The Curse of the Sequel

Honestly Valve have done so much for this industry they can do whatever the fuck they want and people have almost no right to complain. Besides, incase you missed it they just put out a huge content update for L4D for free which wasn't part of the original game, what more do you want?

Sure, publishers are trying to exploit consumers with every single one of their products, not just sequels. If it's not expected to make a large profit, it doesnt get made it's as simple as that. But the dimwitted consumer who buys all this crap doesn't care enough to educate himself, and the educated consumer such as ourselves know which games will and wont be good, and which developers are/are not worth supporting. For example, I knew teryarch were going to put out a pile of shit that was essentially a mod, and so I avoided COD3 and bought 2 and 4 full price, and 3 when it was a tenner second hand.

Not every announcement was a sequel...

Personally I really don't think the update to Left 4 Dead was huge, it was 1 new map, not even a campaign, and a new game mode. And they only just released the SDK and come this November all the modding effort everyone is doing is gonna be obsolete. For me, it's the fact that Valve has been so good in the past, that annoys me about left 4 dead 2, because I expect more of them. They could very easily do L4D2 content as addons or a payable expansion pack, but instead they're going for full retail.

I was exaggerating for effect ;)

"

Look at Half Life 2 for example, Valve made Half Life 1 and released in 1998, it got critical acclaim, winning dozens of Game of The Year awards, but the sequel didn’t come out until 6 years later.

"

Well duh, you don't get anywhere near the sales with an expansion as you do a full retail game, and saying the L4D content addon wasn't significant is total bullshit imo, it added a whole new game mode which gave you the ability to play as the other side.

Modding won't be obselete either, most of the modding being done for L4D will be playable on both or easily portable, and most of it is maps at the moment anyway, I don't see any meaningfull mods being made at the moment that can't easily be ported.

It could indeed easily be DLC, but why would Valve do that to themselves? They could make a ton more money with the full retail release, being pro-consumer is one thing, being a total business moron is another thing completely.

I'm pretty sure they did announce Half Life EP3 awhile back before they released EP1, and it was going to come out sometime this year, but it got pushed back because Valve are perfectionists. yes there are of course some exceptions to the rule, and these exceptions are called Valve. But with L4D2 I'm beginning to lose faith. and remember they are only one game developer.

I'm pretty sure versus mod has been in L4D from release? Or has there been another update I'm unaware of?

The reason HL2 wasnt released for so long was because it got remade twice, and then stolen by a hacker. Any other company that made a publisher wait that long would be shut down, it's one thing to look at half life and go "Yeah, awesome" it's another to think that such behavior should be upheld by all publishers/developers. They simply couldnt do it, the budgets would be insane, games would never make their budgets back let alone a profit (they rarely do now)

Such behavior really shouldnt be the example, it should be the exception because Valve put out such great content, if they want a franchise that as a yearly installment, so what? It's normal.

Well, the companies don't want to take chances with new IPs. Even if the sequel is not as good as the original it will sell good and that's what they care for the most. Prince of Persia (2008) was not as good as the previous 3 games but it sold 2.2 mill copies. I'm not saying it was bad; it was a good game.

" I was exaggerating for effect ;) "

I used the Half life example as the extreme end of the spectrum, also at that end is Elder Scrolls. Those games that really blow you away. But there are others like UT99 to UT2003/4, the increase in quality was great.

Watever dude. for a start, the episodes were not supposed to be yearly releases, they were supposed to be much shorter than that but Valve can't usually get it together to make something without redoing it 12 times (which inevitably leads to better games, but much longer development schedules that other companies simply cannot afford to do) and the reason they were going to be cheaper is because they were not going to have anywhere near as much content as a full release.

CoD 3 and 5 aren't 'milking' if you dont like them, dont fucking buy them it's easy to spot when a game is going to be shit months before it's even out, what do you care if the general populace wants those products? Infinity Ward is still putting out it's contribution on it's own timeframe.

Valves vision of episodic content did not come to pass, and what we did get was certainly not win, win for anyone, consumers had to wait an exorbitant amount of time for varying levels of quality content with a retail price of, not all that much cheaper.

Valve are goin wherever they want to go, and if you don't like it feel free to not purchase the product, if enough people agree with you, Valve will change their plans as any business will when thei consumers stop buying their products. What you forget, is that this 'lack of innovation or imagination' with yearly releases are what help fund other projects, just look at EA, they are using the money from their huge mass market yearly projects in order to put out stuff like Dead Space, Mirror's Edge and some awesome downloadable products. When it would be just as easy to bank the profit from those yearly products. I'd imagine Valve plans to do the same thing.

But I don't want L4D to be yearly release schedule, that's exactly my point. By bringing out things yearly, you are severely limiting creativity. Ideas need time to mature and grow. You can't pump them out every year. That's why Valve has always been such a good developer. Because they're intelligent. They understand the creative process. And now I feel like they're just after my money, and not trying to make good games, but simply sell games.

You can repeat you points over and over until you're blue in the face, but all it equates to is "Valve, you used to be cool man! Whaaaa Whaaaa!" Companies have to put out games on a regular basis on order to have enough money to divert into more worthwhile products, and honestly, it's a miracle Valve is still around, if any other company had acted like they did, regardless of how iterative design is better for the game, they would have been shut down a long time ago. I suspect Valve needs another cash injection to fund whatever else they are working on at the moment.

And you can claim it's about the industry as a whole all you want as well, but the same still applies, these entities are not here to provide you with the best product in the world, they are here to make money, and part of that ability to make money (believe it or not) comes from innovation, not just iteration, yearly big hitters only account for a small percentage of the games published each year and most of them don't even make enough money each year to cover all the failures/cancelled projects/etc from those publishers that year. If they didn't put out new products, consumers eventually get bored with the yearly franchises and the money dries up, believe it or not even those yearly franchises often change dramatically year to year, they have to otherwise (especially with the focus on multiplayer these days) consumers will just keep the previous game and ignore the new one. Just look at the latest Pro Evo and Fifa, Fifa offered a glut of new options and improvements over the previous, whereas Pro Evo did not, and sold like shit.

So face it, you can either have yearly franchises funding other projects, or no projects at all and a completely stagnant (if not dead) industry.

I just don't think we should settle for that, we as consumers need to say something about what we want. The industry as increses in size becomes more and more commercial. Like music and films before it. I just don't want to see that happen with games, is that too much to ask?

Why the hell are you complaining about things you don't have? You've not even made a valid point, at all. You've compared Valve games to the Call of Duty franchise.
Call of Duty 2 is awesome, made by Infinity Ward.
Call of Duty 3 isn't, it's made by Treyarch.
Call of Duty 4, IW.
Call of Duty 5, Treyarch.

Maybe it's just the developer you don't like?

Also, you're saying it's bad for Valve to put out L4D2. Have you played it? What if it's brilliant? You also neglect to mention that the SDK is not out for console versions.
I loved L4D, played it to death, literally. Can't play it anymore. I have it on the Xbox 360, so I can't mess about with the SDK to get more out of the game.

That's the exact problem with the growing industry. We're not the largest consumers anymore, but we used to be. And nowadays we, the gamers who have been there since the beginning just aren't being catered for anymore, it's frustrating more than anything. Valve used to be the last haven for gamers, and now I'm not so sure. It might be their own choice, or Microsoft paying them for another exclusive, either way it's not a good thing.

Can I just ask what games you don't like? Seemingly you're just moaning because the games come out too quickly?

I'm complaining because a lack of innovaiton and origanility, as i said up there.

That's not unfortunately, that's me opting to get it for my 360.
I don't want better left 4 dead, see the updates the game got, ruined it for me. I enjoyed the way it was before the patches, even with the glitch spots, it just added that bit more to the game.

I'm not talking patches I'm talking content updates, big content updates. TF2 has added new weapons, unlockables, a much smoother experience. L4D we've got only a fraction of that.

I don't want masses of free conent, but i equally don't want masses of absolute rip off content. Originality is thinking outside the box, Innovations making the box bigger. L4D did the first one, but there wasn't the content there to support it. I want content for a reasonable price, the problem with releasing L4D2, is it obsoletes the L4D content. Whereas content packs, expansions or reasonably price DLC mean it's better for the consumer and the developer. But instead we're gonna have to pay for a new game which will most likely have as little content as the first game.

One of the biggest differences between games in 1999 and now is HD-era games cost a shitload more to develop.  So, the return must be greater than the cost to produce.  One way to overcome that difference is to use the same assets in multiple games.  COD:W@W used the same engine that powered COD:MW.  Chances are L4D2 will utilize much of the same internals that L4D used.  I don't see anything wrong with that since it keep Valve solvent.  Why doesn't Valve have the right to make a lot of cash off a game they created just as Infinity Ward has done, just as Epic, Bungie, etc...are doing?  As a consumer, you don't have to buy every edition that comes out.  You can wait six years and buy L4D6: Zombies on Ice.  However, other people might get a kick out of picking up a new edition each year.  My brother plays primarily COD only, so a new Call of Duty title each year is a good thing for him.  He's not interested in most other genres, but that's okay because he is happy with what he likes.  I play a lot of different things, so while I will probably skip yearly editions of franchises, I don't want to deny him his annual fix of something bright & shiny. 

Every entertainment industry markets sequels because, truth be told, that's what people want.  The general public, even among gamers, want more of the same on an annual basis.  And the proof of that is in how they spend their paychecks.  Transformers 2 made 112 million US domestically over the weekend despite being critically panned.  It was familiar to the movie-going populace and they said "we want more" by filling theaters.  Chances are good that there will be a Transformers 3 because of this.  And waiting a huge amount of time to properly prepare a sequel might not always be good business sense (remember, these are all businesses out to make money first).  The first problem is that the people forget about the property.  Other titles pop up which grab their attention and in the mean time, the franchise which has been slowly crafting a return will be surpassed by bigger, newer properties.  Duke Nukem Forever never made it to release because they kept updating, trying to keep pace with what was new and popular on the store shelves.  Eventually, the entire idea of the Duke Nukem premise was over since gamers had matured.  Waiting doesn't aways mean the final release will be worth that extra time (and money) spent.

Finally, there is one thing I think all gamers need to remind themselves of from time to time.  Every game doesn't have to be made for you.  I don't know where a lot of people get the idea that just because they have an invested interest in a franchise, if a sequel is developed that doesn't meet their needs, it's worthless and the world would be better off without it.  Time and time again we see online petitions against the appearence of Diablo 3, the gameplay of Fallout 3, or the difference between what was said about Halo: ODST's cost two years ago and now.  I'm not saying it's not okay to be disappointed, but absolutist vitrol discharged by some is embarassing to the gaming community as a whole, I believe.  If you don't like a game, don't buy it.  If you want to explain why you didn't like it, that's fine too, but don't condemn the developer or publisher for all eternity because the final product did not meet your rigid approval.

I'm not saying I need there to be a long wait, but you simply can't have creativity in a short a space a year. It just doesn't happen. Look how long it took to formulate L4D 1 and it was great, except for lack of content. All your doing is slightly tweaking the previous game to get a little cash.

I suppose I'll insert my 2 cents.  First let me apologize for interrupting the heated debate that's unspooling in this thread.  That said, I must say that L4D 2 seems like nothing more than a way to cash in on the coattails of a highly successful release.  Does this mean Valve is somehow behaving unethically?  No, they do have to make money and they're in a great position to do so in this econiomic downturn.  With most of the work on the 1st one, (engine, artifacts, design etc) they'll probably have a bigger return on thier investment this time around. Now this doesn't mean that L4D 2 won't be a quality release however, as valve will probably make sure it holds up to its stringent quality standards before launch.  But I suppose the real question is this:  Does this sequel seem like something that the public is demanding and Valve is responding to or is it the other way around?  Personally, I like L4D but I don't feel the need for a sequel.  I don't feel tired or bored of the first one and feel like I could go back and play it anytime.  I won't buy L4D 2, at least not until I feel like I'm totally burned out on the 1st one, and due the inherent design of the game, that seems a long way off.

Yea I can't change it, but it doesn't mean I'm going to accept it.

It's just to me that's too much for a game which will have little new in terms of gameplay. So fine if you think I'm crazy wanting a decent amount of content for my money, then so be it.

Who doesn't like sequels?