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GoOnKid on 15 April 2021
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JWeinCom said:
GoOnKid said:

The dark side of capitalism.

I dunno about that. 

I might not agree with the decision, but if people are getting joy out of the remake, well that's them.

And, while it might discourage investing in new games, it also kind of incentivizing making quality products.

Okami is a great example. It was a game that was really well received, but sold poorly when it was launched. But, over time, remakes have turned it into a game that sold at least 2 million copies, probably closer to three.

So, especially with games that are somewhat more risky and less likely to be an immediate success, the potential of selling for over a decade factors into the decision on whether to invest or not. And it creates an incentive to actually make it good, because a crap game probably isn't being remade two gens later.

Yes, that is true. If the demand exists, then sure, they should go for it. It would actually be rather stupid to not meet the demand. In the end it is us, the consumers, who speak with the wallet. I can't blame Sony for it. What I intended to express with my post was the notion that originality takes a back seat then. When it is much more lucrative and simply safer to go for the easy wins instead of the risky new titles, then of course I can't blame the developer. However it makes me a bit sad. I think there is a fair amount of risk aversion on both sides at play here, the developers as well as the customers. As a customer I don't want to waste my money on games that I end up not liking. I think this is one reason why reviews and metacritics play such an immense role nowadays and why developers spend some time to create accolades trailers and try to achieve as many awards as they can, because a good reputation is all that matters. The customer doesn't like taking risks, which might be a reason why Okami bombed at first, even though it is a great game.

However, I feel like Okami is not fully comparable to TLOU. The situations are pretty different, especially since many people think that there isn't much room for improvement in TLOU. Especially since it already got a remaster not too long ago. It smells like cash milking. Okami on the other hand received an upscale as well as an integration of pointer controls on the Wii. It just felt natural to push it onto the Wii platform.

You mentioned the quality of a game that makes it feasible to be remade. I want to add that there are other reasons as well, take The Legend of Kay for instance, a game that never lit the world on fire in the 6th gen, but was remade for 8th gen anyway. But generally speaking, I agree with you.

Also interesting to note and distantly related to the capitalism subject is that sometimes here on VGC we talk about the Mario Kart team at Nintendo and some people think that it would totally make sense for them to develop Mario Kart 9 for the Switch because Mario Kart is hot right now. Because captalism demands that only the most lucrative endeavours should be followed, so only Mario Kart is allowed, but I always use to disagree with this idea because I don't think Nintendo operates that way. I believe that they will make something different, but time will tell.