While reading the January 2016 issue of
GameInformer, I stumbled on its Top 50 Games of 2015. As I skimmed
the list, I found I hadn't played many games released in 2015...
which made me realize I've become one of those old people who "don't
have time for video games anymore".
Once I shook that ugly realization, it
was evident that most games listed were sequels, collections,
remakes, reboots, re-releases, etc. Which wouldn't be a problem if
there wasn't an increasing trend of re-purposed content over the past
few years. With great concern for the future state of video games,
most of which I probably won't play, I put on my miner's hat to dive
head first into the data of Wikipedia's video games releases in 2016.
Please excuse the click bait but the results may shock you!
Before I could gather data on 2016's
repurposed content, I needed to paint a bigger picture:
I first found that only 38% of games in
2016 will be brand new Intellectual Properties (IP's). This leaves
the remaining 62% relying on brand recognition of established
franchises to perpetuate stale gaming mechanics with a fresh,
photo-realistic coat of pixels. Pardon my pessimism, I just don't
expect games like Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games to
provide nearly as much depth as its title is long.
Digging deeper, I found that roughly
1/3 of games to be released by existing IP's will contain re-purposed
content (re-releases, remakes, collections, localizations or
expansions). However, in the bigger picture re-purposed content will
make up roughly 20% of games this year.
It's small now, but imagine
how much this percentage may increase considering I'm only using a
release schedule from early 2016. In fact, Mortal Kombat XL and
Batman Arkham Knight Complete Edition were recently announced and
likely won't be the last of re-purposed content.
For further analysis, I graphed 2016's
gaming releases based on their gaming platforms. At a glance PC's and
consoles are neck-and-neck for the most releases but, to be fair, we
are comparing releases for three PC operating systems against five
console systems.
Despite this, more games will be released for the
Windows OS than any other platform this year. Given the rise of indie
gaming, and the surge of popularity in PC gaming, this isn't too
surprising.
Regardless of Windows releasing the
most games, current generation consoles (PS4, Xbox One, and WiiU) are
most guilty of distributing of repurposed data. Repurposed content
almost seems like filler to maintain interest inbetween highly
anticipated IP releases, but this raises some larger questions:
Why purchase a current generation
console when most of it's library is mostly comprised of re-purposed
content? In fact, people mocked the PS3 for this tactic, yet now it's
the sad reality for all of our current generation consoles.
Some people argue that there are no new
ideas (and they're wrong) but it's far more inevitable that we will
run out of games to re-release. Unless you're Namco Museum, who's been
re-releasing the same small collection games on new platforms for
decades. I guess Namco's to blame for all of this.
Other interesting trends and facts:
- Many major gaming franchises will receive new entries: Uncharted, Star Ocean, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, Kingdom Hearts, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Assassin's Creed, Mario & Sonic, Legend of Zelda, Killer Instinct, Far Cry, Digimon, Hitman, Tom Clancy, Dark Souls, Warhammer, World of Warcraft, Lego, Doom, Star Fox, Metroid, etc.
- "Remaster" is found in 5 game titles, "HD" in 4 titles, "Edition" in 3 titles, "Remake" and "Collection" in 1 title each.
- PS3, PSVita, and 3DS all individually have more games scheduled for release than the WiiU
I'll have to revisit this data at the end of the year and compare it to years past to paint an accurate trend. Actually, it may be too meta to re-purpose content on re-released content.
No comments:
Post a Comment