Why The Last of Us Remastered Shouldn’t Really Exist

[SvennoJ]

starcraft said:

Thanks to Carl for moderating this thread. It's really not as bad as the reports implied.

I've let comments about Halo go where they aren't too bad. As someone noted early on the article *does* mention Halo so it isn't completely off-base.

My take: All the TLOU fans take a chill pill. The game is going to get some hate, its a very obvious cash-in. Everyone does it, no one likes it, and it doesn't help gamers to support it ON ANY PLATFORM. There is a tiny, tiny market for whom this would have been a first time purchase - certainly not enough to justify the expense if Sony truly believed they are the only ones that will get suckered into buying it at the full (and ridiculous) asking price. Full or near-full price offerings a year (or less later) with some DLC that has ZERO marginal cost at that point included is a price-gouge. Doesn't mean it isn't worth it to a few people with money to burn, but its an unfortunate industry-wide strategy.

Also, logic dictates that this most certainly *did* distract from other gaming priorities. Developing the title, marketing the title, producing the title. All that can be debated is to what extent the distraction occured - and thats a debate we'll never have sufficient evidence to put to bed. Did it prevent the development of a unique small-scale title (ala Child of Light)? Did it simply delay Uncharted 4 by a few months, or result in less marketing dollars being spent on some other, new IP? We'll never know. But pretending the title didn't use up resources is ridiculous.

I find this pretty offensive as a software programmer myself. This thinking that software loses its value almost as soon as it is released is what is slowly breaking down this industry. I didn't expect this kind of post from a mod, calling people suckers for paying a, in your opinion, redicilous price for a game with all DLC content included.

Anyway which is it, zero effort, cash grab, or did it cost a significant amount of time to port by a group of people? Why assume a delay for Uncharted 4, engine optimization doesn't happen at the start of a project, that group of people will have been getting experience by getting it to run on PS4.
And again which is it, a cash grab, or less marketing dollars avalailable for a new IP. If it's a cash grab they should have plenty more money after to spend on the next game.
Making a small-scale title instead would have taken people from Uncharted 4 that are needed right now. Just being a small title doesn't mean you don't need the whole gamut of creative people to make it.

IMO the price is justified. A highly acclaimed game with all extras included for a small discount, ported to a new system. Great for those who haven't played it. Plus ND knows full well that most of those that will upgrade will or already have sold their ps3 copy, flooding the market with 2nd hand copies of ps3 tlou.

Anyway it's unfortunate gamer wide mentality that 6 month old games should be 50% off or more.