There are a lot of issues out there plaguing gamers. One of these issues is that I think A LOT of people are quick to write off as 'lazy developers,’ but let's take a deeper look into why so many licensed games end up not seeing their potential.
One of the FIRST franchises that could be seen as not living up to their potential would be EA's Madden series. A lot of gamers will go so far to say that the game has remained unchanged since '01, outside of the graphics. Of course, curses are hurled at the gaming giant for being nothing more than a bunch of money hungry suits that rehash the same game year in and year out. Is that a fair assessment of the situation?
If I'm not mistaken, a part of the agreement is that in order for EA to have the NFL's license, they have to produce 1 game a year. Now in earlier times rewriting code fresh from scratch may not have been so bad, but in today's standards, to start from scratch on a game that has such a strict deadline, is that a realistic goal?
Another franchise that yours truly has abandoned because of similar reasons is none other than the WWE Smackdown games. THQ/Yukes, in my opinion, made one truly great addition to the franchise with “Here Comes The Pain,’ yet in a move that boggles me to this day, instead of building on that games strengths, they tore down the one thing that made it so memorable to fans: The Season mode.
Each year THQ/Yukes claim they 'listen' to the fans, yet each year things are either left out, sloppily done or just plain ignored.
Who is to blame for all this? Is it the companies that charge these franchises bucket loads of cash and churn out mediocrity? Or is it the franchise with the strict one game a year policy?
The fact is games that are based on widely known public brands like; NFL, NBA, WWE, etc are gobbled up by the masses more so than a lot of top quality games that have no public images to fall back on.
I fear it is we, the consumer, that is to blame in the long run. The numbers don't lie, and as a company if I were releasing games that sold well regardless, then why dump more "re$ource$" for similar results?
The only other hope we have that companies won't slack off is competition. Now that EA has lost the exclusive rights to the NFL license, they have to stay on top of their game lest another company shuts them down. Sadly, as in the case with the WWE games, not all franchises have the competition factor. Take movie games, another prime candidate of when gaming goes wrong.
A majority of the time, the movie studio wants the game based on their movie to be released in the same week as the movie, to help generate a buzz and sales for their investment, but such games are for the most part, rushed as they have an extremely limited amount of time to get the game ready as well as so much red tape that contributes to the creative process.
I used to blame the developers mainly, after all, it has their name on it so they're the ones that okayed it for the game to be released “as is.” That was before I realized this is not a black and white issue as there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that we as the consumer are not aware of. I still believe they're responsible, but not the only ones whose heads should be on the chopping block.
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By Manimal Forever Contributing Writer Gamer's Perspective
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