Is Sonys image starting to stain in your view? (Poll)

[twintail]

firebush03 said:

twintail said:

This is an incredibly strange argument you're making here. Sony making games that cater to their base is now all of a sudden enough for ppl to be upset? You really think that because they made sequels to very risky propositions like Horizon and the new God of War that all of a sudden, they're playing it safe? Horizon and the new God of War were massive risks for Sony at the time. You magically expect both Guerilla and Santa Monica to jump onto something brand new? They've already dared to be bold and now are reiterating on that like Sony have been doing since the PS1. 

Unless you someone believe that Sony were constantly pumping out new IPs all the time and abandoning their games after a single entry. But that wouldn't account for the tons of IP that have sequels, and in some cases continue to today (like GT and Ratchet). 

Just taking the last 4 years, we have Sony publishing the likes of Sackboy, Dreams, Tsushima, Predator, Destruction All-Stars, Returnal, Firewall Ultra, Concord, Helldivers 2 and the upcoming Lego Horizon (2024). 

None of these are 'guaranteed money-makers'. In fact, they're pretty experimental/ new territory for their devs involved. 

Sony's push into the live-service market also says otherwise. It's a space they've struggled to penetrate for years now, and they're taking the leaps to try enter it even when these are antithetical to their strengths as a narrative based dev/ pub. 

(1) Playing it safe doesn’t mean making sequels. As you can see by my pfp, I love seeing IP evolve and grow over time. What I mean by “playing it safe” is that GoW v GOWR is nothing like Zelda OoT v Zelda WW nor SM64 v SMSunshine nor MKWii v MK8 (which, funnily enough, none of these sequels are anything revolutionary for their relative series. Yet God of War can’t even compare?). For one, art style does go a very far way in distinguishing games (there’s a reason why ppl are so reluctant to call TotK greater than BotW, for instance). Asset-reusing sequels on a new system for the three biggest Sony franchises is the safest possible route they could have chosen. For two, the gameplay loop shouldn’t simply be a rinse-and-repeat. It might be fine in the occasional instances, but not with every single game. (GOWR+SM2+HFB all rinse-and-repeat the core gameplay loops with small refinements to the overall experience.)

(2) Additionally, to “play it safe” also refers toward their reluctance to utilize pre-existing IP, and not just creating new IP. It’s a graveyard when discussing all the franchises Sony has chosen to abandon, and the reason for their abandonment has almost entirely to do with the fact that Sony doesn’t believe they have the potential to sell tens of millions of copies, thereby failing to churn out a net profit. Sony has chosen the expensive route, and thus has made producing such games an extreme risk with inevitable losses. They need to fix this, otherwise I will continue to complain that Sony has lost its charm which it once had in all prior generations.

(3) The fact that simply producing games which aren’t guaranteed money-makers is categorized as a “risk” says all that I’m trying to say. (Again, keep in mind I’m talking relative to previous generations of PlayStation. Relative to all prior generations, Sony has been far less willing to expand their horizons into risky territory on PS5.) And mind you, these “risks” are all shoty attempts made by Sony so as to “shoot for the moon” and create the next Fortnite, not to create a project of passion and love.

1. I'm not really sure what point you're making by comparing GoW>GoWR to Nintendo games from yesteryear. A more apt comparison would be GoWA>GoW in that regard. Why even bring up the jump from OoT>WW or MKW>MK8 when both of these had a full game release between them? Should we not then be comparing GoWA>GoWR, then? 

And other IP asset reuse too, unless I'm misunderstanding your point. ToTK from last year re-uses assets.

I think this argument is flimsy because you really have to go out of your way to make an argument between sequels being different or not from different IP over various decades of the IP's existence. The core gameplay loop of 2D Mario has not drastically changed in decades and I don't see anyone complaining about more 2D Mario. 

2. This doesn't make any sense. Whether Sony uses an existing IP or not, nothing is going to change in terms of the risk involved in the games they make. Just because another company wants to continually reuse their IP, doesn't mean everything needs to last forever. ND looked into the possibility of making a new Jak, but decided against it. Bend were contemplating a Day's Gone sequel, and decided against it (just 2 examples I can think of). IPs are not being abandoned purely because Sony thinks there's no money to be made. They're being abandoned because the creative teams have no interest in continuing them. Insomniac keeps churning out Ratchet games while also simultaneously to end the Resistance franchise (ending of R3 pretty much definitively closes the IP) .

Just because you might want more Ape Escape, or Wild Arms (or whatever it is you enjoyed from them) doesn't change that you need a dev team passionate enough to make those happen. Sony has since the PS3 gen at least, allowed their devs to make smaller budget games which they then sell for cheaper. That's exactly what Astrobot and Hell Divers 2 are examples of.

3. I feel acting like these projects lack passion or love is both incredibly baseless and pretty insulting to the teams working on these games. Firewalk wanted to create a hero shooter, Arrowhead's engagement with their audience shows how much they enjoyed making HD2, ND wanted to really push narrative in live service titles with TloU online, and Haven were the ones who proposed fairgames and actually were the ones who chose the project after Sony agreed to all 3 of their pitches. Then you have the teams behind MLB and Gran Turismo. No passion or love for these games? Give me a break.