There is this mindset that I have been noticing a lot for the past few years when it comes to some people's favorite developers and studios, which is that they only want said studio to only ever work on the same type of game forever and that if that studio chooses to work on anything else it's somehow "a waste of their talents" or a "downgrade" according to these people.
The first time I noticed this was back with Retro Studios in 2013. After the Metroid Prime series, it seems like people only ever clamored for them to go back to Metroid and nothing else. They did Donkey Kong Country Returns in 2010, an incredibly well received game, and then would go on to make Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, which would get announced in 2013. We all remember the infamously gross and unfair reaction towards that game as a result. "Just another fucking Donkey Kong game" "it's fucking Donkey Kong", etc. Some people even INSISTED that it must have been Nintendo forcing them to make another, just the idea that the METROID PRIME DEVELOPERS would willingly go back to want to make another DONKEY KONG game instead of Metroid was sacrilege in their minds. The same thing was already happening with the rumored Star Fox Grand Prix back from earlier in 2018 too.
Then i've been noticing it for a long time now with From Software as well. This is probably the worst i've ever seen of a fanbase with this type of mindset, though obviously it's not all of them, but a lot of people (or a vocal minority of them) who only want them to work on "Souls" games forever and nothing else. Even Sekiro, their next big release in ages that won't be "souls-like", aside from Deracine which was a VR game, has already gotten unfairly criticized by people for "not being Souls" and that it somehow was not worth even looking at just because of that.
Then it also got me thinking. Can you imagine if a studio like Naughty Dog decided after TLOU Part 2 that they wanted to back to something different and decided to make anything that wasn't a super serious story-driven game again? Such as a platformer or anything like that. Now obviously this is a hypothetical situation since I don't see that happening, but you already know the types of insane and embarrassing reactions that would gather. While some would be happy, there would be so many "waste of their talents", "what a downgrade", etc posts as I mentioned before. I'm pretty sure all of these studios can decide for themselves what is "worthy of their talents" or not.
Now this obviously has to do with another type of thinking, which is the fact that some people view other game genres as "lesser" for some reason. Retro Studios choosing to do another platformer and not Metroid for the 4th time? A waste of time and talents. From Software choosing to take a break from the "Souls" style games and instead making an action adventure game with Sekiro? A waste of time and talents. No genre is specifically "lesser" than any other. I feel it comes with a sense of entitlement too, there's a big difference between loving a type of game that a developer makes and wanting more of it compared to demanding that they only ever work on that type of thing to satisfy what they want specifically.
This is where my question is. Why is there this mindset that just because a studio excels at a certain thing, that means they should only ever work on that type of thing forever and become declared to "that specific genre studio" and never be able to branch out? If my favorite studio decided to do something completely different, I would 100% support that and even be excited because it means it's going to be a passionate project, rather than them forcing themselves to work on the same thing over and over for people who only demand the same thing which would not be a passionate project.
Last edited by FloatingWaffles - on 30 December 2018
