should also be pointed at Universal, Disney, NBC… etc.
And the biggest finger should be pointed at capitalism itself.
I enjoy the Fast & Furious movies. The advantage to them releasing one movie at a time, or in games, one game at a time, is you can more accurately gauge the appetite for the next one, and they don’t have ongoing costs to keep the last one going. The ten F&F movies out there now are not in danger of disappearing if F&F11 bombs. The people who worked on those movies don’t have an expectation for or reliance on employment any longer than the time it takes to make one movie. And outside of Fast X, despite being pulpy and constantly recontextualizing and retconning old events, they all have their own endings with closure. Fast X does have a cliffhanger, and that is a bet that they made with their audience that they’ll be back, but the most likely scenario is that the next one offers closure. In some ways, cliffhangers can be closure themselves, too; I think more highly of Arcane season 1’s ending as closure for the series than I do of season 2, for instance. Meanwhile, the most likely scenario for a live service game is that it doesn’t have an ending or even exist anymore, only a few years in the future.
And all that said, it also doesn’t mean that I don’t understand your perspective, but I do see eye to eye with the author.
Hmm… but isn’t it an “ongoing series”? Like, you can have short or long arcs, but if the continuity is the same, the story technically hasn’t ended.
I agree gaming takes it a step further, but this is like comparing a worse example to a bad one… yeah, one is worse, but they both suck at the end of the day.
I’m glad you like Fast and Furious, but it’s only one example of many. It’s not the only movie franchise being milked to death, and won’t be the last.
It can be an ongoing series, but you can get a sense of closure each time. Star Wars had closure in 1983 and 2005 and 2019 as they kept adding on to it, each time seeming like it was done; and each spin-off had closure by the time credits rolled.
Hmm… I suppose I can just put this down to my disagreeing with the article’s headline: I say a lot of movies and novels don’t offer enough closure and are bad examples to follow—games can and should do better, IMO.
I’d rather get Project G.G. or Scalebound than the 15th Assassin’s Creed game in as many years or even Bayonetta 3, TBH.