Post by Evie ❤✿ on Dec 20, 2023 9:36:48 GMT -5
Similar to artist's block (a desire to create but you're not sure what to do) and imposter syndrome (if I don't create a good work, I'm not worthy of praise) it can be argued this applies to famous game developers and companies/studios too. Just like the film industry, novel industry, etc; a franchise is continued with successive works, sometimes as direct sequels with ("2", "3" on the end) and so on. Once you experience difficulties in development, or you're not sure how to improve from the last one, it can also feel like a disincentive to continue that franchise.
Here is one comparison:
The Mario and Pokémon series are amongst Nintendo's most continued franchises, however as for EarthBound (MOTHER) and the possibility of a MOTHER 4, apparently Shigesato Itoi said as originally part of a question in 64 Dream magazine March 2000:
For the time being we have to get MOTHER 3 out. We were working on the concept of MOTHER 3 while MOTHER 2 was still in development. However, the production difficulties associated with MOTHER 3 have demoralized us to the point where we don’t want to do a “4.” Besides, mentioning another sequel would get me in trouble. “
In the Pokémon series, some have also felt that successor games to Pokémon Black and White (Generation V) aren't quite the same.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9tsmyeHgfQ
Beginning with Pokémon X and Y (Generation VI), Nintendo/Game Freak/Creatures/The Pokémon Company decided to announce new games in Nintendo Directs and such. However, there have been mixed opinions regarding their quality, depth, and they sometimes still have a lot of glitches, bugs, or performance issues.
Recently, this video is also relevant:
(He didn't just want to end up being the 'Pokémon guy'; he likes other media too in fact having related more with Sega. He also worries about being replaced one day)
That brings us on to another point. As the Internet has become more mainstream, it has become easy for game developers to release a game, and patch it later through the form of online updates once they discover any such issues, but perhaps subconsciously this can lead to poorer quality games. Broader speaking than just glitches and performance issues, rather than delaying the release date, developers may also choose to release games with missing features; and add those features in the form of downloadable content (sometimes paid) instead.
On the other hand, this is not necessarily a new thing; just (as times have changed) people may not tend to talk about it that often and the changes are not always well documented. The ability to patch out an issue can also be seen as a saving grace by the developers and people who don't like those issues. Some people may be upset with buggy games, but it's not the developer's fault. In Pokémon's case, the developers were met with a lot of pressure from the start, and they almost lost all their work.
Junichi Masuda, who worked as a composer and programmer on the original games and is now one of Game Freak's directors, told Polygon about a nasty computer crash that nearly resulted in all their work being lost after four years of development, in a piece cited by Nintendo Life.
The team was using Sun Sparcstation 1 computers, running Unix, to make the game, and the machines were prone to crashing.
"We had a really bad crash that ... we didn't know how to recover the computer from. That had all of the data for the game, all of the Pokemon, the main character and everything. It really felt like, "Oh my God, if we can't recover this data, we're finished here'," he said.
"I just remember doing a lot of different research. I called the company that I used to work for, seeing if they had any advice to recover the data."
Before the Internet, developers would sometimes release a new factory revision. Without careful inspection of the cartridge (such as an imprint), most people wouldn't notice, but the developers have the ability to include a bug fix and/or code optimisations in a new factory revision.
Examples are Kirby's Dream Land and Japanese Generation I Pokémon games (among many others, another two examples are English Pokémon Crystal Rev 1 and (one of the most well known) is probably Tetris Rev 1). The irony re: Red/Green is that they partially fixed an infamous glitch called the Select (button) glitch (セレクトバグ) involving swapping entries beyond the end of list (i.e. Pokémon, moves) via the Select button by preventing you from being able to exploit it directly from battle, but forgot you can carry it over from the overworld.
Discuss.
Here is one comparison:
The Mario and Pokémon series are amongst Nintendo's most continued franchises, however as for EarthBound (MOTHER) and the possibility of a MOTHER 4, apparently Shigesato Itoi said as originally part of a question in 64 Dream magazine March 2000:
For the time being we have to get MOTHER 3 out. We were working on the concept of MOTHER 3 while MOTHER 2 was still in development. However, the production difficulties associated with MOTHER 3 have demoralized us to the point where we don’t want to do a “4.” Besides, mentioning another sequel would get me in trouble. “
In the Pokémon series, some have also felt that successor games to Pokémon Black and White (Generation V) aren't quite the same.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9tsmyeHgfQ
Beginning with Pokémon X and Y (Generation VI), Nintendo/Game Freak/Creatures/The Pokémon Company decided to announce new games in Nintendo Directs and such. However, there have been mixed opinions regarding their quality, depth, and they sometimes still have a lot of glitches, bugs, or performance issues.
Recently, this video is also relevant:
(He didn't just want to end up being the 'Pokémon guy'; he likes other media too in fact having related more with Sega. He also worries about being replaced one day)
That brings us on to another point. As the Internet has become more mainstream, it has become easy for game developers to release a game, and patch it later through the form of online updates once they discover any such issues, but perhaps subconsciously this can lead to poorer quality games. Broader speaking than just glitches and performance issues, rather than delaying the release date, developers may also choose to release games with missing features; and add those features in the form of downloadable content (sometimes paid) instead.
On the other hand, this is not necessarily a new thing; just (as times have changed) people may not tend to talk about it that often and the changes are not always well documented. The ability to patch out an issue can also be seen as a saving grace by the developers and people who don't like those issues. Some people may be upset with buggy games, but it's not the developer's fault. In Pokémon's case, the developers were met with a lot of pressure from the start, and they almost lost all their work.
Junichi Masuda, who worked as a composer and programmer on the original games and is now one of Game Freak's directors, told Polygon about a nasty computer crash that nearly resulted in all their work being lost after four years of development, in a piece cited by Nintendo Life.
The team was using Sun Sparcstation 1 computers, running Unix, to make the game, and the machines were prone to crashing.
"We had a really bad crash that ... we didn't know how to recover the computer from. That had all of the data for the game, all of the Pokemon, the main character and everything. It really felt like, "Oh my God, if we can't recover this data, we're finished here'," he said.
"I just remember doing a lot of different research. I called the company that I used to work for, seeing if they had any advice to recover the data."
Before the Internet, developers would sometimes release a new factory revision. Without careful inspection of the cartridge (such as an imprint), most people wouldn't notice, but the developers have the ability to include a bug fix and/or code optimisations in a new factory revision.
Examples are Kirby's Dream Land and Japanese Generation I Pokémon games (among many others, another two examples are English Pokémon Crystal Rev 1 and (one of the most well known) is probably Tetris Rev 1). The irony re: Red/Green is that they partially fixed an infamous glitch called the Select (button) glitch (セレクトバグ) involving swapping entries beyond the end of list (i.e. Pokémon, moves) via the Select button by preventing you from being able to exploit it directly from battle, but forgot you can carry it over from the overworld.
Discuss.
