Toxic fans lumping Ratchet & Clank in with those other "forgotten" franchises always felt weird to me, 'cause like, didn't we JUST get a Ratchet & Clank game? Rift Apart isn't even a full 3 years old yet, but those guys are acting like Insomniac is abandoning the series just cause they haven't immediately started working on a new entry.
@@KaminoKatie That doesn't mean we won't have a new Ratchet and Clank period, the fate of the series was much more bleak during the PS4 era when all it released was a remake from the first game based on a movie that flopped.
They work on a lot of Marvel stuff now alongside Ratchet and Clank at the moment. Making one game can take at least a few years so it's no wonder why the next Ratchet and clank game is set to come out in 2029 according to the leaks
Also, didn’t we had a Little Big Planet spin off 3 years ago? Didn’t we had a Medieval remake that’s going to be almost 5 years ago? Didn’t we had a Twisted Metal series last year?
I think I can explain why there’s a disconnect between these series popularity and the weaker sales figures, there isn’t one. At least not when you look at the bigger picture. A lot of the games you mentioned are older titles from console generations where a game selling a million units was considered a smash hit. It’s not just the price of games that has increased, the amount of copies games sell has to as the gaming market has expanded. I like to call it sales copy inflation. You can’t compare the sales numbers of earlier games to newer games without that context.
Yeah this seemed to be a missed detail. MMX selling a million+ units ON THE SNES is a stupid feat for its time and MM11 selling 1.8 mil despite capcom trying their goddamn best to bury the series is another in itself. If the collections can do as well as they are with nearly zero support then clearly theres something there. I mean how well was 11 supposed to do given capcom's treatment of the series before then? I can't think of many series that have/could die for a decade and then rise from the grave to outdo 1.8 mil sales much less a bigger target like 5 mil.
@@JIreland1992What makes the situation suck even more is that MM11 is so good. The Classic series is probably my least favorite, but I really like MM11. I haven't played all of the Classic games, but the ways they were able to add new, actually useful weapons, a strong difficulty without feeling janky, and new game systems without hampering the feel of the Classic series only makes me sad about how they could have approached the X, ZX, or Legends Series. It's ridiculous!
The problem is game publishers keep raising their expectations for sales even when it's unrealistic to do so, like EA expected Dead Space 3 to do almost COD-like numbers and for horror games that's just never gonna happen.
Honestly I think Sony's focus on these big AAA tentpoles at the expense of everything else is inherently unsustainable in the long run. They need smaller IPs to fill the lineup out. Otherwise we are essentially buying a console for maybe one or two games a year. If that.
Honestly, it's not just Sony in my opinion. I think Indie games have shown there is a market for budget titles, but the only budget titles coming out of the big players are mobile games usually. They make their AAA games with so much money that the release has to sell millions just to break even. Imagine if instead of getting hundreds of folks to crunch so that overly pretty AAA game with too many particle affects ships 6 months after the initial release date, there were fewer people working on something smaller and less pretty. Knowing them, they'd still charge 60 or 70 bucks for it, regardless of quality or length. They might make a profit back with less than a million copies sold for once.
They themselves know this, why do you think they tried to stop the activision buyout, cause they know without multi-platform super hits like cod there would be huge droughts of games (Look at the wikipedia page for ps5 only games lmao)
Maybe the modern way to bring smaller scale games from Sony into the market would be PS Plus exclusive games, unfortunately. Sony and all major companies care about increased subs/sub retention. Having smaller budgeted games that can barely make any money being sold for $20 or $40, can instead be funneled into a sub service and hold people over until the next AAA comes out? However the counter argument of taking a portion of a team and making smaller scale games would be, why not just put them in a support studio or as the core devs on a game instead? Focus more on the big stuff, and continue making deals with AA or indie games to be put on PS Plus... It seems nearly impossible to imagine Sony will ever care to make smaller scale stuff anymore.
The premise of this video doesn't work because the fandom for these games are not misguided, you acknowledge that game budgets have ballooned in recent years but you don't observe the fact that this is the case for every medium, budgets have inflated for everything and audience participation numbers have increased perpetually not just for games but movies, books and TV, and then you go on to discuss the dwindling influence of Mega Man and CastleVania but you're talking about franchises whose best years were the NES and SNES generations, its odd that you would extrapolate these sales and apply them to a contemporary gaming trend because they were more influential and important in previous generations. Obviosuly Mega Man 2 isn't doing Monster Hunter or Resident Evil numbers now but it was considered influential enough at the time to be adapated into a ton of merchandising and was a certified hit. You're too focused on sales figures, a game does not need big sales to be culturally relevant or lucrative or be a part of popular culture, for many years the most sold games were the ones bundled with consoles and yet people don't talk about Kinectimals or Kinect Adventures do they? Even a powerhouse like Halo didn't sell as many copies as Kinect shovelware at launch and yet Halo is an institution, it has a huge fandom and an extended universe of Novels, Comics, An anime collection, A TV show and snacks, Master Chief is a recognisable icon of gaming. I think you observed something that other people have noticed, which is that people tend to gas up their favourite games like how Banjo Kazooie is seen as this masterpiece but it was competing with something less discussed like Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, but you can't take an example like that and try to extrapolate it to the entire industry because it means you're ignoring a wider cultural context that makes these games more lucrative and more discussed. It's not misguided to suggest that Banjo is more influential on the gaming landscape than Croc even if they did sell a similar number of units, this retrospective holds value because its a text in a wider story, one of Rare, a developer who produced some of the best selling and most recognisable Nintendo games Also I think its really weird that you suggested BYG&E2 was delayed because of this effect? Why do you think thats the case at all? There doesn't seem to be any proof of this.
@@KaminoKatie yeah, I think it's a bit disengenous when looking at a game that got a lucky hit in the early days of 3d gaming, to then say it's misguided that we would consider banjo kazooie a bit more important and influential.
@@KrankuSama The reason Banjo is important is because helped popularized the Collectathon genre. It's confirmed that Hat in Time, Tinykin, Jak and Daxter take inspiration from Banjo. However when open world games became a thing, big companies saw collectathons as out dated. Even Rare themselves is making an open game, called Everwild.
I think the reason so many iconic game franchises aren't actually that popular is because of how much bigger gaming has become since it started to appeal to a more casual audience back in the mid 2000s. For the standards of the 80s and 90s something like Mega Man was probably a titan in it's own niche but once the niche became main stream it simply couldn't keep up with the new standards and all the new audiences it had to appeal to.
Definitely. Outside of Battle Network once it reached the 2000s they really stuck to their guns a little too hard. They barely changed up the gameplay formula, and when they did they were so stubborn as to trying to carry over certain design philosophies from the old days. X7 thought they could just slapdash 2d level concepts in 3d and that was a disaster. Being rushed titles also doesn't help though lol
@@MadPaperMario I think it was around the 6th generation myself with the PS2 breaking sales records and with it doubling as a DVD player many families got one solely for that function as it was a lot cheaper then a regular stand-alone DVD player at the time.
I think that those “unpopular” franchises that managed to become popular again (Ratchet, Ace Attorney, God of War) did so by becoming accessible to a new audience (especially Ace Attorney, which was locked to Nintendo handhelds until 2019), after waiting some time to shake off the franchise fatigue they once had (again, Ace Attorney and God of War had a streak of sequels reiterating the same formula throughout the 2000s/early 2010s).
It also helps that in the case of R&C and GOW that the Developers were willing to give them another shot. I have no doubt that if Sucker puch pitched a new sly or Naughty Dog pitched a new Jax and Daxter Sony would approve them. But the studios responsible have to want to do that.
there is also the fact that youtube and social media helps infalte them ask most fans of these games and you will find they either never played them or just stright up emulated them
That huge list was a compilation of information from both the Insomniac ransomware attack and official announcements of sales over the years, so that's why some games aren't on there.
Funnily enough the CSI game 3 Dimensions of Murder actually tackled this-one case has a murder happen at a gaming event and one of the games being demoed is a controversial first-person shooter and one of the suspects in the murder is a former developer who left after the company behind the new FPS refused to greenlight a sequel to his passion project(which was basically a parody of Sam and Max)and one conversation you have with one of the female employees there has her saying that despite the passion of the game's fanbase it ultimately just didn't translate very well into sales so they couldn't justify making a sequel to it.
@@codysullivan2531 Ah yeah that was the name thanks. That reminds me, I really wish we'd get another CSI game, I miss these TV show tie-in games but I guess it's easier now to just fart out crappy mobile tie-in games with freemium currencies so there's no more need for games like NCIS or Law and Order.
Funny story: I originally wanted to do a History of Telltale Games video series where I cover every Telltale game ever made (Telltale being responsible for making the CSI games). Surprisingly, while I was looking for research to write about the CSI series, I found little to no info about how the games were made, or what challenges they had to face while working on the games. I never actually finished my Telltale History series, due to Covid, my mental health, my life, etc. Sadly, all those scripts are gone because they are accidentally deleted.
@@ShockwaveFPSStudios Damn sorry to hear that, might be worth taking another pass at them, i'd love to see a video series on that. It's a shame you can't buy Law and Order Legacies anymore, i'm lucky I got it when I did.
For me, I'm OK with classic franchises or individual titles from yesteryear never coming back if they don't have something new and passionately genuine to say, rather than remain perpetually milked forever. A lot of the time, they told the full story they wanted to tell and bowed out gracefully. But even if not every IP got the ending they deserved, there's plenty of quality fanfiction and fangames out there, which may fill the holes left behind by the absence of a new official entry, that exist to provide a much desired sense of narrative closure or keep the spirit of its old-school charm alive in some personally meaningful capacity. Something I've come to realize and accept as a guy who's entered into my 30s, is that a lot of folks nostalgic for any sort of media (never mind games), mostly wish for familiar IPs or faces to come back in order to regain a semblance of the feelings they had when they experienced them for the first time in their youth and escape briefly from the misery that inevitably comes with adulthood. However, what does it usually end up with? Mostly uninspired, tired, soulless retreads which fail to live up to their beloved predecessors and retroactively damage the brand by playing it too safe for appealing to peoples' collective nostalgia. For every Devil May Cry 5, Metroid Dread or Deus Ex: Human Revolution which does this approach correctly, there's a dozen Sly 4s, Western Silent Hill games and failed Thief reboots to counteract the positive sentiment which comes from a revival after a 10+ year long absence. Do I still miss characters that I personally grew up with? Of course I do. But stories naturally end and as often difficult as it is to accept, sometimes you just have to say goodbye to fictional characters that you've become attached to and move on to other things at some point. The old stuff will always be there for you to go back to for brief forms of escapism whenever you are in need of it and provide appreciated moments of happiness, but that shouldn't stop you from going on to appreciate newer material too (even if it can frequently prove easier said than done with the often drastic quality inconsistency in this day and age).
Yeah, the only real series that I really want to come back is Castlevania. They (IGA/ArtPlay) obviously still have more story and ideas for the new game, but they can't do it because they don't have the rights to finish them. That is when things become frustrating, not that Mega Man releases Mega Man 4.5 doesn't come out. Like people still want a new Metal Gear game, but Kojima is clearly finished with it. This idea that franchises are just some never ending thing where sequels should be expected is strange to me.
As someone who’s favorite franchises are Road Rash, Jet Moto and Battle Arena Toshinden…I’ve long since accepted that they are extremely niche and will probably never come back lol. That’s ok, they were great while we had them.
When it comes to niche franchises that we liked, what this boils down to is "Don't be sad because it's over, be happy because it happened." I would love a new installment to these niche franchises like Mega Man (mostly Mega Man X9), Parasite Eve, and Spyro to name a few, but considering the current climate of the gaming industry, it's highly unlikely. We'll have to accept that these companies will make whatever games they feel will break even.
@@devonwilliams5738 I don't know if the problem with Parasite Eve is that it's actually based on a series of novels, so Square-Enix would need to negotiate with its original rightholders
One of the reasons a lot of these IP's died out is because a lot of the fans from that era and casuals moved on. While a lot of hardcore people stayed, as you said, hardcore fans only make up a small amount. Gaming obviously is more popular now more than ever. It's reaching everyone, its the biggest form of entertainment, eclipsing movies, tv, and music. And a lot of these companies I feel didn't keep these guys around not just because they didnt believe in them, but because they wanted to do more, and also didn't give people access to play a lot of these older games or do even a half ass job of advertising the return of a game with a remaster or remake. Doesn't help, as you pointed out, these games didn't crack a million sometimes, but for the time they came out and the money they made, it was good. But now, they won't risk it because they are looking at the money made from yesteryear. Take for example The Resident Evil Outbreak series, everyone wants them back but they didnt do so well in the early/mid 2000s, but thats also because those games came out before their time. Now online games are huge, but gaming executives wont take the chance due to past earnings. However, you can do it right if you look at something like Streets Of Rage 4. The SOR series has been dormant/dead since the 90s when the original trilogy hit the Genesis. Afterwards it was just subpar ports. But then SOR4 comes out and meets with both fan and critical praise (pretty sure it sold well too) and now Sega themselves are giving their old IP's a chance. So its like a mix bag really. Can a megaman game or a new dino crisis exist? Perhaps. But its also up to the fans to cheer these things on when they do happen and its up to the companies to not half ass any kind of game they are working on thats an older IP and let the developers with a vision do their jobs.
For any fans of the Jak and Daxter series, it shouldn't come as a surprise that 2, 3, and X did so poorly in sales. There was a major backlash against 2 of most people writing it off as a gta clone. While 2 definitely has the best story of the franchise, the difficulty spike and lack of checkpoints really turned people off after coming from how easy TPL was. Then the people who were disappointed by Jak 2, likely didn't buy 3. And I wouldn't be surprised if all the people who didn't like the driving in 3 assumed X would be more of the same. That or they just didn't like kart racers and mario kart was still the best at that.
It was mainly because of Jak II's sales in Japan. The first game sold very well as it was marketed as a family friendly platformer a bit like Crash was. But Jak II's darker tone and story just wasn't what most people were looking for or wanted for the series at that time. And Naughty Dog knew this going into the second and third game.
I played them all when I was like 7. I liked TPL until I saw the first Jak 2 commercial. Jak was just way cooler in 2 and 3. I played the shit out of those games, especially Jak 2 without a memory card, which means I watched those goofy ass cutscenes a lot. Even then, I didn’t question how silly the shift from TPL to Jak 2 was until I was a bit older. The fact that he went to the future worked for me. Like of course he has guns now, he’s in the future.
@@fanlikeyourself5053 That's very true. NaughtyDog assumed with the release of gta 3 that that was where the gaming industry was going, but not until the ps3/360 era. So they made Jak 2, 3, and X to reflect what they thought the rest of the ps2 generation was going to be and it unfortunately backfired because as you said it wasn't what everyone else was expecting. We obviously loved the tonal shift, but everyone else didn't though :/
@@MegaDrain honestly I think making Jak 2 more of the same would've only killed the franchise faster as mascot platformers weren't very popular at the time.
There's also the truth that, when conceptualizing for Jak 4 they immediately realized they couldn't do more for this series. If they wanted Jak and Daxter to come back, of course they have to get through Sony, but they still could, but fatigued developers wouldn't know what to do with the series.
My biggest issue with a lot of big budget games is they always need to be realistic. They always need to be super high quality visuals where you can see the pores and each hair follicle. I don't want that. Give me more cartoonish or anime or stylized visuals. Thats why i still stick with Nintendo and a reason indie games do so well
Agreed. Focusing on realism not only makes each game lack an artistic identity of its own, it can actively harm the development of a game by forcing everything to take so much longer because each asset needs to be photorealistic. For example, DMC5 removed a staple of the series because of the decision to make it realistic. In almost every other DMC game, there were multiple costumes for each character that were full model changes. But in DMC5 the only costumes are 1 simple recolor per character (if you buy it as DLC), and one costume that is the exact same as their default except the eyes glow. The reason given by Capcom was that developing multiple models per character would take too long, because they need to be such high quality. It was an entirely self-inflicted limitation that they put on themselves by deciding to go for hyper-realism in a series that had always been stylized with an anime-inspired aesthetic.
That’s not the main problem. Realistic graphics are ultimately harmless, not every game needs to look like an anime or a slapstick comedy. The main problem is that big budget games require less risk, so they have the same mechanics as other games which critics praise for being accessible. The industry nowadays punishes innovation.
strongly disagree, I feel say Last of Us has a different identity from say Ubisoft or Quantic Dream titles I never have a shit about the costumes in the DMC series so 5 was damn good to me.@@Rhubarb120
But we don't want a AAA Game, just a decent Game. We don't need a Megaman that cost over a 100 millions. Most of these "dead franchises" could come back as games with a modest budget
heck mega man 11 WAS considered a budget game by capcom. and in their earnings report they pointed out that not only was it a success, but that it surpassed their expectations. it's why the indie market and games like Tormented Souls and Gunvolt do so well and have multiple sequels. they don't need to sell a hundred million copies for profit. and the old games never needed it either.
@@Lazrael32 Please don't remind me 11 is the highest grossing game in the franchise. It's not bad (outside the horrible soundtrack) but man, that fact it's the highest grossing is just sad.
It would still cost money and man-hours from Capcom's limited supply of those things that they could have instead spent on something else. It's called opportunity cost.
I can't speak for everyone, but a big reason why I'm nostalgic over "dead" game franchises is that it often reflects a past era when AAA developers could afford to and were willing to take risks with new IPs essentially for the sake of the art or with some kind of unique gimmick. Besides the examples from the video, Chibi-Robo, Jet Set Radio, and The World Ends With You are all "dead" franchises that weren't made with the expectation that they'd sell millions, but were passion projects to add to the studio's history; Ape Escape was made with the dualshock controller in mind as mentioned in the video, and Rhythm Heaven was basically a challenge to make a truly sound-based rhythm game that doesn't rely on visuals. Nowadays, AAA developers prioritize profit over everything, which is why those passion projects and experiments aren't seen much anymore, aside from the occasional remake/remaster/whatever or budget title that isn't relied on for the studio's sales that quarter. (TWEWY actually demonstrates this video's point very well; a sequel was demanded by fans for years and it finally got one over a decade later that was barely marketed because Square Enix apparently thought word-of-mouth would be enough for such a "desired" game...and whadayaknow, it flopped in sales, because all the demand for it came from its vocal but very small cult following and the franchise is invisible to everyone else) Obviously game studios have to make money, just as movie and music studios do, and focusing on what's popular is a reliable way to do that. That's why I feel that it's in the hands of indie developers to keep the spirit of "dead" franchises alive, such as Bomb Rush Cyberfunk for Jet Set Radio and Pizza Tower for Wario Land; indie games are largely crowdfunded, on a smaller budget, and aren't planned to launch a multimillion dollar franchise, so they don't have to worry about profits the same way AAA studios do (granted, Pizza Tower became a viral hit, but the point still stands). Therefore, they can afford to take risks with these passion projects even if they aren't always quality (looking at you, Mighty No 9). I actually used to indulge in the toxic behavior mentioned in this video, telling people they didn't play the "right" games if they don't like my favorite popular series (I told a guy on Miiverse who didn't like Fire Emblem that he played the "worst" ones, I.E. the popular ones that I don't like, and he should play the "best" ones, I.E. the ones that mostly long-time fans like) and blaming developers for not making the games I want (like Capcom making Street Fighter when I wanted Ace Attorney). Even though I dislike the direction AAA games have taken recently, I'm doing my best to remember that the new direction has happened because it sells, going back to old direction could potentially kill the industry, and I can always go back to my old favorites 'cuz they're not going anywhere (usually). TLDR: Many "dead" franchises are from a less cynical era that I have good memories of and can't be reasonably expected from AAA developers anymore, and I'm trying to move on from my former belief that bringing back those franchises will save the industry
Bringing them back could actually damage the industry further; making them into annualized sequel trains to make up for their low budgets. Things like stunt casting, NFTs, shallow trend pandering, etc. could be used to squeeze more money out. Plus the toxic behavior kills many newer IP in the womb because “they aren’t what we wanted! We want older IP back! This is bland garbage!”, not caring that indeed many older IPs were bland garbage themselves. Many companies, especially smaller ones, don’t do research or care into picking what dead franchise should return, often going for any old dead IP. This results in games that are just as bland as the originals but bashed far more. Sega has the right idea with SOR4, for example.
I feel like a big reason for experimentation was mostly due to the fact that developers were in a really unstable industry with consumer taste changing like every 3 years. In fact I think that that was the time when most of these dead franchises really started to die. Sure you had some stuff like 2D Platformers survive due to handheld consoles, but that was not the norm. So a lot of the series that were left behind was due to that change. But now that gaming is much more stable you have less people making risks out there.
I've realized that "what's your favorite dead franchise?" and "what game do you want remade?" are essentially the same question, yet people have trouble answering the former. Mostly because they don't see the games they loved as dead franchises.
It's not the same question. Chrono Trigger and Valkyria Chronicles are 2 of my favorite games, and yet I wouldn't want them remade. Because whoever remade them would just fuck it up, as evidenced by all the bad Chrono Trigger versions Square Enix shat out after the SNES original and the abysmal Chrono Cross.
@@thomasffrench3639 kinda the point is there is no demand for another one some games or movies are desgin to have an ending which is why if another godfather movie ever comes out it would probbly be a remake
The big thing I think you're missing here is that most people don't actually care if their favourite series sell well other than the fact that them selling well normally means more is on the way. If I love all of the unique games PlayStation has made over the years I'll hold a grudge against the way they're currently run because third person action game describes probably 99% of the games they release now. And PlayStation is a company so they'll make whatever sells the most copies but that doesn't mean I have to thank them for it. I'd rather play games from smaller studios that try new things.
@@orangeslash1667the problem is that from what I’ve seen a lot of indie games don’t actually push genres forward with interesting mechanics (not all of course) because they are appealing to people who liked how it used to be, which is very limiting. And I have no problem with that, but a lot of the time, I would just rather play the game that inspired the indie game instead or find a hidden retro gem in that style. It kinda baffles me when people say they want games like old JRPGs, when they haven’t even played many classics, only Chrono Trigger, FFVI and Secret of Mana and haven’t even tried stuff like SaGa. It is just kinda strange to me.
I think something that helped a lot of the older franchises gain more "popularity" or long-term fanfare than the sales would suggest is actually the rental industry. It's mostly dead now sure, but back in the late 80s and 90s it was huge. kids would have played most of their games through rentals back then. Mega Man and Castlevania in particular were perfect rental games. They were tough but quite short, so ideal for a weekend rental really. I'm ye olde enough to remember those days and neither me or any of my friends actually owned much of a game library back then. Even into the 90s rentals were still big, like you could rent Twisted Metal 2 for a weekend and see most everything the game had to offer. Rentals may not have been ideal for the publishers I suppose, but for the consumer it was great for the time when video games were typically quite short and simple
Price as well. Back when I was a kid in the 90s, $50-60 for a game was a lot of money. Now it ain't much. I remember putting money together with my friends to buy one copy of the game and then burn copies for the rest of us to play (modded psx days)
Nintendo actually deliberately made many of their games harder specifically so they were unlikely to be beaten during a rental period(Battletoads was notably more difficult in the US then in Japan for that reason).
I admit, while I used to be pretty snarky towards modern Sony games - never towards any developers or anything, just chatting with friends - and would say stuff like the next Intelligent Qube/Jumping Flash/ Ape Escape is going to be a gritty third person cinematic adventure with a bearded father figure, I eventually realized that Sony kinda doesn't get enough credit. Yeah, I would love a new Wild ARMs, Dragoon, or Loco Roco but hey: every single one of those games has its legacy releases available for purchase right now on current PlayStation hardware. And hey, a lot of the people who made those classics what they are have started work on spiritual follow-ups like Armed Fantasia or Ratatan. Also, I encourage anyone who has a lot of dead or hiatus-ed series in their favorites list: Go explore the history of those series, see what else the creatives have made or may be working on. You could have had a favorite under your nose this entire time
Back in the day games looked and felt different from each other. Studios weren't sure what the rules or expectations were, and were brimming with new ideas in untested waters, so we got a lot of experimental weird stuff. They also had to build their own engine when making a game! These days they have tons of data on what sells well and their budgets are so huge that most of them are highly risk-averse. Add to that most non-indie games seem to use the same 3 game engines and they really start to look/feel same-y. I've long felt that I am not a "modern" gamer, that these games are made for someone who isn't me, and while that's disappointing it's also understandable.
I feel like a lot of the time they were just ripping off other games. Like you know the NES games that have very obscure and random ways to progress? That was literally just ripping off Tower of Druaga.
It seems easy to complain about a handful of major game engines ruining games' identity but you must understand that the cost and time of developing a custom engine for every studio aren't as feasible as they used to be. Much more cost is associated with big studio games than ever before which usually needs to be put into development time and staffing to meet a deadline. That means they need an existing engine filled with current tech standards ready to go immediately. The time and expense of creating a new engine usually isn't realistic anymore. Sure it would be ideal to have every dev use a unique engine; it would come at the cost of many fewer releases in a year and more teams going out of business as a result. Unfortunate as it may be, the nature of modern gaming development doesn't allow for the same amount of custom engines as it did before. For better or worse, things have changed.
The fact a single silent hill game never surpassed 2 million copies is insane to think, its always been one of the most beloved horror game series of all time with even the silent hill 2 remakes trailer having well over 9 million views, wonder if anything will change when that releases.
It's probably because it wasn't as action packed as the RE series has been even from the beginning. The SH trilogy is a true terrifying horror survival but sadly, it's always been niche.
it was a differnent budget and standard. to compare it to modern day AAA games is silly. It never had a modern AAA 100's of millions budget. it probably didn't even cost A million to make the the first one.
Though I prefer Jak 2 and 3 over Jak 1, I find it funny and depressing that the reason why Naughty Dog changed the tone and gameplay drastically in the first place was to earn more sale numbers, as kids weren't interested in kiddyshit games and want to play adult games like GTA , and yet the sequels ended up selling poorly in comparison to Jak 1. Slightly off-topic: Another thing is that Naughty Dog, during the Crash-era, would do anything to please the Japanese market. Like changing Crash's design in Japan, Coco being originally designed by Japanese artists (Ape Escape Artists), removing Tawna because a Japanese kid thought she was too old during a playtest (plus she was too sexy for a kids game), censorship, the Crash dance, Fake Crash, giving Crash 5 fingers, etc... But then they stopped gaf after Jak 1, which is why the sequels sold poorly probably because they weren't as "Kawaii" as the first one. Hell, Jak 3 and X didn't receive any Japanese release!!
I think Jak would have had some natural attrition in sales regardless of what route they went, but they did rub people the wrong way even if the Jak 1 -> 2 and 3 transition was exactly what I wanted at my age especially given that it still felt Mascot Platformy enough despite influence from GTA. As far as the localisation attempts for foreign markets, it was novel that they did so much but it was ultimately subject to the game/series they were on. I also think it is possible to have the wrong playtesters or take the wrong lessons, Hideki Kamiya didn't even up selling lots of Viewitiful Joe but he stuck to his guns... Do you really want to answer to kids who all say "The head's too big" or "Silvia's annoying, I just want to kill her". I don't mind to say that earlier builds especially of his games haven't had curious choices, but sometimes the committee needs to leave it to the designers.
@@billyboleson2830 I think it is funny given that they connect with more mature or sexual characters on occasion or in moderation. Ratchet and Clank got a lot of stuff through while being rated 3+ consistently in Europe for what that's worth. If nothing, it shows a yearly series doesn't need to be M rated but also that the world won't come to an end if guns or sexual humour are in a game that has the same rating as Mario.
If OG Tawna were to return, they probably need to bump the rating to Teen rating. Would like to see a teen rated Crash Bandicoot. Also Crash Bandicoot even now is still more marketable.
I think popularity is only half the reason games don't get sequels. There's a lot reasons both internal and external as to a game's success or failure, one could be budget. Dark Souls 2 only sold 2 million copies at first but because of it's budget management and low sells goal it was a big success. Meanwhile, Dead Space failed it's sells goal because it's sells goal was too big for it to meet. This is to say success and failure is deeper then being popular.
Welp, looks like only Fifa, NHL, CoD, Fortnite and Minecraft deserve to exist now. The masses have spoken, want something else? Too bad, a game needs to make all the money otherwise it doesn't deserve to exist!
@@homem-pobreThere are piles and piles of dead studios that chased after what sold. Companies that died for what were popular IPs at the time, that died trying to latch onto popular genres, that died trying to cater to new tech, that died for a dozen other things that were supposed to be safe bets. Sure trying to revive a franchise that people have well and truly abandoned is a great way to lose cash but likewise the mentality of "this thing made lots of money so we should do it too/do it more" has bankrupted plenty of studios.
@@homem-pobre That assumes that games need to have a AAA budget. Make a bunch of cheaper budget games that don't need to sell trillions to break even and become a profit. And when they flop the company won't go bankrupt...
@@BlackHook13 These low budget games you are talking about are also a huge gamble, they may not only flop but also get bad reviews, hate from fans and tarnish the name of the company, specially when some of these companies are known to release quality games. Take Naughty Dog for example, what if they released a low budget Jak sequel and the fans simply got mad because they expected something like Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, or the critics hated the game for whatever reason, or even if everyone loved it, if that game flops people have to be laid off, and it may even affect their bigger game. Decisions for all outcomes have to be planned beforehand and it looks it simply isn't worth it for them now. You can't expect any company to simply make games that aren't popular and lose money just because you want them to, sure following trends may lead them to fail but doing things they already know will fail also won't help them in any way.
I'll be honest, I didn't even know there was an Ape Escape, Jak and Daxter, or Parapa the Rapper remake or remaster. I don't remember them ever being advertised. A lot of what boosts sales is advertising. I feel like publishers sometimes intentionally put out remakes and remasters of older franchises with zero marketing behind it so that it sells poorly and they can point at it later to prove that the older franchises don't sell as well as the remaster of the remake of the sequel of the boring zombie game.
I've mostly been in agreement with you with the whole video. I just can't overlook buying a bad or not great product just to tell the company I want more from that franchise. That's just stupid. Especially since I don't actually want to play the old games with better hardware that I've already played. I want NEW content, not shitty rehashes. What the hell kind of take is that? I'm not buying into their profit scheme. What do you think is going to happen? We're going to signal to the developers/publishers/whoever that we want more of the old shit. Which is exactly what happened with Star Fox. Command, Assault, and Adventure (which barely counts as a mainline game, but I'm not about to quibble over that), are the only original titles in the mainline series. The original SNES title, the N64 title, the 3DS title, and the Wii U title are the same fucking game. That's what we're going to get, IF we get anything buy telling these game companies we'll buy whatever garbage emulation project they sell to us. Maybe we need another crash.
That may have come off overly harsh, and that wasn't my intention. It certainly isn't intended to be an attack on you, though I can see how it might be interpreted that way. My overall point is that we shouldn't be feeding into these garbage industry standards.
@@jadedheartsz specifically a video game crash, probably not. If we're going to see any change its going to have to be drastic, or an economic slump/collapse.
I’m going to counter your Megaman claim of not selling enough by saying, how can a 2D game sell as much as a big budget 3D Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry (9 years between 4 and 5), and Street Fighter? Of course it doesn’t. Megaman style games are cheaper to make and don’t have to make $1 million in sales to be profitable. Megaman has so many different series in its franchise there is no reason Capcom cannot make a new series in a different direction with a bigger budget that is made to sell millions. The issue isn’t the previous sales for dead forgotten franchises. The issue is these companies don’t want to take risks and revive these franchises by controlling the budget based on the sales they want and rebooting or creating a new series in the franchises. It’s because Capcom put all their eggs into Street Fighter and Resident Evil instead of old franchises.
I always shake my head when diehard fans of series attack developers and accuse them of wanting to bury a franchise. While video games can be seen as art (another debate entirely) the studios need to make money first and foremost, if the game doesn't make money then it doesn't matter how much the developer loves and treasures that series. There's nothing wrong with loving a franchise and wishing for more but the notion that franchises "die off" is some grand conspiracy is ludricous.
The main criticism I have for the video is that 1 mil sales doesn't determine if a game was successful, but it shows how successful it was. A big reason why I bring this up comes down to Mortal Kombat only had 4 people make the first game, but team size also doesn't say if something was successful. Cause while a game or expansion can sell over a million units, it comes down to costs and if the company is managing their funds responsively (cough cough, Bungie, cough cough). I bring these up because there's a difference in how games are made today compared to the NES days. Some methods stayed the same, low team sizes still put out good, if not great game. However, how big was the video game market back then? When video games were seen as children's toys? Early years of gaming was advertised for all ages, but how many that weren't in the games industry dropped gaming to "grow up?" Because without the paying audience, it was kids at the mercy of knowing the game existed and/or if their parents bought it for them if they couldn't earn the money from elsewhere. That's just tackling the millions sales as a marker that a game was successful. However, success means many other things, but it usually comes down to the cost to make the game. It'll depend on the size of the team to see if the sales were profitable enough for it to be deemed successful. A million units sold for a small team would be seen as the jackpot. But, with inflation and how complicated game development has been, a million units may not be considered successful depending on the size of the project. While I understand the core idea behind the video, this is just some food for thought
Castlevania is weird situation considering that it is more popular today than it has since the NES days. The problem with Castlevania is that what Castlevania fans would want is an indie game, and a big publisher like Konami probably isn’t looking for that. All of their remakes are of 3D games. So while a new Castlevania would probably be the most successful game, it will still not be done. It would be like Metroid Dredd. Also not every series needs to continue. Like for Castlevania I would be happy with just finishing the main story with the last two games planned. I care more about artistically completing something instead of just making sequels because people like it.
@@maxpops8427totally, but that’s only part of it. The popularity of the Metroidvania genre and the colloquial usage of the term. Not to mention the game that used Castlevania as a marketing tool was able to sell higher than any entry of the series. There’s a lot of reasons for the popularity of Castlevania at the moment.
This is kind of rare but I've seen it happen a couple times. Some dead franchises are being brought back to life with new indie level entries continuing them where the budget is much lower but due to the tech/presentation being much better nowadays they're pretty close in quality to the previous games in the series if not a bit better. For instance Fuga Melodies of Steel is a continuation of the Little Tail Bronx series that was started with Tail Concerto, CyberConnect2's first game made over 25 years ago. That series in particular usually gets a new entry every 10 years with Solatorobo coming out in 2010 and now there's the Fuga Melodies of Steel trilogy that started in 2021. An interesting thing is that they actually revealed budget for the first game, and it's $2-3 million. With each of these games selling 200,000 units I think they've recouped development costs and made some money off of these games by now too. Not to mention the sequels are iterative to the original where they just expand upon the mechanics while keeping pretty much the same presentation. So the sequels are probably a heck of a lot cheaper to make because they reuse a lot of the original's assets. Maybe some other developers should follow suite with their dead franchises, and make lower budget indie level continuations of them instead of letting them just continue to be dead. I mean I don't think most of them will, especially the big AAA publishers, because they will just play it safe and follow the money. Still I think it would be good for the industry got to the point where there's more smaller more experimental returns of dead franchises instead of the same few AAA franchises getting another schlocky sequel over and over again. I'd love to see Naughty Dog or another Sony developer make an new indie level entry in the Jak series with pretty much the same presentation as 2 and 3 because it honestly doesn't need the high budget AAA look IMO. It's also a vastly more interesting universe to explore than Uncharted or the Last of Us too. Heck why is the Last of Us Part 2 getting a remaster/remake when the game is just over 3 years old at this point. It seems like such a waste of time and resources to do that instead of starting up a new franchise or bringing back Jak.
Maybe this comes from a sense of archive panic on my part, but do we need more games? Some franchises aren’t dead, just finished. Although I haven’t played any of the Metal Gear games, it does seem like those games don’t have loose ends. And a franchise that I love, Castlevania only really has like 2 games left to fill in the gaps and if those 2 games were made, I would be happy to have no more games. Not every game series needs to continue as they are finished.
@@thomasffrench3639 It depends on the franchises, but yeah there are a lot of franchises that don't really need more games when it comes to the story. Though there are a lot that don't have an overarching story that could have new entries that do something new with the original mechanics as well. It also depends on what the developers could come up with for these dead franchises as well. This is another reason why I don't see every dead franchise just coming back on a whim. Though the ones that do could do something pretty unique and experimental with a smaller dev team and budget. Limitations breed creativity in a sense. In the case of Fuga they decided to go with a prequel trilogy with a way darker story and a linear resource management turn based game with a visual novel presentation instead of making another 3D platformer where you throw enemies at each other like the previous two games did. It's about as far from what the previous games did gameplay wise, but still works within and adds to the franchise due to it adding more world building and lore to the series. Other series could go with this approach, but I have seen that fail pretty badly in the past as well. Still I'd much rather they bring back dead franchises with experimental indie level games than just make more games for only the successful franchises because they're guaranteed to make their money back.
It's not a waste of time though as it's not like a Jak game would've been made even without the remaster, budgets simply don't work that way. I honestly don't know where else Jak and Daxter could go as a franchise. Now Sly Cooper on the other hand...
@@SacrificAbominat In fact, the failures in that category are quite common due to Sturgeon’s Law. The Prehistorik revival, though it technically was always indie, killed the franchise for good.
@@austinreed7343 Yeah there's a big chance these kinds of revivals are quick cash grabs instead of actual passion projects. In that case fans will definitely regret their favorite series returning without the magic that made them good in the first place.
17:41 This right here. I distinctly remember back in the day in the video game e celeb scene during the 7th generation of consoles popular and successful games like Halo and most shooter games were demonized over more colorful niche games. Saying halo was just another multiplayer shooter with no plot 🙄
depends what you mean by popular not every game series needs to be selling 10s of millions every installment plus capcom is known to sabotage less popular IPs just look what they did to onimusha released a half assed HD remaster of just the first game (worst version of the first game even) and over charged for it
My issue is less that these old franchises aren't getting new entries, but that nothing NEW like them is being created. Companies like Sony have been so successful, and yet they can apparently only spare the funding to make the same, dreary open world 3rd person realistic shooter with minor stealth and crafting. The demand is clearly THERE for something else, or Nintendo wouldn't still exist. The companies just refuse to make it. Even Playtonic, a company created explicitly to MAKE mascot platformers, seems to have given up. The lack of variety in modern games leads to people pining for older days when we had this variety of legacy franchises. By contrast, we just found out that Insomniac is trapped making generic Marvel games till the 2030s.
Outside of the shitty royalties disney takes Insomniac making mostly marvel games for the next 5+ years isn't such a bad thing from a certain angle. It lets them expand their tech and dev experience, remember they don't own the IPs but outside of something like suits or obvious iconography and designs the rest is all owned by Insomniac/SIE; this includes but is not limited to animations, gameplay systems, vfx, assets etc. So when someone else makes a Spider-Man game in the 2030s they'll have to start from scratch just like Insomniac did in 2014.
The problem is that 3D platformers are hard to make. Mascot Platformers appeal to a wide audience, but when the wide audience isn’t interested, it all depends on hardcore gamers. And those hardcore gamers are probably looking for more challenging and intensive games like 2D Platformers or hard action games. And even with 2D Platformers, they are designed a lot differently than they used to. Most modern platformers increase checkpoints, but each checkpoint has a really hard but quick obstacle course until you do it again at the next checkpoint. Old platformers used lives systems so you could master the mechanics then have some difficulty spikes in the level. So even if we got back to it, I don’t know if it would find a niche, but I guess it’s a possibility
This is why I like being a Danganronpa fan. I know this series isn't all that big, but it has very dedicated fans. We will show up to most of Spike Chunsoft's games, and they do well enough to justify sequels and new series by those creators, and they keep their games to a good size to not have costs balloon out of control. But I understand that a lot of these games (Danganronpa, Zero Escape, Somnium Files, Rain Code, etc.) are not that big. And then you have Pokemon fans who are always demanding a new Mystery Dungeon game, but always turn up their noses whenever a new mainline Mystery Dungeon game comes out, despite the fact that funding that would likely help show people want that gameplay of game. As of the end of 2022, it was reported that PMD DX released about 2 Million copies, which is big for Spike Chunsoft, but to Pokemon that's nothing when things like Legends Arceus get 14.83 Million. To one, those are amazing numbers, while to the other it's really weak numbers. And everyone had been wanting a new PMD for the longest time (despite new ones always coming out but no one buying them), and it's hard to say if new ones _will_ come if SC has enough incentive to do so and Pokemon sees it as enough of a profit.
As someone who is a Battle Network fan, Fire Emblem fan through Awakening, and a big fan of the Grandia series; I do understand the sentiment of wish your favorite series getting popular but same time people shouldn't go threatening or attacking developers and the like because they don't like X games and want their series to get a new installment because they want it. Appreciate what you got and don't force your wants onto others. I will say people should support what they want but ya know on their own term and money. Heck for anyone reading this, you know of these 3 series I mention, Grandia is one of those... I guess more generic RPG games back in the time of the PS1 and PS2's life span that had a unique gameplay system and least for the first 3 games were all well executed in their own right. Thing is the series won't ever make a comeback least not a revival in my eyes, but I'll still support the release of remasters, the HD remasters of the first two games though aren't great, were a big surprise and would allow me to play them more conveniently. Anyway, I do like your take TBP though I do hope at the very least companies can somewhat allow smaller IP's a chance, new or old, to take up a space rather then pre-existing ones just because it is getting to the point that thats all people are getting, the big IP names of say Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Dark souls/Souls esq games and several more that either don't interest me or I don't know about. Don't get me wrong I get companies want to make money but it will degrade in quality the more they pump out. Heck Fire Emblem is starting to dip with the example of Engage compared to any of the new era FE games from Awakening to now and the sad thing is its worse then Fates. I just discovered your channel so I don''t know if you done a video on like Big IP's versus smaller IP's and maybe how they impact one another or not and so forward or if theres a video that goes over something that I might be ignorant too so I do apologize in advance and hope you can tolerate my dumbness. Though am excited to check out more of your stuff and hope to see more of what you got in store. Thank you to anyone who read all this in the by and do have a splendiferous day/night!
Its not impossible for a smaller dead franchise to become more popular, DMC was dead for years and never sold higher then 2 or 3 million but here comes DMC5 reviving the series and selling way more then any other game in the series. You also have to account for emulation downloads and rentals for older games so its technically higher
The only thing I really disagree with here is saying that we should be fans of the developers rather than the games. There are plenty of examples where I lobe the game but the people who made it aren't great people. Sometimes you have to separate the art from the artist
I think another thing is this. Some game franchises like Mega Man have a huge romhacking and fan-game scene, which is keeping the franchise alive, and even Capcom themselves know about it during some interviews for MML1 and 2 and tons of these Mega Man romhacks and fan-games have a lot of passion in them. I feel like a truly dead franchise is a franchise that nobody cares about it at all. When the company itself doesn't want to do anything with their I.P.s, then it's up to the fans to make their fan-games or original games inspired by them to satisfy their own fanbase
@@MadPaperMarioStar Fox is such a sad franchise to think about, it just never really had the opportunity to be the "best" version of itself. The series has three different starting points for no reason. You'd think that in a universe with people actively traversing between solar systems that the environments and conflicts would naturally write themselves, but NO! Instead of focusing on expanding the universe, like the Star wars Prequels, and trying to make the most out of a rail-shooter's unique aspects, like Panzer Dragoon, Miyamoto thinks it only makes sense to keep the focus between Star Fox and Andross and add a gimmicky cockpit control scheme. And when Assault was so close too.
@@ridgenyan-botxv367I agree with the idea that it’s potential wasn’t unlocked especially for story telling and expanding the lore of the series, but I think star fox 64 was very close to the perfection of the series only thing I wish they had done was go with the Star Fox Adventures approach and have some levels on foot
"When the company itself doesn't want to do anything with their I.P.s, then it's up to the fans to make their fan-games or original games inspired by them to satisfy their own fanbase" This statement perfectly sums up Command and Conquer, the franchise is largely kept alive due to it's modding scene
Star Fox I think does poorly since they keep changing the formula. If it was a consistent series of on rails shooters, it might be more popular Come to think of it, they don't make on rails shooters much anymore. I guess that's more of an arcade genre, so it will seem more niche today. You know, that might be another big reason why Star Fox hasn't done well since Adventures/64. People back then got that it was a console on-rails shooter, perhaps once time stretched into the mid to late 2000s, the new generation of kids didn't get what Star Fox was.
I've heard some theories regarding why Star Fox hasn't got a new game in years and it boils to the fact that the most successful games in the series, the original and SF64, were in some ways a sort of tech demo for their respective systems, the original being a 3D game on the Super NES and 64 introducing the Rumble Pak functionality and having a lot of voice clips. The Star Fox franchise doesn't have the same WOW factor as it used to have in the 90s, and as you said, rail-shooters are more arcadey experience, that why we haven't seen a brand new Panzer Dragoon game in ages. I've seen some suggestions from fans that Nintendo should turn Star Fox into a different type of game, some saying making a new SF Adventure, but that doesn't make sense since they already have the Zelda series
@@pablocasas5906 Someone said that Starfox should take inspiration from Ratchet and Clank. Interesting idea, but I'm not sure Miyamoto would be comfortable copying Sony???
Interesting subject. The only " gripe " I have is how much a series like , lets say Megaman , need to sell millions of copies to be successful. Especially considering not all games require voice acting , mocap or other expensive stuff. Still , numbers dont lie. Im a bit mind blown at how much that Horizon game sold. The more you know 😂
@@Rahnonymous Good news: the creator of Silent Hill is making an action horror game as we speak. As for Metal Gear, Unmetal and Volume are good alternatives. Blazing Chrome is very similar to Contra.
I openly expect Silent Hill 2 remake to be even worse than Warcraft 3 Reforged and the XIII remake, and Silent Hill F to be the worst game of whatever year it releases in.
my favorite dead fransche is definitely the legacy of kain series. and hopefully if we get a new game it ends up in the right hands were it actully ends up good.
That Armored Core 6 has made so well has made me so happy to see that one of my favorite franchises is alive again. Now i'm just waiting for a new Twisted Metal game, i hope the TV show can get something in the works.
Hey! I watched that Ghost of Tsushima video - and loved it! I just don't comment because I don't wanna comment on one of my favorite UA-camrs and not get a response! (Even though you got like 100,000 other commenters to response to)
This might be part of why people push for more crossover games such as Capcom's Vs. Series, to see their favorite IP get in as roster filler in something like that.
I think that's also a reason why Smash Bros. character speculation topics can get so heated, people want to see some of their favourite character/series represented and seeing how Sakurai and his team has often included obscure characters gives people hope that maybe their wanted character maybe added
@@pablocasas5906 Indeed so. CvS3 conversations also get pretty heated, because the first two games had a very specific focus, and the debate is about whether this focus should be kept, relaxed (SvC Chaos noticeably relaxed the original focus), or abandoned completely, especially due to the various franchises people want to see again.
@@pablocasas5906yep people even demanding non gaming franchises to make it in Smash bros as well like Goku and Marvel characters is always a hilarious one toe lmao 🤣.
Great video as usual. Hopefully it doesn't become niche ironically. Though I would like to add another reason why Conker Bad's Fur Day sold so poorly was because it was released very late into the N64's lifespan.
Yo this guy is speak truth. Mega man, Jak and daxter, parappa... NOT popular. What is popular is the other game you like to play on the channel like god of war and.... ahhh... and ahhhhh..... *starts snoring* zzzzz ... and... zzzzz
I think another thing people should take into consideration when wanting these old franchises to return is the issue with how they could get "modernized." This is something I've noticed especially with modern remakes where they will bring back an old PlayStation series with a remake but the remakes themselves, while faithful for the most part, also have stuff that's taken out or straight-up censored, not to mention how modern sensibilites also affect stuff like how the story and characters are presented and thus a lot of the charm of the original is gone (ie. the 2016 Ratchet & Clank remake and the RE4 remake) or if we're talking about sequels that they could end up retconing and retroactively censor stuff from the old games, like Mortal Kombat did with MK11 and now with M1K. At that point, it is best if they should just leave the franchises and games as is, completely untouched with maybe something like an HD remaster since those don't get many drastic changes. It's why, for example, and I know this doesn't count as a dead franchise, but I don't want the old Kingdom Hearts games to get remakes and the HD ReMixes will always be the best ways to play them.
Yeah, gamers have this weird obsession with not letting franchises just exist how they are. Like MGS wrapped up it’s storyline with the 4th game, did we really need another one? Or did we really need Classic Mega Man games after the first 6 on the NES? Look at Ninja Gaiden: that trilogy of games literally just existed and were popular, and there was no real need for sequels as they did what they needed to do, and if you want to play Ninja Gaiden, you can play the trilogy. Obviously you have the Xbox games, but those are entirely different and aim to be different things
RE4 remake is awesome and altering certain things ain't "Censorship", sorry but I don't get throwing a hissy-fit over Ashley wearing shorts and removing Luis constantly hitting on her. MK isn't censoring stuff fool.
Great video and well thought out analysis. I will say, a lot of what you talk about can be mirrored in the music industry. I am especially frustrated by fans of metal and prog bands who just endlessly bitch when a band from the 70's or 80's will attempt to put out a new album. Obviously, I am not saying that fans need to blindly accept anything that a band will put out, but if you truly care about the artist and their work and you want them to keep playing and putting out new material than I would say it is in your hands. I still buy CDs and records for the bands that I like. Unless a band really stops putting out music that I enjoy (here's looking at you, Dream Theater), I do my best to keep purchasing their products or go to concerts. My wife and I have seen Blue Oyster Cult four times in the past calendar year and Kansas twice (will see them a third time in April). We see Iron Maiden every time they come to Chicagoland. This is to say nothing of smaller acts like Helloween, of whom my wife is not as big of a fan but still goes with me to see them because we want them to come back.
@@ryujithegoofydude2586 I have started using Spotify to listen to music while at work but if I like an album I still purchase it if I can. Bands benefit most from merch sales (records, shirts, etc.) so if I can buy it from them and support them I think it’s important to do so.
I think most people who are complaining that Sony only sells the same first party games are looking only at face value. Because it’s third party action. Which is funny to me because so was jac and dexter and ratchet and clank. Now they are more platformy and more collect-a-thons but that’s the problem face value observation. People’s complaints about modern exclusives capsule be said about the earlier exclusives. At face value J&D and R&C are the exact same game. But when you go into the mechanics and the story and writing you realize it’s completely different. Ghost and Spider-Man might look similar on the outside but when you play them they play different
The part with sales numbers is pretty disingenuous, you're not taking into account outside factors such as the fact that gaming was more of a niche hobby until around the PS2, games being more expensive and just general population growth. Also corporations are never your friends, you shouldn't be expected to participate in their stupid research experiments by buying games you already own over and over and buying into mobile gacha games, people have done that with Mega Man and there's STILL no new game.
Game development has become a little bit too expensive for even developing slop or shovel ware games. This can’t help but notice that there is a severe decline in movie tie-in games. The most you might get is some mobile title, but those are getting rare as well. 🎩 🐍 no step on Snek!🇺🇸🇭🇰
I get where you're coming from, but I really don't agree with your opinion that if we wanna support our favorite franchise then we should just buy whatever they release. I bought the Saints Row reboot when it came out just to support the franchise and the devs, and I regretted it because it's possibly one of the worst games I've ever played. It didn't even matter, Saints Row is still dead now because the game was so bad.
The reason people think these franchises are more iconic then they actually are is simple. Nintendo UA-camrs or gaming UA-camrs in general, with the amount of UA-cam videos talking about games like Conkers bad fur day and Banjo Kazooie as opposed to say Croc for ps1 you as a young impressionable kid watching them would assume they were the most popular franchises ever but in reality a game like croc sold about as well as Banjo. Hell I’d argue that Jontrons Banjo video is the reason most people today know the series
I really disagree with this and I really hate that people think that one tweet about Banjo and Croc is something they can just extrapolate to a whole industry, no offense but the reason people talk about Banjo isn't because of Nintendo focused UA-camrs but its because Banjo in retrospect was a great game and Rare, a trailblazer in devleopment and creator of someof the best Nintendo games of the SNES and N64 era, has a level of prestige above Arognaut Software who made ass racing games for the gameboy.
@@KrankuSama Banjos a bit of an extreme case but you cannot deny that a large portion of the gaming UA-camr scene back in the day was primarily Nintendo focused with maybe some sonic here and there. Most video game centered critics, countdown UA-camrs, parody and comedy guys, animators, music artists etc were primarily Nintendo focused or at least 8 bit era focused, you know how many Zelda or mega man ost remixes there were on UA-cam back in the day it was nuts and you’d rarely see these guys talk about other games that sold well like say any Final Fantasy not named 7 or call of duty. Hell I distinctly remember how during the 7th generation of consoles the popular games that sold well at the time like Halo and COD were looked down upon and seen as dull repetitive shooters in favor of obscure platformers. I remember how worshipped Oot and majora was and stuff like ff7 was seen as overrated emo crap back in the late 00s and early 2010s even though ff7 was actually more popular and sold more then OOT/MM. This is probably because since the GameCube and n64 had less games then the competition people attached much harder to the few games they had while for say the ps1 and ps2 there were so many games people went to their own niche. Or I dunno maybe Nintendo fans are more likely to become UA-camrs lol
@@billyboleson2830 I think you're attributing a bit of temporal oversimplification to your experience growing up watching youtubers compared to the wider understanding of how these games were received at the time and the legacy that they've built, Im sure its the case that Nintendo focused youtubers have mythologised these games but they have done so for a reason, OOT, Banjo etc weren't just suprise hits like Croc was but generationally very innovative and also a defining experience for their respective platform much like how FF7 or metal gear solid was for the playstation. The thing about just looking at sales numbers is that you miss an entire story of legacy, ambition and innovation and audience, or I'll put it another way, in 1976 one of the highest grossing films of the year was called In 'Search of Noah's Ark' it was a creationist film and it was absoloutely rubbish, this crap film that nobody remembers made almost twice as much at the Box Office as Taxi Driver, widely considered one of Martin Scorsese's finest films if not one of the best films ever made, in every directors top 10 and an intensely studied film in academics. Is it misguided to suggest that Taxi Driver is a more impactful and important film than some shitty documentary that panders to evangelists? It certainly has a more dedicated and large fanbase which has mythologised and elevated Scorcese's works, that generation of cinematographers and directors were ride or die for Scorcese even though none of his films have reached the highest echelons of the box office. Sometimes it takes retrospection and a construction of a legacy audience to appreciate a game, I would argue that it makes more sense to put Banjo Kazooie on a pedestal than insist it is equal to Croc, regardless of sales.
Couldn't agree more. I adore Gravity Rush but no one ever bought those games or the other stuff Japan Studio worked on. So If a studio isn't making you a profit over the course of several years, can I really blame Sony for reconstructing them and putting all their eggs in the Team Asobi basket? Also it makes me happy seeing studios like Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, and Guerilla branching out, continuing to evolve and working on new ips that are actually well made, sell well, and are loved by fans all at the same time. I feel like their success should be celebrated and not lamented just because they aren't making the game you don't want
Banjo-Kazooie is one series that comes to mind for this. The series has like a single game that's well beloved, two games that are contended, and then two gba games that never come into the conversation. Despite that, the way people talk about it would make you believe that it was some juggernaut of a game franchise. Fans will be disappointed by no new Banjo title from Rare, but when you look into it you can get why Rare is working on stuff like Sea of Thieves over Banjo-Threeie or whatever Side note: When it comes to Mega Man, I think the main issue is the series never meaningfully "evolved" past its roots once the 5th and 6th gens arrived. Legends was a spinoff, and by the time they tried with X7 they fucked up in a lot of ways so they never bothered trying a new angle for their classic or x series. Mega Man might have more of a chance with audiences if they took that "different game style" risk but Capcom wouldn't bother when other series can just fill that slot and still be successful in most scenarios (like Resident Evil).
Follow-up: Itoi, the creator of Mother, did say that Mother 3 was the last one he wanted to create. The series isn't dead, it's just finished. Now that doesn't mean that they should just... ignore porting it to modern systems, especially with mother 3 since that never has gotten an official non-japanese release
@@thejedisonic67 Mother 3 has too much copyrighted music, Nintendo could get in trouble if they localized it?? I recommend Eastward as an Earthbound successor.
@@orangeslash1667 pretty much figured, but the fans just want the first game... again somehow? like it has to be specifically the first game too, cause both tooie and yooka laylee are too divisive for them
I have just one issue with dead franchises. If a AAA developer/publisher has no intentions of continuing a franchise for any reason, why not just sell it then? The developer/publisher will make some extra money on the side, dispose of the unwanted franchise, and this will allow a chance for the franchise to thrive under a new ownership.
@@austinreed7343 One example of company selling a series is Sly Cooper. Sucker Punch Productions gave the rights to Sanzaru Games, which resulted in Sly 4. The bad news is that Sly 4 is hated by fans. If the company that created Sly can't come up with anything else for Sly, how would Sanzaru Games be any better????
TL; DR: i like the video but i feel youre overstating how much of this is merely because t makes money. These singleplayer AAA experiences sell well sure but in the insomniac leaks clearly not well enough. You can dislike the egotism but even new playstation will eventually stop doing AAA releases and do more live services and youll then be on the same side as the people ure criticizng in this vid I really like this video’s thesis and think it’s something I’ve think you’ve hit the nail on the head about for years watching your stuff. The online discourse really does favor a certain type of online enthusiast and algos make that group think that these niche franchises and genres are super popular because they know 50 people who like them. I feel a similar thing happens with Nintendo, where its innovations as a company are overstated because Nintendo fans almost exclusively play Nintendo games However I do contend a lot of your points and I will have trouble structuring this so I’ll kind of just list them as I think of them: 1. Your greater point around companies targeting sales I think is sort of incomplete, namely with Mega Man. Now you are correct that Mega Man doesnt sell many games, but the thing with Mega Man is it’s incredibly important as a *brand*. His design is iconic and recognizable and because of that Capcom makes a good chunk of change selling merch, t shirts, toys, books, comics, etc. Which is why even if the games dont sell well them selling good enough should and usually is what makes it wise to make more of them. Sure it’ll never sell Resi numbers but Mega Man fans both nostalgic 40 somethings and any kids they can convert will provide consistent revenue that I dont think Resi does. Sure Resi has merch but kids and adults can buy Mega Man figures whereas a Resi fan will probably just get a t shirt 2. I also feel that the meme you cite is moreso that people are annoyed that these franchises are all starting to play the same precisely because the industry isnt taking creative risks like they should. With the hundreds of millions they spend to make four high budget blockbusters they could make one blockbuster and multiple smaller scale games. Sure your point is that mid-budget games arent feasible, but I would argue that high budget games arent feasible. The new spiderman isnt going to make a profit until it hits like fourteen million units and even then it isnt going to get there until it gets bundled with a PS5, and multiple AAA companies are bleeding talent with all the layoffs because their lifeline is making sure they make one profitable game every five to ten years 3. I also feel like even with AAA gaming there’s a lot of bad decisions within these blockbuster franchises. Again, the new Spiderman apparently remodeled the world but it looks exactly the same as the PS4 game. They also are making mini-sequels between each release which even when they reuse assets and are meant to tide people over still take a whole ton of money and crunch time to make. The time table in Insomniac is insane, to be trying to push out a game every two years. It’s a bubble waiting to burst 4. I also feel that maybe im just way too naïve but Im somewhat of an optimistic capitalist, not a libertarian but I think with the free market but regulated systems the West has we’re not just developing these companies for profits. I believe their goal is to make people happy in order to make money: what I mean is that companies know to expand their horizons and maintain some level of good will because maintaining a brand and audience loyalty makes them more money in the long run. Because if every company was out for the dollar the only games coming out would be live service battle royales, because those are the most profitable. Sure God of War made money, but Fortnite crushes it. Heck im sure Overwatch 2 crushes it. Yet they still made GoW and they even put out a free update for it. Because they know that singleplayer motivates brand loyalty within a base that will buy up everything they put out 5. On the topic of this I will say that not making these new entries is a bad idea because making a little money off of a niche brand is still better than making no money by keeping the brand dormant. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk showed there’s an audience for a Jet Set Radio game that Sega couldve been milking with merchandise and the once in a blue moon new installment. Not as much as Sonic but still the people who buy Sonic merch do so because despite the games being bad theyre the foot in the door for a new generation. Same principle applies. I will use Timesplitters as an example: Timesplitters is an old console shooter that was a niche then and is an even greater niche now. It only ever sold a couple million copies, but it wouldve been smarter for the brand to be kept alive with some rereleases because now that theyve kept it on ice the series will never sell well. Whereas a HD collection in the 2000s then a new installment in the late 2010s wouldve had a chance of selling a couple million again, whereas the new Timesplitters got canned because the franchise only ever had one generation of fans: the ground zeros. Whereas something like Crash or Spyro even tho theyre unpopular now can at least concievably come back in ten years because enough kids will have tried out the HD trilogies to concievably be nostalgic for it later. Timesplitters was too arrogant and now will never have that comeback 6. There’s also a reason to bring these franchises back: they can be used to cut a new studio’s teeth and make enough money to fund these new big budget projects. IO Interactive made Hitman 2016 for 100 million dollars, then H2 cost 50 million and H3 a mere 25 million. The trilogy apparently has had 50 million players (idk if thats demo or full purchase) despite being a niche thing and because of that they were able to use Hitman’s loyal fanbase to fund their new James Bond games. So it can be done: you can be a AA studio, make a midbudget release or at least a AAA release with increasingly cheap sequels and then use the money from that niche fanbase to fund big blockbusters. You dont need to spend five years making a third person singleplayer open world game with shooting elements which if it flops will bankrupt your entire company Overall tho i think your video is a harsh truth people need to hear. An example I can think of is Crash fans: Crash’s comeback sold well off of nostalgia alone. Crash 4 was a great game but the newest generation of kids and the nostalgic adults only wanted those two installments, the franchise was never going to come back and be a AAA mainstay in the age of Fortnite. That doesnt mean it was a bad thing to make these remakes or Crash 4, because of reasons ive mentioned before (a show of goodwill, reminding people the brand exists, short term profit) but people cant demand for Crash to get new sequels when that five year burst after a decade break is more than enough. The franchise simply isnt popular enough to be evergreen, you can just hope that it caught on with enough kids to be worth rebooting again or just be glad with what you have because it’s not like it’s a franchise that has such flexible gameplay that its got longevity in its legs Edit: remembered two other things- bomberman doesnt sell all that well i would guess because its a party game that people wont seek out unless they already like it or a friend plays it with them. Rayman Legends sold well but keep in mind it was a sales disapointment at first ala megaman but because it was evergreen and cheap to rerelease it sold better and betyer in drips and drabs ala Okami. Ubisoft is actually a great example of this because its triple A franchises all came from niches like Far Cry and Prince of Persia turned AC and they also let their studios try their own thing like with Reflecions and Grow Home. I also feel conker didnt sell well because it was a late release N64 game. Im pretty sure south park on 64 sold well
I can definitely understand the point here, for God of War for example, personally I'm not super into the formula of the more recent games, but there's no denying that by the end of the PS3 generation Santa Monica really didn't know what to do with that series anymore. Sometimes the change is necessary
same deal with the Saints Row reboot, people can bitch all they want but at the end of the day it felt like Volition had exhausted every possible idea they had for the characters so a reboot that got back to the games gangbanging roots felt like the only logical way to go.
@@jadedheartsz In the case of Saints Row, there was always a lose lose situation for Volition. The series has always been accused of being a GTA rip off so they changed the tone drastically with 3 and 4, pissing off the hardcore fans in the process. The reboot failed because it didn't know which demographic to appeal. Fans of the first two games didn't like it because the game was less gangster and more a parody of one. Fans of 3 and 4 didn't because it doesn't go as crazy as said entries. At the end of the day, the reboot was a disaster in the making.
@@dragondelsur5156 I thought it was a pretty fun game that was an improvement over 3 and 4 overall but I can understand why some didn't get on with it. I remember going on the old Volition forums and reading about the original plans for part 3 and they were pretty ambitious, wish they'd been fully realized.
I remember watching a playthrough of the Jak & Daxter games, where this person overall enjoyed the first one but disliked the second one in part due to some....interesting writing decisions, and people got...defensive in the stream chat.
I dont think that just buying games to "support the franchise" is valid, if the product is worth it sure, but if its a botched port/remake/remaster why should we? Id rather let the franchise die than to just get crappy games/rereleases of games eternally.
The distinction is that there's a stark difference between a video game and its franchise. People can like a franchise a lot, but not be interested in a game just because it's in the franchise. For example Pac Man makes big money in merchandise. When it comes to games, there's no reason to buy a Pacman game since it's an arcade game. The core gameplay that defines and is part of the appeal is made for gameplay that's worth a quarter each time you play, rather than paying about $60 to own yourself (on a disk or something. Sixty for a cabinet is highway robbery). That said, people still like playing classic Pacman. In an arcade today, that cabinet will probably make the most money out of all the others. In something modern like Dave and Busters, that 4 player Pacman table is also popular. A lot of these old franchises are good for their time, be it that it was a time for simpler games or it innovated games for the time. These game can be made so well it becomes popular just because of how great it is. It just needs to be more than just another entry.
Pac-Man also didn't really stay as the original mazerunner it started as in games either. It's had a crap-ton of re-releases throughout the years, and also several games that attempted to innovate on the formula to varying success from different creators, but the character has had a number of mid to low-budget games that step into the territories of platformer, kart racer, etc., and has even gotten a full remake of Pac-Man World in 2022. Pac-Man is just a marketable mascot character that was a little more fortunate than other franchises that started as games. It's main revenue source certainly isn't coming from its games anymore, just like how that's probably the case for franchises like Sonic or Pokemon at this point, but it still continues to dabble with games even today regardless.
Gamers must understand that video games, as a medium, are still new and growing. As such, only a handful of game franchises are genuinely iconic at a pop culture level. The sales of various game franchises speak for themselves. Given how many game companies have acted since the 7th gen, for the most part, a franchise should end or rest. Game companies should focus on developing new intellectual properties rather than continuously milking old franchises until they become disorganized and potentially ruin their reputation. Only consider reviving an old franchise when it's ready to return and if the game is up to par (especially in the gameplay department!) or at least generates decent sales.
I'd love to hear your takes on Legend of Dragoon! Why was it considered the "Final Fantasy Killer" Potholes in the story (there's quite a few) How the franchise could've continued (rather as a sequel or a prequel covering the Dragon Campaign)
@@jadedheartszthe first killzone has aged poorly. I loved 2 and 3 but don't know how they have aged been a long time since I've played them. The last one was a dud for good reason. Now that Horizon took off I doubt unless someone at the studio wants to tell a story there it will happen.
Super Smash Bros For Wii Us trailers have fooled a generation into thinking mega man was more popular then he actually is. Mega man was never “capcoms mascot” because Ryu is, he was always niche. Mega man much like Metroid and Samus the characters themselves are well known and popular maybe but this doesn’t translate into sales. these people that recognize him don’t buy his games
I feel like what makes certain franchises iconic is also a big reason why they don’t sell well. Mega Man is a perfect example because when someone thinks of Mega Man, it’s an amalgamation of the first 6 games. The gameplay is so iconic that there isn’t much you can do to evolve it, and the same game being released over and over again will lead to fatigue. Compare that to something like Castlevania where at a glance all of the games seem the same, but each game feels entirely different. Castlevania 1 is the foundation, Castlevania 2 goes in an entirely different direction, and Castlevania 3 add playable characters that completely change the play style of the game with the foundation of the first game. And these additional characters tend to be what really sets each games apart in addition to completely different philosophies about level design. Then when the Metroidvanias took over the characters all played very differently from each other until they found what worked as far as control was concerned, then completely changed the way the map worked. Another thing that helps is that Castlevania has a way more varied cast and playable characters that each game feels distinct just by who you’re playing as.
I think it helps the fact that Smash Bros. is seen as a celebreation of video game culture in general and that Sakurai and his team do take into consideration some fan requests, I think that's the reason why we saw the inclusion of characters such as Mega Man, Simon and Richter and Banko & Kazooie, despite their games not being that mainstream nowadays. Sakurai did actually said in his Terry Bogard video that even if a character isn't as popular the important thing is that it's fun to play, though technically I don't think Terry actually fits the definition of an obscure character, considering that he has been mainstay of the King of Fighters series, a franchise that has been active for over 30 years now, and his home series, Fatal Fury, got revived after a 20 year hiatus. I think international popularity also plays a big role, the King of Fighters franchise is very popular in Latin America, China and the Middle East. Sakurai added Little Mac in Smash 4 due to its popularity in the West because the original Punch Out! arcade and NES games were huge hits in America, and he previously appeared as an Assist Trophy. Not and Smash Bros. expample, but Konami's most successful titles in Japan are the Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball games and the Momotaru Dentetsu series, which have sold millions of copies
Honestly one of the things that I like about PlayStation is how their developers get to move on to other IPs instead of staying with the old one. Sure they have some legacy franchises still going like God of War, Ratchet and Clank and GT but for the most part, each generation seem like their studios get to work on new things which I think is great
This video is pretty eye opening to me, I never knew how poorly a lot of games sell but hey that's okay! I find games to be more impactful when there is a limited amount of games in a series, it makes me appreciate what the developers did a lot more!
I totally agree. I have never got into the Mega Man series, but a lot of the classic and X games all seem like pretty much the same game. Compare that to Castlevania where most of the games are completely different experiences despite having similar foundations.
very impressively articulated not mean spirited and very true. Trust me i am sad about dormant franchises but the important rule is don't be a dick about it. Show some love by talking about it cordially. Franchise include legend of dragoon, breath of fire, alundra and chrono series
the thing at least with megaman is that the thing people are mad at capcom the most isnt them not releasing games is probably engaging in scummy tactics like nfts with the megaman x brand
My issue is less with the sales and profitability, and the fact that companies have been consolidating through acquisition for so long that these massive IP hoarding companies effectively sit on the franchises that they probably don’t even realize they own. There are so many games that could be profitable and successful if handled by the right creative team for a modest budget. Especially with today’s digital distribution model, but the IP is kept under lock and key never to be heard from again.
So like are you never going to adjust for inflation when talking about sales from 20, 30, even 40 years ago, or are you just assuming Capcom adjusts? Well, no, they don't, they count units, not money accumulated. A million units today is less profitable because statistically, and objectively, a million is worth way less than it used to. Ontop of that, the gaming market even in 2005 or so is nowhere lear as accessible as it is today, for many socioeconomic reasons I will not get into. If the 2000s are a smaller market than 2023 due to gaming simply not being as common, then the 80s of all things should be properly adjusted to analyze units for it's smaller audience. Percentage wise, it's why Mega Man seems to have sold badly, combined with Capcom's own decisions which lead to the series actually selling bad even for it's time by around 2000 (bad or a complete lack of marketing, and in the case of the European market, downright misleading marketing, too many titles being released at once without fanfare, etcetera). Like, for 2001, Jak 1 selling 4 million is unprecedented, we're talking a pretty big success story for a still medium sized company like ND at the time. Jak 2 might not have been the best selling, but it was the fastest selling in the US. This makes it impressive on it's own since it somehow succeeded despite a lot of Asian markets receiving bad marketing, or in the case of Japan, bad marketing ontop of general disinterest. Jak 3 in retrospect seems like an even more likely failure, but somehow broke the million mark despite them not even bothering with the Asian markets. That's an entire region cut out of the game, obviously it's not going to get any official sales numbers (even if it did by that point it'd be niche so, yeah). Jak X sold badly since it was a late PS2 title, a racing spinoff, and again, a game they never tried releasing on Asian markets. This is also ignoring any kind of supposed market's ignorance, the whole "American gamers just want to buy war games" stuff you see? Yeah in Japan they have a thing like that as well, the obsessive MMO player. I don't think it's really relevant but I find it notable enough, we do pretend many Japanese games fail because of western gamers being supposedly ignorant. I think Mega Man and Jak are good examples since they are basically polar opposites, one was very easy to produce, the other was so hard to produce that rushing Jak 3 was visibly apparent. Ontop of you ignoring the inflation, well really it's more like "ignoring" that you do, maybe note that most people who play video games don't actually give a shit about capitalism's grip on daily life, and they are not saying they want the series to come back because of some "logistical advantage." Sometimes people can't help but not care about soulless number counting, after all, if we cared about numbers exclusively, games would all just be microtransactions and gambling. A series' worth is not based by sales, but I felt like I had to point out the ignorance in comparing game sales from 1989 to the 2020s, because for such an understanding of sales mattering, you don't get how sales are not equal.
Someone recently pointed out that star fox command was announced and shown at yhe very same time the wii was shown off for the first time so it got over shadowed. That said we don't really have clean data with starfox. Star fox zero flopped but was it because its an unpopular ip? Was it because it was on the wiiu? Was it the forced motion controls and it being 64 push people away from wanting to play it? Was it because it was unclear if it was a reboot or not, resulting in fans from the gb era not wanting their favorite games be retconned.
Star Fox is probably the most "mascot-y" franchise, and a lot of the franchises named here fit in that pattern and have so many devoted fans but so little mainstream players. Mario and Sonic are doing fine but the other franchises of that type not so much...
Speaking of the GB era, these games were only on the decline the moment they moved away from the 64 play style which at the time had no reason to abandon I in the first place. Starfox 64 sold incredibly well and was received well which means that people liked what they were given I 64 and wanted more of it. If the following games were like 64 but we still saw a decline in sales then it would have been a different story. Then the experimentation of gameplay genre would be more justifiable as to keep the series alive. That's not even mentioning the jumping from 3rd party dev after another which results in lack of direction. Edit: also no hate towards the GB games, I love assault but they unfortunately played a role
@@boptillyouflop Miyamoto says that he has no interest in making another Starfox unless he can come up with a new gameplay idea for it, which explains why Zero has motion controls.
For the people going to Sucker Punch about Sly 5, I have only this to ask. They DO know Sucker Punch had nothing to do with Thieves in Time, right? So it's not a Sucker Punch problem, it's a Sony problem since they're the ones with the license and are choosing to do nothing with it, especially since it's thanks to their shortsighted bullshit Sanzaru was forced to cancel the Egypt DLC that was supposed to resolve the cliffhanger that's haunted us for soon to be eleven years. So if they wanna yell at someone, yell at Sony. I don't even care if Sucker Punch does decide they want to do Sly again, I just want it to be in the hands of a COMPETENT developer who can fix what Sony broke! Again, it doesn't need to be Sucker Punch, it doesn't need to be Sanzaru, it just needs to be someone who would actually know what the fuck they're doing (preferably with undoing Penelope's bullshit betrayal and giving Sly the happy ending his story deserves!)
This video is a very interesting analysis on how we should view popularity. HOWEVER, I will say that in terms of examples you used for sales, I'd say Namco is the one company where I can say it's geniunely THEIR fault as opposed to the fanbase, in that they either promote their IPs HORRIBLY like with Klonoa Wii, or had a tendency in the 2000s to mismanage their release dates like with Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament. Even now, the beloved remakes of Pac-Man World and Klonoa relied on their fans to do the dirty work.
I think a big issue here, not necessarily with your logic, but the logic of AAA game companies, is the sales figures they use to justify whether a legacy IP gets to continue or just gets to rot. Mainly, they're looking at sales figures that haven't meaningfully been updated since the 80's or 90s, and extrapolating them into the modern gaming market, which is so much larger that the comparison just simply cannot be realistically made. For example, yes, Mega Man has only had a handful of entries sell over a million copies. Now how many Mega Man games have come out since 2010, not counting compilations or free-to-play mobile games? One. How many games from the sub-series like X, Legends, etc have come out since the 2000's? None. You can't meaningfully judge how, say, a new mainline Mega Man X game would sell in today's market based on sales figures from 2005, when the last entry was released. Another big issue is that these companies solely look at the number of units sold and not the amount of profit made from units sold. Using Mega Man as an example again, Mega Man 11 sold over 1 million copies, and since it, like almost every Mega Man game, was made on a low budget, it undoubtedly offset their development costs and made a nice profit. However, Capcom looks at that one million and says "But it didn't sell 8 million like the latest Resident Evil", not factoring in that Resident Evil games are exponentially more expensive to make and need to sell multi-million levels of units to break even, let alone profit. It's a self-defeating mindset where if the latest entry isn't the best-selling game ever at launch, no matter what its actual sales figures and profit margins are, then it's automatically a failure and isn't worth continuing to invest in.
But they do factor in the expenses when making these decisions. The problem is that when you make a sequel you tend to not be sure if the new one will sell as much as the previous one, but you probably need to put more money into it to ensure it’s quality. So you are stuck in a situation where you aren’t sure what to attribute the success of the game to, and it becomes risky. If it sold 2 million copies, the risk would be a lot more manageable
I'm glad that Battle Network got a resurgence with the Legacy Collection. All there's left is to hope for a Starforce Legacy Collection, Legends Collection, and maybe one day, Legends 3, to conclude the Robot Timeline.
The 2029 game will likely be the final one though (which I'm fine with especially considering what the next game's direction is via pre-production slides).
@@lazoali9555 analyze these concept slides and come to your own conclusion. imgur(dót)çóm forward slash "a" forward slash ym7 s4IR (just close the spaces and swap some characters).
There's a bunch of games that these days are considered cult classics, with more fans being introduced to these franchises, such as Klonoa, Twisted Metal, Ape Escape, Jet Set Radio and etc, which is an opportunity to the companies to test the franchise again, like SEGA is doing with both JSR and Crazy Taxi, what namco did with Klonoa, which the sales has done well despite they not advertising the game to both north and south america, but there's games that doesn't have that big cult classic fandom, such as Medievil, or even Gex, most of the people aren't interested in those, this is why Medievil remake has eventually failed
This is why crossover games, and to a lesser extent compilations, are valuable, for those D, E, F, G-tier franchises. Medievil was released too late after its last crossover appearance. Not sure if any compilations were done for the series either. Thankfully the Medievil revival was good and not complete ghoulware.
Are the majority of game developers really making the games they want to make, or are they just making the games that are projected to do well in the market just so they can pay rent?
Ape Escape was a great franchise. I played the 1st and 2nd game on the PSP and PS2, but did not play the third one. I just want playstation to make a remake of it and it would look great on PS5.
17:27 Part of that discussion reminded me of the whole "are videogames art" drama and how gamers desperately need validation to the things they like, otherwise they'll become enraged and toxic. Another big problem is also this ultra consumerist mindset that gamers have nowadays, as if they are in their rights to harass publishers and developers just because they are the "loyal costumers" and their needs should be taken care of.
It’s unfortunate a lot of great series won’t get new titles but a lot of companies like Capcom and Sega are still great at agnowledging some of their lesser known IP’s with things like crossovers. Not ideal but definitely shows they at least are thinking of them. Plus a series getting a new game is over rated anyways when the older games will always be there to play
You mentioned at the end when a new games comes out out, people enjoy it, and then ask when the next game comes out. This feels a bit of a double standard as zelda fans awhile ago were asking when the DLC for TOTK would come out then they get mad when they find out that theirs is none planned and have a fit about it. Or how every direct they keep expecting wind waker and twilight princess to be ported or remastered as if its expected of them. Now I don't hate zelda nor do I down play its popularity but what exactly makes people think that nintendo would do that? I get that they appeared on other consoles after the GB era but did they do that as some sort of tradition? I mean these games weren't originally loved by the fanbase and was only loved later on in life. TP got another release for the wii but that was due to its release frame and ended up being a cross gen title. Then the ports for wii u now did they so this because its traditional or is it because they didn't actually have games for the wii u? I get the point of this video, I respect your opinion and enjoy both your old and new content but you got to see the problem with this. Fans of popular games demanding and expecting more even though they have two massive open world games, an HD port of skyward sword, a remake of a classic 2D game and a bunch of spin offs. Yet they demand more. All the while fans such as F-Zero and me, a Star Fox fan wants one game. Literally just one per console generation, that is all we need to be satisfied. It doesn't need to be popular, it doesn't need to have constant releases like mario or zelda. Just one game and if they made another that same generation thats fine, we weren't asking or expecting it but thats great. I don't approve of harrassing programmers or developers when they stop making the games you like but its really frustrating and annoying when a developer keeps making the same mistakes everytime they try to make a new entry and instead of reflecting on what they did wrong they either blame the ip or its fans. While i like the advice of just buying the next entry if it happens despite the fact that you won't play it, it is a double edge sword. In theory it would help show interest and maybe keep it afloat but at the cost of quality. In one of your sonic videos you talked about how sonic fans deserve better and should make that clear by voting with your wallet. What happens if nintendo decided to make another starfox game but its another Star Fox Zero like game or Command. Should we still buy a copy and give nintendo the impression that they can get away with retelling the same story and giving us unwanted hardware gimmicks? Or do we vote with our money but then give the false impression that nobody cares about the serise and it dies in definitely?
This whole thing reminds me of Darkstalkers/Vampire. a series that the fans have been clamoring for decades, and yet, refuse to buy any of the collections or remasters that release. Yes, a new game would be nice, but fighting games are niche enough as is, and using up all that time, money, and effort on a new game that won't sell won't benefit anyone. Darkstalkers/Vampire fans didn't buy The Chaos Tower on the Dreamcast or PSP. They didn't buy the collection on the PS2. They didn't buy the HD remasters on the PS3 or 360. Capcom got desperate to the point where they had to trick people by calling the next attempt Capcom Fighting Collection and added a few other games to it. And guess what? They STILL didn't buy it. So like, what were they expecting? If you won't buy the numerous rereleases and attempts made to bring the IP to a wider audience, that's just signaling Capcom that you don't actually want a new Darkstalkers/Vampire game, let alone any of the older entries.
OK, first off why did you even mention the games that where released on Dreamcast, and PS2 when both of those releases where in Japan only, with the Dreamcast one being only available though mail order. Second when did Capcom ever say that the Capcom Fighting Collection was an attempt to see if people wanted a new DS game?
@@billyboleson2830 I'd say that Darkstalkers' roster has some of the most creative characters designs in any fighting game, it's not just Felicia and Morrigan, other characters like Demitri, Jon Talbain, Hsien-Ko and B.B. Hood are very iconic, at leat for the genre. But I say that part of the problem why the franchise disappeared was due to it's gameplay, while it a pretty good fighting game, I think doesn't have as big of a competetivie scene compared to Street Fighter or other games from other developers like Tekken or King of Fighters The fact that Darkstalkers was a vert cartoony looking game is another problem, I don't think Capcom is interested in investing their resources in making a new Darkstalkers game that looks like the previous ones, it'll have to look like Gulty Gear: Strive. Not to mention that it seems like Capcom is content with just having one big fighting franchise, it seems most publishers can only maintain one, Namco is having trouble with the Soul Series so it's just Tekken for them, SNK is the only one that seems to be able to have multiple fighting games (KoF, Samurai Shodown and Fatal Fury)
Toxic fans lumping Ratchet & Clank in with those other "forgotten" franchises always felt weird to me, 'cause like, didn't we JUST get a Ratchet & Clank game?
Rift Apart isn't even a full 3 years old yet, but those guys are acting like Insomniac is abandoning the series just cause they haven't immediately started working on a new entry.
@@KaminoKatie That doesn't mean we won't have a new Ratchet and Clank period, the fate of the series was much more bleak during the PS4 era when all it released was a remake from the first game based on a movie that flopped.
They actually are working on an R&C for 2029 according to the leaks
They work on a lot of Marvel stuff now alongside Ratchet and Clank at the moment. Making one game can take at least a few years so it's no wonder why the next Ratchet and clank game is set to come out in 2029 according to the leaks
Also, didn’t we had a Little Big Planet spin off 3 years ago? Didn’t we had a Medieval remake that’s going to be almost 5 years ago? Didn’t we had a Twisted Metal series last year?
yeah, but every other game isn't available on modern platforms. That also counts as "forgotten" imo.
I think I can explain why there’s a disconnect between these series popularity and the weaker sales figures, there isn’t one. At least not when you look at the bigger picture.
A lot of the games you mentioned are older titles from console generations where a game selling a million units was considered a smash hit. It’s not just the price of games that has increased, the amount of copies games sell has to as the gaming market has expanded. I like to call it sales copy inflation.
You can’t compare the sales numbers of earlier games to newer games without that context.
Yeah this seemed to be a missed detail. MMX selling a million+ units ON THE SNES is a stupid feat for its time and MM11 selling 1.8 mil despite capcom trying their goddamn best to bury the series is another in itself. If the collections can do as well as they are with nearly zero support then clearly theres something there. I mean how well was 11 supposed to do given capcom's treatment of the series before then? I can't think of many series that have/could die for a decade and then rise from the grave to outdo 1.8 mil sales much less a bigger target like 5 mil.
@@JustForGaming_Alt-kf8lz plus 11 was not a big budget game. Selling 1.8 million units was probably more than enough for it to be a success.
@@JIreland1992What makes the situation suck even more is that MM11 is so good. The Classic series is probably my least favorite, but I really like MM11. I haven't played all of the Classic games, but the ways they were able to add new, actually useful weapons, a strong difficulty without feeling janky, and new game systems without hampering the feel of the Classic series only makes me sad about how they could have approached the X, ZX, or Legends Series. It's ridiculous!
X9 would sell like crazy….
The problem is game publishers keep raising their expectations for sales even when it's unrealistic to do so, like EA expected Dead Space 3 to do almost COD-like numbers and for horror games that's just never gonna happen.
Honestly I think Sony's focus on these big AAA tentpoles at the expense of everything else is inherently unsustainable in the long run. They need smaller IPs to fill the lineup out. Otherwise we are essentially buying a console for maybe one or two games a year. If that.
you are correct this focus on endless growth is not sustainable
This is why 2nd party and 3rd party to fill out gaps are important and why Sony is relying on them a lot this year.
Honestly, it's not just Sony in my opinion. I think Indie games have shown there is a market for budget titles, but the only budget titles coming out of the big players are mobile games usually. They make their AAA games with so much money that the release has to sell millions just to break even. Imagine if instead of getting hundreds of folks to crunch so that overly pretty AAA game with too many particle affects ships 6 months after the initial release date, there were fewer people working on something smaller and less pretty. Knowing them, they'd still charge 60 or 70 bucks for it, regardless of quality or length. They might make a profit back with less than a million copies sold for once.
They themselves know this, why do you think they tried to stop the activision buyout, cause they know without multi-platform super hits like cod there would be huge droughts of games (Look at the wikipedia page for ps5 only games lmao)
Maybe the modern way to bring smaller scale games from Sony into the market would be PS Plus exclusive games, unfortunately. Sony and all major companies care about increased subs/sub retention. Having smaller budgeted games that can barely make any money being sold for $20 or $40, can instead be funneled into a sub service and hold people over until the next AAA comes out?
However the counter argument of taking a portion of a team and making smaller scale games would be, why not just put them in a support studio or as the core devs on a game instead? Focus more on the big stuff, and continue making deals with AA or indie games to be put on PS Plus... It seems nearly impossible to imagine Sony will ever care to make smaller scale stuff anymore.
The premise of this video doesn't work because the fandom for these games are not misguided, you acknowledge that game budgets have ballooned in recent years but you don't observe the fact that this is the case for every medium, budgets have inflated for everything and audience participation numbers have increased perpetually not just for games but movies, books and TV, and then you go on to discuss the dwindling influence of Mega Man and CastleVania but you're talking about franchises whose best years were the NES and SNES generations, its odd that you would extrapolate these sales and apply them to a contemporary gaming trend because they were more influential and important in previous generations. Obviosuly Mega Man 2 isn't doing Monster Hunter or Resident Evil numbers now but it was considered influential enough at the time to be adapated into a ton of merchandising and was a certified hit.
You're too focused on sales figures, a game does not need big sales to be culturally relevant or lucrative or be a part of popular culture, for many years the most sold games were the ones bundled with consoles and yet people don't talk about Kinectimals or Kinect Adventures do they? Even a powerhouse like Halo didn't sell as many copies as Kinect shovelware at launch and yet Halo is an institution, it has a huge fandom and an extended universe of Novels, Comics, An anime collection, A TV show and snacks, Master Chief is a recognisable icon of gaming. I think you observed something that other people have noticed, which is that people tend to gas up their favourite games like how Banjo Kazooie is seen as this masterpiece but it was competing with something less discussed like Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, but you can't take an example like that and try to extrapolate it to the entire industry because it means you're ignoring a wider cultural context that makes these games more lucrative and more discussed. It's not misguided to suggest that Banjo is more influential on the gaming landscape than Croc even if they did sell a similar number of units, this retrospective holds value because its a text in a wider story, one of Rare, a developer who produced some of the best selling and most recognisable Nintendo games
Also I think its really weird that you suggested BYG&E2 was delayed because of this effect? Why do you think thats the case at all? There doesn't seem to be any proof of this.
@@KaminoKatie yeah, I think it's a bit disengenous when looking at a game that got a lucky hit in the early days of 3d gaming, to then say it's misguided that we would consider banjo kazooie a bit more important and influential.
@Ostrava_Of_Boletarialike it or not sales figures what really matter we live in a capitalistic world things need to make profit
@@KrankuSama The reason Banjo is important is because helped popularized the Collectathon genre. It's confirmed that Hat in Time, Tinykin, Jak and Daxter take inspiration from Banjo.
However when open world games became a thing, big companies saw collectathons as out dated. Even Rare themselves is making an open game, called Everwild.
I think the reason so many iconic game franchises aren't actually that popular is because of how much bigger gaming has become since it started to appeal to a more casual audience back in the mid 2000s. For the standards of the 80s and 90s something like Mega Man was probably a titan in it's own niche but once the niche became main stream it simply couldn't keep up with the new standards and all the new audiences it had to appeal to.
Nostalgia is one hell of a drug and can really mess you up on what real or not
I think gaming hit the mainstream around the 7th generation with GTA 4 and COD
Definitely. Outside of Battle Network once it reached the 2000s they really stuck to their guns a little too hard. They barely changed up the gameplay formula, and when they did they were so stubborn as to trying to carry over certain design philosophies from the old days. X7 thought they could just slapdash 2d level concepts in 3d and that was a disaster. Being rushed titles also doesn't help though lol
@@MadPaperMario I think it was around the 6th generation myself with the PS2 breaking sales records and with it doubling as a DVD player many families got one solely for that function as it was a lot cheaper then a regular stand-alone DVD player at the time.
And the fans reject casualization attempts, even successful ones like Rockman X-Dive.
I think that those “unpopular” franchises that managed to become popular again (Ratchet, Ace Attorney, God of War) did so by becoming accessible to a new audience (especially Ace Attorney, which was locked to Nintendo handhelds until 2019), after waiting some time to shake off the franchise fatigue they once had (again, Ace Attorney and God of War had a streak of sequels reiterating the same formula throughout the 2000s/early 2010s).
It also helps that in the case of R&C and GOW that the Developers were willing to give them another shot. I have no doubt that if Sucker puch pitched a new sly or Naughty Dog pitched a new Jax and Daxter Sony would approve them. But the studios responsible have to want to do that.
there is also the fact that youtube and social media helps infalte them ask most fans of these games and you will find they either never played them or just stright up emulated them
That huge list was a compilation of information from both the Insomniac ransomware attack and official announcements of sales over the years, so that's why some games aren't on there.
Funnily enough the CSI game 3 Dimensions of Murder actually tackled this-one case has a murder happen at a gaming event and one of the games being demoed is a controversial first-person shooter and one of the suspects in the murder is a former developer who left after the company behind the new FPS refused to greenlight a sequel to his passion project(which was basically a parody of Sam and Max)and one conversation you have with one of the female employees there has her saying that despite the passion of the game's fanbase it ultimately just didn't translate very well into sales so they couldn't justify making a sequel to it.
Huh never thought I would see that game mentioned here. Shame that Fuzzy and Bill never got that sequel.
@@codysullivan2531 Ah yeah that was the name thanks. That reminds me, I really wish we'd get another CSI game, I miss these TV show tie-in games but I guess it's easier now to just fart out crappy mobile tie-in games with freemium currencies so there's no more need for games like NCIS or Law and Order.
Funny story: I originally wanted to do a History of Telltale Games video series where I cover every Telltale game ever made (Telltale being responsible for making the CSI games). Surprisingly, while I was looking for research to write about the CSI series, I found little to no info about how the games were made, or what challenges they had to face while working on the games.
I never actually finished my Telltale History series, due to Covid, my mental health, my life, etc. Sadly, all those scripts are gone because they are accidentally deleted.
@@ShockwaveFPSStudios Damn sorry to hear that, might be worth taking another pass at them, i'd love to see a video series on that. It's a shame you can't buy Law and Order Legacies anymore, i'm lucky I got it when I did.
For me, I'm OK with classic franchises or individual titles from yesteryear never coming back if they don't have something new and passionately genuine to say, rather than remain perpetually milked forever. A lot of the time, they told the full story they wanted to tell and bowed out gracefully.
But even if not every IP got the ending they deserved, there's plenty of quality fanfiction and fangames out there, which may fill the holes left behind by the absence of a new official entry, that exist to provide a much desired sense of narrative closure or keep the spirit of its old-school charm alive in some personally meaningful capacity.
Something I've come to realize and accept as a guy who's entered into my 30s, is that a lot of folks nostalgic for any sort of media (never mind games), mostly wish for familiar IPs or faces to come back in order to regain a semblance of the feelings they had when they experienced them for the first time in their youth and escape briefly from the misery that inevitably comes with adulthood. However, what does it usually end up with? Mostly uninspired, tired, soulless retreads which fail to live up to their beloved predecessors and retroactively damage the brand by playing it too safe for appealing to peoples' collective nostalgia.
For every Devil May Cry 5, Metroid Dread or Deus Ex: Human Revolution which does this approach correctly, there's a dozen Sly 4s, Western Silent Hill games and failed Thief reboots to counteract the positive sentiment which comes from a revival after a 10+ year long absence.
Do I still miss characters that I personally grew up with? Of course I do. But stories naturally end and as often difficult as it is to accept, sometimes you just have to say goodbye to fictional characters that you've become attached to and move on to other things at some point.
The old stuff will always be there for you to go back to for brief forms of escapism whenever you are in need of it and provide appreciated moments of happiness, but that shouldn't stop you from going on to appreciate newer material too (even if it can frequently prove easier said than done with the often drastic quality inconsistency in this day and age).
Yeah I do miss sly cooper and jak and daxter but those series ended perfectly and I am fine with it
Yeah, the only real series that I really want to come back is Castlevania. They (IGA/ArtPlay) obviously still have more story and ideas for the new game, but they can't do it because they don't have the rights to finish them. That is when things become frustrating, not that Mega Man releases Mega Man 4.5 doesn't come out. Like people still want a new Metal Gear game, but Kojima is clearly finished with it. This idea that franchises are just some never ending thing where sequels should be expected is strange to me.
As someone who’s favorite franchises are Road Rash, Jet Moto and Battle Arena Toshinden…I’ve long since accepted that they are extremely niche and will probably never come back lol. That’s ok, they were great while we had them.
When it comes to niche franchises that we liked, what this boils down to is "Don't be sad because it's over, be happy because it happened."
I would love a new installment to these niche franchises like Mega Man (mostly Mega Man X9), Parasite Eve, and Spyro to name a few, but considering the current climate of the gaming industry, it's highly unlikely.
We'll have to accept that these companies will make whatever games they feel will break even.
@@No_Envy_777 Survival horror remakes are in vogue, and a Parasite Eve remake would be a better idea than whatever the hell Foamstars is.
@@devonwilliams5738 I don't know if the problem with Parasite Eve is that it's actually based on a series of novels, so Square-Enix would need to negotiate with its original rightholders
@@pablocasas5906 I'm sure the rights are dirt cheap regardless, and it's mostly Squeenix's own OCs anyway.
One of the reasons a lot of these IP's died out is because a lot of the fans from that era and casuals moved on. While a lot of hardcore people stayed, as you said, hardcore fans only make up a small amount. Gaming obviously is more popular now more than ever. It's reaching everyone, its the biggest form of entertainment, eclipsing movies, tv, and music. And a lot of these companies I feel didn't keep these guys around not just because they didnt believe in them, but because they wanted to do more, and also didn't give people access to play a lot of these older games or do even a half ass job of advertising the return of a game with a remaster or remake. Doesn't help, as you pointed out, these games didn't crack a million sometimes, but for the time they came out and the money they made, it was good. But now, they won't risk it because they are looking at the money made from yesteryear.
Take for example The Resident Evil Outbreak series, everyone wants them back but they didnt do so well in the early/mid 2000s, but thats also because those games came out before their time. Now online games are huge, but gaming executives wont take the chance due to past earnings.
However, you can do it right if you look at something like Streets Of Rage 4. The SOR series has been dormant/dead since the 90s when the original trilogy hit the Genesis. Afterwards it was just subpar ports. But then SOR4 comes out and meets with both fan and critical praise (pretty sure it sold well too) and now Sega themselves are giving their old IP's a chance.
So its like a mix bag really. Can a megaman game or a new dino crisis exist? Perhaps. But its also up to the fans to cheer these things on when they do happen and its up to the companies to not half ass any kind of game they are working on thats an older IP and let the developers with a vision do their jobs.
For any fans of the Jak and Daxter series, it shouldn't come as a surprise that 2, 3, and X did so poorly in sales. There was a major backlash against 2 of most people writing it off as a gta clone. While 2 definitely has the best story of the franchise, the difficulty spike and lack of checkpoints really turned people off after coming from how easy TPL was. Then the people who were disappointed by Jak 2, likely didn't buy 3. And I wouldn't be surprised if all the people who didn't like the driving in 3 assumed X would be more of the same. That or they just didn't like kart racers and mario kart was still the best at that.
It was mainly because of Jak II's sales in Japan. The first game sold very well as it was marketed as a family friendly platformer a bit like Crash was. But Jak II's darker tone and story just wasn't what most people were looking for or wanted for the series at that time. And Naughty Dog knew this going into the second and third game.
I played them all when I was like 7. I liked TPL until I saw the first Jak 2 commercial. Jak was just way cooler in 2 and 3. I played the shit out of those games, especially Jak 2 without a memory card, which means I watched those goofy ass cutscenes a lot. Even then, I didn’t question how silly the shift from TPL to Jak 2 was until I was a bit older. The fact that he went to the future worked for me. Like of course he has guns now, he’s in the future.
@@fanlikeyourself5053 That's very true. NaughtyDog assumed with the release of gta 3 that that was where the gaming industry was going, but not until the ps3/360 era. So they made Jak 2, 3, and X to reflect what they thought the rest of the ps2 generation was going to be and it unfortunately backfired because as you said it wasn't what everyone else was expecting.
We obviously loved the tonal shift, but everyone else didn't though :/
@@MegaDrain honestly I think making Jak 2 more of the same would've only killed the franchise faster as mascot platformers weren't very popular at the time.
There's also the truth that, when conceptualizing for Jak 4 they immediately realized they couldn't do more for this series. If they wanted Jak and Daxter to come back, of course they have to get through Sony, but they still could, but fatigued developers wouldn't know what to do with the series.
My biggest issue with a lot of big budget games is they always need to be realistic. They always need to be super high quality visuals where you can see the pores and each hair follicle. I don't want that. Give me more cartoonish or anime or stylized visuals. Thats why i still stick with Nintendo and a reason indie games do so well
Agreed. Focusing on realism not only makes each game lack an artistic identity of its own, it can actively harm the development of a game by forcing everything to take so much longer because each asset needs to be photorealistic. For example, DMC5 removed a staple of the series because of the decision to make it realistic. In almost every other DMC game, there were multiple costumes for each character that were full model changes. But in DMC5 the only costumes are 1 simple recolor per character (if you buy it as DLC), and one costume that is the exact same as their default except the eyes glow. The reason given by Capcom was that developing multiple models per character would take too long, because they need to be such high quality. It was an entirely self-inflicted limitation that they put on themselves by deciding to go for hyper-realism in a series that had always been stylized with an anime-inspired aesthetic.
That’s not the main problem. Realistic graphics are ultimately harmless, not every game needs to look like an anime or a slapstick comedy. The main problem is that big budget games require less risk, so they have the same mechanics as other games which critics praise for being accessible. The industry nowadays punishes innovation.
I like both styles myself, Nintendo just kind of bore me now, their games feel too samey to me, Mario just ain't for me anymore.
strongly disagree, I feel say Last of Us has a different identity from say Ubisoft or Quantic Dream titles
I never have a shit about the costumes in the DMC series so 5 was damn good to me.@@Rhubarb120
being accessibly is a good thing for people with disabilities though.@@thomasffrench3639
But we don't want a AAA Game, just a decent Game. We don't need a Megaman that cost over a 100 millions. Most of these "dead franchises" could come back as games with a modest budget
heck mega man 11 WAS considered a budget game by capcom. and in their earnings report they pointed out that not only was it a success, but that it surpassed their expectations. it's why the indie market and games like Tormented Souls and Gunvolt do so well and have multiple sequels. they don't need to sell a hundred million copies for profit. and the old games never needed it either.
@@Lazrael32 Please don't remind me 11 is the highest grossing game in the franchise. It's not bad (outside the horrible soundtrack) but man, that fact it's the highest grossing is just sad.
well if we adjusted for inflation it might change some figures. I imagine X might take the lead then.@@utopua4all
It would still cost money and man-hours from Capcom's limited supply of those things that they could have instead spent on something else. It's called opportunity cost.
@@secondavenger9775
That’s why outsourcing is a good thing.
I can't speak for everyone, but a big reason why I'm nostalgic over "dead" game franchises is that it often reflects a past era when AAA developers could afford to and were willing to take risks with new IPs essentially for the sake of the art or with some kind of unique gimmick. Besides the examples from the video, Chibi-Robo, Jet Set Radio, and The World Ends With You are all "dead" franchises that weren't made with the expectation that they'd sell millions, but were passion projects to add to the studio's history; Ape Escape was made with the dualshock controller in mind as mentioned in the video, and Rhythm Heaven was basically a challenge to make a truly sound-based rhythm game that doesn't rely on visuals. Nowadays, AAA developers prioritize profit over everything, which is why those passion projects and experiments aren't seen much anymore, aside from the occasional remake/remaster/whatever or budget title that isn't relied on for the studio's sales that quarter.
(TWEWY actually demonstrates this video's point very well; a sequel was demanded by fans for years and it finally got one over a decade later that was barely marketed because Square Enix apparently thought word-of-mouth would be enough for such a "desired" game...and whadayaknow, it flopped in sales, because all the demand for it came from its vocal but very small cult following and the franchise is invisible to everyone else)
Obviously game studios have to make money, just as movie and music studios do, and focusing on what's popular is a reliable way to do that. That's why I feel that it's in the hands of indie developers to keep the spirit of "dead" franchises alive, such as Bomb Rush Cyberfunk for Jet Set Radio and Pizza Tower for Wario Land; indie games are largely crowdfunded, on a smaller budget, and aren't planned to launch a multimillion dollar franchise, so they don't have to worry about profits the same way AAA studios do (granted, Pizza Tower became a viral hit, but the point still stands). Therefore, they can afford to take risks with these passion projects even if they aren't always quality (looking at you, Mighty No 9).
I actually used to indulge in the toxic behavior mentioned in this video, telling people they didn't play the "right" games if they don't like my favorite popular series (I told a guy on Miiverse who didn't like Fire Emblem that he played the "worst" ones, I.E. the popular ones that I don't like, and he should play the "best" ones, I.E. the ones that mostly long-time fans like) and blaming developers for not making the games I want (like Capcom making Street Fighter when I wanted Ace Attorney). Even though I dislike the direction AAA games have taken recently, I'm doing my best to remember that the new direction has happened because it sells, going back to old direction could potentially kill the industry, and I can always go back to my old favorites 'cuz they're not going anywhere (usually).
TLDR: Many "dead" franchises are from a less cynical era that I have good memories of and can't be reasonably expected from AAA developers anymore, and I'm trying to move on from my former belief that bringing back those franchises will save the industry
Bringing them back could actually damage the industry further; making them into annualized sequel trains to make up for their low budgets. Things like stunt casting, NFTs, shallow trend pandering, etc. could be used to squeeze more money out.
Plus the toxic behavior kills many newer IP in the womb because “they aren’t what we wanted! We want older IP back! This is bland garbage!”, not caring that indeed many older IPs were bland garbage themselves. Many companies, especially smaller ones, don’t do research or care into picking what dead franchise should return, often going for any old dead IP. This results in games that are just as bland as the originals but bashed far more.
Sega has the right idea with SOR4, for example.
I feel like a big reason for experimentation was mostly due to the fact that developers were in a really unstable industry with consumer taste changing like every 3 years. In fact I think that that was the time when most of these dead franchises really started to die. Sure you had some stuff like 2D Platformers survive due to handheld consoles, but that was not the norm. So a lot of the series that were left behind was due to that change. But now that gaming is much more stable you have less people making risks out there.
@@thomasffrench3639
The gaming industry being somehow destabilized would lead to franchise revivals en masse, right?
I've realized that "what's your favorite dead franchise?" and "what game do you want remade?" are essentially the same question, yet people have trouble answering the former. Mostly because they don't see the games they loved as dead franchises.
I don’t consider something not being made anymore as dead. Is The Godfather a dead franchise because Godfather Part 3 was released 35 years ago? No.
It's not the same question. Chrono Trigger and Valkyria Chronicles are 2 of my favorite games, and yet I wouldn't want them remade.
Because whoever remade them would just fuck it up, as evidenced by all the bad Chrono Trigger versions Square Enix shat out after the SNES original and the abysmal Chrono Cross.
@@thomasffrench3639 kinda the point is there is no demand for another one some games or movies are desgin to have an ending which is why if another godfather movie ever comes out it would probbly be a remake
The big thing I think you're missing here is that most people don't actually care if their favourite series sell well other than the fact that them selling well normally means more is on the way. If I love all of the unique games PlayStation has made over the years I'll hold a grudge against the way they're currently run because third person action game describes probably 99% of the games they release now. And PlayStation is a company so they'll make whatever sells the most copies but that doesn't mean I have to thank them for it. I'd rather play games from smaller studios that try new things.
Try new things or at the very least explore old things in the interesting way
@@k96man thank god for spirtual successors.
You can get what you're looking for elsewhere though.
@@leviticusprime4904 Most franchise are usually ether simple of 2d sprites. Both of which can be done well with indie companies.
@@orangeslash1667the problem is that from what I’ve seen a lot of indie games don’t actually push genres forward with interesting mechanics (not all of course) because they are appealing to people who liked how it used to be, which is very limiting. And I have no problem with that, but a lot of the time, I would just rather play the game that inspired the indie game instead or find a hidden retro gem in that style. It kinda baffles me when people say they want games like old JRPGs, when they haven’t even played many classics, only Chrono Trigger, FFVI and Secret of Mana and haven’t even tried stuff like SaGa. It is just kinda strange to me.
I think something that helped a lot of the older franchises gain more "popularity" or long-term fanfare than the sales would suggest is actually the rental industry. It's mostly dead now sure, but back in the late 80s and 90s it was huge.
kids would have played most of their games through rentals back then. Mega Man and Castlevania in particular were perfect rental games. They were tough but quite short, so ideal for a weekend rental really. I'm ye olde enough to remember those days and neither me or any of my friends actually owned much of a game library back then. Even into the 90s rentals were still big, like you could rent Twisted Metal 2 for a weekend and see most everything the game had to offer.
Rentals may not have been ideal for the publishers I suppose, but for the consumer it was great for the time when video games were typically quite short and simple
Price as well. Back when I was a kid in the 90s, $50-60 for a game was a lot of money. Now it ain't much. I remember putting money together with my friends to buy one copy of the game and then burn copies for the rest of us to play (modded psx days)
Sure, but if you look at other countries, particularly Japan, rentals weren’t a thing, so it’s not just simply rentals.
It’s most likely social media and collabs (like smash bros)
Nintendo actually deliberately made many of their games harder specifically so they were unlikely to be beaten during a rental period(Battletoads was notably more difficult in the US then in Japan for that reason).
@@jadedheartsz actually it was the other way around. Japanese Battletoads was made easier
The disappearance of “mid budget” titles have really crushed a lot of these mid to low tier franchises.
There are indie games.
I admit, while I used to be pretty snarky towards modern Sony games - never towards any developers or anything, just chatting with friends - and would say stuff like the next Intelligent Qube/Jumping Flash/ Ape Escape is going to be a gritty third person cinematic adventure with a bearded father figure, I eventually realized that Sony kinda doesn't get enough credit. Yeah, I would love a new Wild ARMs, Dragoon, or Loco Roco but hey: every single one of those games has its legacy releases available for purchase right now on current PlayStation hardware. And hey, a lot of the people who made those classics what they are have started work on spiritual follow-ups like Armed Fantasia or Ratatan.
Also, I encourage anyone who has a lot of dead or hiatus-ed series in their favorites list: Go explore the history of those series, see what else the creatives have made or may be working on. You could have had a favorite under your nose this entire time
Yeah I much prefer having old games on modern consoles without much input lag than a remaster or sequel.
Back in the day games looked and felt different from each other. Studios weren't sure what the rules or expectations were, and were brimming with new ideas in untested waters, so we got a lot of experimental weird stuff. They also had to build their own engine when making a game!
These days they have tons of data on what sells well and their budgets are so huge that most of them are highly risk-averse. Add to that most non-indie games seem to use the same 3 game engines and they really start to look/feel same-y.
I've long felt that I am not a "modern" gamer, that these games are made for someone who isn't me, and while that's disappointing it's also understandable.
I feel like a lot of the time they were just ripping off other games. Like you know the NES games that have very obscure and random ways to progress? That was literally just ripping off Tower of Druaga.
It seems easy to complain about a handful of major game engines ruining games' identity but you must understand that the cost and time of developing a custom engine for every studio aren't as feasible as they used to be. Much more cost is associated with big studio games than ever before which usually needs to be put into development time and staffing to meet a deadline. That means they need an existing engine filled with current tech standards ready to go immediately. The time and expense of creating a new engine usually isn't realistic anymore.
Sure it would be ideal to have every dev use a unique engine; it would come at the cost of many fewer releases in a year and more teams going out of business as a result. Unfortunate as it may be, the nature of modern gaming development doesn't allow for the same amount of custom engines as it did before. For better or worse, things have changed.
The fact a single silent hill game never surpassed 2 million copies is insane to think, its always been one of the most beloved horror game series of all time with even the silent hill 2 remakes trailer having well over 9 million views, wonder if anything will change when that releases.
It's probably because it wasn't as action packed as the RE series has been even from the beginning. The SH trilogy is a true terrifying horror survival but sadly, it's always been niche.
it was a differnent budget and standard. to compare it to modern day AAA games is silly. It never had a modern AAA 100's of millions budget. it probably didn't even cost A million to make the the first one.
@@Lazrael32 Konami confirmed thats true.
@@orangeslash1667 where?
@@Lazrael32 I recommend the UA-cam video (Silent Hill Downpour - What Happened?)
Though I prefer Jak 2 and 3 over Jak 1, I find it funny and depressing that the reason why Naughty Dog changed the tone and gameplay drastically in the first place was to earn more sale numbers, as kids weren't interested in kiddyshit games and want to play adult games like GTA , and yet the sequels ended up selling poorly in comparison to Jak 1.
Slightly off-topic: Another thing is that Naughty Dog, during the Crash-era, would do anything to please the Japanese market. Like changing Crash's design in Japan, Coco being originally designed by Japanese artists (Ape Escape Artists), removing Tawna because a Japanese kid thought she was too old during a playtest (plus she was too sexy for a kids game), censorship, the Crash dance, Fake Crash, giving Crash 5 fingers, etc... But then they stopped gaf after Jak 1, which is why the sequels sold poorly probably because they weren't as "Kawaii" as the first one. Hell, Jak 3 and X didn't receive any Japanese release!!
I think Jak would have had some natural attrition in sales regardless of what route they went, but they did rub people the wrong way even if the Jak 1 -> 2 and 3 transition was exactly what I wanted at my age especially given that it still felt Mascot Platformy enough despite influence from GTA.
As far as the localisation attempts for foreign markets, it was novel that they did so much but it was ultimately subject to the game/series they were on. I also think it is possible to have the wrong playtesters or take the wrong lessons, Hideki Kamiya didn't even up selling lots of Viewitiful Joe but he stuck to his guns... Do you really want to answer to kids who all say "The head's too big" or "Silvia's annoying, I just want to kill her".
I don't mind to say that earlier builds especially of his games haven't had curious choices, but sometimes the committee needs to leave it to the designers.
The Tawna bit is especially funny in todays context with how popular Lady D from RE8 was
@@billyboleson2830 I think it is funny given that they connect with more mature or sexual characters on occasion or in moderation.
Ratchet and Clank got a lot of stuff through while being rated 3+ consistently in Europe for what that's worth. If nothing, it shows a yearly series doesn't need to be M rated but also that the world won't come to an end if guns or sexual humour are in a game that has the same rating as Mario.
@@thelastgogeta Fun Fact: Naughty Dog confirmed that Banjo Kazooie was the biggest inspiration for the first Jak game.
If OG Tawna were to return, they probably need to bump the rating to Teen rating.
Would like to see a teen rated Crash Bandicoot.
Also Crash Bandicoot even now is still more marketable.
I think popularity is only half the reason games don't get sequels. There's a lot reasons both internal and external as to a game's success or failure, one could be budget. Dark Souls 2 only sold 2 million copies at first but because of it's budget management and low sells goal it was a big success. Meanwhile, Dead Space failed it's sells goal because it's sells goal was too big for it to meet. This is to say success and failure is deeper then being popular.
as a sly cooper fan i’m not mad we haven’t gotten a new game im mad the fucken movie got cancelled
Welp, looks like only Fifa, NHL, CoD, Fortnite and Minecraft deserve to exist now. The masses have spoken, want something else? Too bad, a game needs to make all the money otherwise it doesn't deserve to exist!
And you think that the only games that exist nowadays
So you are going to pay the bills for them when the games you want flop or what?
@@homem-pobreThere are piles and piles of dead studios that chased after what sold. Companies that died for what were popular IPs at the time, that died trying to latch onto popular genres, that died trying to cater to new tech, that died for a dozen other things that were supposed to be safe bets.
Sure trying to revive a franchise that people have well and truly abandoned is a great way to lose cash but likewise the mentality of "this thing made lots of money so we should do it too/do it more" has bankrupted plenty of studios.
@@homem-pobre That assumes that games need to have a AAA budget. Make a bunch of cheaper budget games that don't need to sell trillions to break even and become a profit. And when they flop the company won't go bankrupt...
@@BlackHook13 These low budget games you are talking about are also a huge gamble, they may not only flop but also get bad reviews, hate from fans and tarnish the name of the company, specially when some of these companies are known to release quality games.
Take Naughty Dog for example, what if they released a low budget Jak sequel and the fans simply got mad because they expected something like Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, or the critics hated the game for whatever reason, or even if everyone loved it, if that game flops people have to be laid off, and it may even affect their bigger game.
Decisions for all outcomes have to be planned beforehand and it looks it simply isn't worth it for them now.
You can't expect any company to simply make games that aren't popular and lose money just because you want them to, sure following trends may lead them to fail but doing things they already know will fail also won't help them in any way.
I'll be honest, I didn't even know there was an Ape Escape, Jak and Daxter, or Parapa the Rapper remake or remaster. I don't remember them ever being advertised. A lot of what boosts sales is advertising. I feel like publishers sometimes intentionally put out remakes and remasters of older franchises with zero marketing behind it so that it sells poorly and they can point at it later to prove that the older franchises don't sell as well as the remaster of the remake of the sequel of the boring zombie game.
Marketing adds to cost though and that's risky with some of these IP.
I've mostly been in agreement with you with the whole video. I just can't overlook buying a bad or not great product just to tell the company I want more from that franchise. That's just stupid. Especially since I don't actually want to play the old games with better hardware that I've already played. I want NEW content, not shitty rehashes. What the hell kind of take is that? I'm not buying into their profit scheme.
What do you think is going to happen? We're going to signal to the developers/publishers/whoever that we want more of the old shit. Which is exactly what happened with Star Fox. Command, Assault, and Adventure (which barely counts as a mainline game, but I'm not about to quibble over that), are the only original titles in the mainline series. The original SNES title, the N64 title, the 3DS title, and the Wii U title are the same fucking game. That's what we're going to get, IF we get anything buy telling these game companies we'll buy whatever garbage emulation project they sell to us.
Maybe we need another crash.
That may have come off overly harsh, and that wasn't my intention. It certainly isn't intended to be an attack on you, though I can see how it might be interpreted that way.
My overall point is that we shouldn't be feeding into these garbage industry standards.
another crash will never happen again
@@jadedheartsz specifically a video game crash, probably not.
If we're going to see any change its going to have to be drastic, or an economic slump/collapse.
So dont be like sonic fans lmaoooo
@@bluudevil4483 quiet troll
I’m going to counter your Megaman claim of not selling enough by saying, how can a 2D game sell as much as a big budget 3D Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry (9 years between 4 and 5), and Street Fighter? Of course it doesn’t. Megaman style games are cheaper to make and don’t have to make $1 million in sales to be profitable. Megaman has so many different series in its franchise there is no reason Capcom cannot make a new series in a different direction with a bigger budget that is made to sell millions. The issue isn’t the previous sales for dead forgotten franchises. The issue is these companies don’t want to take risks and revive these franchises by controlling the budget based on the sales they want and rebooting or creating a new series in the franchises. It’s because Capcom put all their eggs into Street Fighter and Resident Evil instead of old franchises.
It's not a million dollars in sale irs a million units sold.
I always shake my head when diehard fans of series attack developers and accuse them of wanting to bury a franchise. While video games can be seen as art (another debate entirely) the studios need to make money first and foremost, if the game doesn't make money then it doesn't matter how much the developer loves and treasures that series. There's nothing wrong with loving a franchise and wishing for more but the notion that franchises "die off" is some grand conspiracy is ludricous.
The main criticism I have for the video is that 1 mil sales doesn't determine if a game was successful, but it shows how successful it was. A big reason why I bring this up comes down to Mortal Kombat only had 4 people make the first game, but team size also doesn't say if something was successful. Cause while a game or expansion can sell over a million units, it comes down to costs and if the company is managing their funds responsively (cough cough, Bungie, cough cough).
I bring these up because there's a difference in how games are made today compared to the NES days. Some methods stayed the same, low team sizes still put out good, if not great game. However, how big was the video game market back then? When video games were seen as children's toys? Early years of gaming was advertised for all ages, but how many that weren't in the games industry dropped gaming to "grow up?" Because without the paying audience, it was kids at the mercy of knowing the game existed and/or if their parents bought it for them if they couldn't earn the money from elsewhere.
That's just tackling the millions sales as a marker that a game was successful. However, success means many other things, but it usually comes down to the cost to make the game. It'll depend on the size of the team to see if the sales were profitable enough for it to be deemed successful. A million units sold for a small team would be seen as the jackpot. But, with inflation and how complicated game development has been, a million units may not be considered successful depending on the size of the project.
While I understand the core idea behind the video, this is just some food for thought
Castlevania is weird situation considering that it is more popular today than it has since the NES days. The problem with Castlevania is that what Castlevania fans would want is an indie game, and a big publisher like Konami probably isn’t looking for that. All of their remakes are of 3D games. So while a new Castlevania would probably be the most successful game, it will still not be done. It would be like Metroid Dredd.
Also not every series needs to continue. Like for Castlevania I would be happy with just finishing the main story with the last two games planned. I care more about artistically completing something instead of just making sequels because people like it.
I’ll Argue the reason Castlevania is popular now is the Netflix series
Lords of Shadow has potential though.
@@maxpops8427totally, but that’s only part of it. The popularity of the Metroidvania genre and the colloquial usage of the term. Not to mention the game that used Castlevania as a marketing tool was able to sell higher than any entry of the series. There’s a lot of reasons for the popularity of Castlevania at the moment.
This is kind of rare but I've seen it happen a couple times. Some dead franchises are being brought back to life with new indie level entries continuing them where the budget is much lower but due to the tech/presentation being much better nowadays they're pretty close in quality to the previous games in the series if not a bit better.
For instance Fuga Melodies of Steel is a continuation of the Little Tail Bronx series that was started with Tail Concerto, CyberConnect2's first game made over 25 years ago. That series in particular usually gets a new entry every 10 years with Solatorobo coming out in 2010 and now there's the Fuga Melodies of Steel trilogy that started in 2021. An interesting thing is that they actually revealed budget for the first game, and it's $2-3 million. With each of these games selling 200,000 units I think they've recouped development costs and made some money off of these games by now too. Not to mention the sequels are iterative to the original where they just expand upon the mechanics while keeping pretty much the same presentation. So the sequels are probably a heck of a lot cheaper to make because they reuse a lot of the original's assets.
Maybe some other developers should follow suite with their dead franchises, and make lower budget indie level continuations of them instead of letting them just continue to be dead. I mean I don't think most of them will, especially the big AAA publishers, because they will just play it safe and follow the money. Still I think it would be good for the industry got to the point where there's more smaller more experimental returns of dead franchises instead of the same few AAA franchises getting another schlocky sequel over and over again.
I'd love to see Naughty Dog or another Sony developer make an new indie level entry in the Jak series with pretty much the same presentation as 2 and 3 because it honestly doesn't need the high budget AAA look IMO. It's also a vastly more interesting universe to explore than Uncharted or the Last of Us too. Heck why is the Last of Us Part 2 getting a remaster/remake when the game is just over 3 years old at this point. It seems like such a waste of time and resources to do that instead of starting up a new franchise or bringing back Jak.
Maybe this comes from a sense of archive panic on my part, but do we need more games? Some franchises aren’t dead, just finished. Although I haven’t played any of the Metal Gear games, it does seem like those games don’t have loose ends. And a franchise that I love, Castlevania only really has like 2 games left to fill in the gaps and if those 2 games were made, I would be happy to have no more games. Not every game series needs to continue as they are finished.
@@thomasffrench3639 It depends on the franchises, but yeah there are a lot of franchises that don't really need more games when it comes to the story. Though there are a lot that don't have an overarching story that could have new entries that do something new with the original mechanics as well.
It also depends on what the developers could come up with for these dead franchises as well. This is another reason why I don't see every dead franchise just coming back on a whim. Though the ones that do could do something pretty unique and experimental with a smaller dev team and budget.
Limitations breed creativity in a sense. In the case of Fuga they decided to go with a prequel trilogy with a way darker story and a linear resource management turn based game with a visual novel presentation instead of making another 3D platformer where you throw enemies at each other like the previous two games did. It's about as far from what the previous games did gameplay wise, but still works within and adds to the franchise due to it adding more world building and lore to the series.
Other series could go with this approach, but I have seen that fail pretty badly in the past as well. Still I'd much rather they bring back dead franchises with experimental indie level games than just make more games for only the successful franchises because they're guaranteed to make their money back.
It's not a waste of time though as it's not like a Jak game would've been made even without the remaster, budgets simply don't work that way.
I honestly don't know where else Jak and Daxter could go as a franchise. Now Sly Cooper on the other hand...
@@SacrificAbominat
In fact, the failures in that category are quite common due to Sturgeon’s Law. The Prehistorik revival, though it technically was always indie, killed the franchise for good.
@@austinreed7343 Yeah there's a big chance these kinds of revivals are quick cash grabs instead of actual passion projects. In that case fans will definitely regret their favorite series returning without the magic that made them good in the first place.
17:41 This right here. I distinctly remember back in the day in the video game e celeb scene during the 7th generation of consoles popular and successful games like Halo and most shooter games were demonized over more colorful niche games. Saying halo was just another multiplayer shooter with no plot 🙄
We can also see this today with people defaming games in successful genres today.
depends what you mean by popular not every game series needs to be selling 10s of millions every installment
plus capcom is known to sabotage less popular IPs
just look what they did to onimusha released a half assed HD remaster of just the first game (worst version of the first game even) and over charged for it
My issue is less that these old franchises aren't getting new entries, but that nothing NEW like them is being created. Companies like Sony have been so successful, and yet they can apparently only spare the funding to make the same, dreary open world 3rd person realistic shooter with minor stealth and crafting.
The demand is clearly THERE for something else, or Nintendo wouldn't still exist. The companies just refuse to make it. Even Playtonic, a company created explicitly to MAKE mascot platformers, seems to have given up.
The lack of variety in modern games leads to people pining for older days when we had this variety of legacy franchises.
By contrast, we just found out that Insomniac is trapped making generic Marvel games till the 2030s.
Outside of the shitty royalties disney takes Insomniac making mostly marvel games for the next 5+ years isn't such a bad thing from a certain angle. It lets them expand their tech and dev experience, remember they don't own the IPs but outside of something like suits or obvious iconography and designs the rest is all owned by Insomniac/SIE; this includes but is not limited to animations, gameplay systems, vfx, assets etc. So when someone else makes a Spider-Man game in the 2030s they'll have to start from scratch just like Insomniac did in 2014.
There have been attempts in the indie scene, like Gunvolt. But if you're not into dark and serious mascot platformers, you're outta luck.
The problem is that 3D platformers are hard to make. Mascot Platformers appeal to a wide audience, but when the wide audience isn’t interested, it all depends on hardcore gamers. And those hardcore gamers are probably looking for more challenging and intensive games like 2D Platformers or hard action games. And even with 2D Platformers, they are designed a lot differently than they used to. Most modern platformers increase checkpoints, but each checkpoint has a really hard but quick obstacle course until you do it again at the next checkpoint. Old platformers used lives systems so you could master the mechanics then have some difficulty spikes in the level. So even if we got back to it, I don’t know if it would find a niche, but I guess it’s a possibility
Has support BEEN THERE for said legacy franchises since the begining or are people pining to them just to spite the devs of the games they don't like?
@@dragondelsur5156
Back then it was mostly the former. These days it tends to be the latter. But I agree that spite has become a major problem.
This is why I like being a Danganronpa fan. I know this series isn't all that big, but it has very dedicated fans. We will show up to most of Spike Chunsoft's games, and they do well enough to justify sequels and new series by those creators, and they keep their games to a good size to not have costs balloon out of control. But I understand that a lot of these games (Danganronpa, Zero Escape, Somnium Files, Rain Code, etc.) are not that big.
And then you have Pokemon fans who are always demanding a new Mystery Dungeon game, but always turn up their noses whenever a new mainline Mystery Dungeon game comes out, despite the fact that funding that would likely help show people want that gameplay of game. As of the end of 2022, it was reported that PMD DX released about 2 Million copies, which is big for Spike Chunsoft, but to Pokemon that's nothing when things like Legends Arceus get 14.83 Million. To one, those are amazing numbers, while to the other it's really weak numbers. And everyone had been wanting a new PMD for the longest time (despite new ones always coming out but no one buying them), and it's hard to say if new ones _will_ come if SC has enough incentive to do so and Pokemon sees it as enough of a profit.
I don’t know if it’s big for Spike Chunsoft considering Dragon Quest exists.
As someone who is a Battle Network fan, Fire Emblem fan through Awakening, and a big fan of the Grandia series; I do understand the sentiment of wish your favorite series getting popular but same time people shouldn't go threatening or attacking developers and the like because they don't like X games and want their series to get a new installment because they want it. Appreciate what you got and don't force your wants onto others. I will say people should support what they want but ya know on their own term and money. Heck for anyone reading this, you know of these 3 series I mention, Grandia is one of those... I guess more generic RPG games back in the time of the PS1 and PS2's life span that had a unique gameplay system and least for the first 3 games were all well executed in their own right. Thing is the series won't ever make a comeback least not a revival in my eyes, but I'll still support the release of remasters, the HD remasters of the first two games though aren't great, were a big surprise and would allow me to play them more conveniently.
Anyway, I do like your take TBP though I do hope at the very least companies can somewhat allow smaller IP's a chance, new or old, to take up a space rather then pre-existing ones just because it is getting to the point that thats all people are getting, the big IP names of say Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Dark souls/Souls esq games and several more that either don't interest me or I don't know about. Don't get me wrong I get companies want to make money but it will degrade in quality the more they pump out. Heck Fire Emblem is starting to dip with the example of Engage compared to any of the new era FE games from Awakening to now and the sad thing is its worse then Fates.
I just discovered your channel so I don''t know if you done a video on like Big IP's versus smaller IP's and maybe how they impact one another or not and so forward or if theres a video that goes over something that I might be ignorant too so I do apologize in advance and hope you can tolerate my dumbness. Though am excited to check out more of your stuff and hope to see more of what you got in store. Thank you to anyone who read all this in the by and do have a splendiferous day/night!
Its not impossible for a smaller dead franchise to become more popular, DMC was dead for years and never sold higher then 2 or 3 million but here comes DMC5 reviving the series and selling way more then any other game in the series. You also have to account for emulation downloads and rentals for older games so its technically higher
Armored core 6 too
The only thing I really disagree with here is saying that we should be fans of the developers rather than the games. There are plenty of examples where I lobe the game but the people who made it aren't great people. Sometimes you have to separate the art from the artist
I think another thing is this.
Some game franchises like Mega Man have a huge romhacking and fan-game scene, which is keeping the franchise alive, and even Capcom themselves know about it during some interviews for MML1 and 2 and tons of these Mega Man romhacks and fan-games have a lot of passion in them.
I feel like a truly dead franchise is a franchise that nobody cares about it at all.
When the company itself doesn't want to do anything with their I.P.s, then it's up to the fans to make their fan-games or original games inspired by them to satisfy their own fanbase
True I would say a franchise like star fox is dead as no one really cares about it much
@@MadPaperMarioStar Fox is such a sad franchise to think about, it just never really had the opportunity to be the "best" version of itself. The series has three different starting points for no reason. You'd think that in a universe with people actively traversing between solar systems that the environments and conflicts would naturally write themselves, but NO! Instead of focusing on expanding the universe, like the Star wars Prequels, and trying to make the most out of a rail-shooter's unique aspects, like Panzer Dragoon, Miyamoto thinks it only makes sense to keep the focus between Star Fox and Andross and add a gimmicky cockpit control scheme. And when Assault was so close too.
@@ridgenyan-botxv367I agree with the idea that it’s potential wasn’t unlocked especially for story telling and expanding the lore of the series, but I think star fox 64 was very close to the perfection of the series only thing I wish they had done was go with the Star Fox Adventures approach and have some levels on foot
@@MadPaperMario same with f zero lol
"When the company itself doesn't want to do anything with their I.P.s, then it's up to the fans to make their fan-games or original games inspired by them to satisfy their own fanbase" This statement perfectly sums up Command and Conquer, the franchise is largely kept alive due to it's modding scene
Star Fox I think does poorly since they keep changing the formula. If it was a consistent series of on rails shooters, it might be more popular
Come to think of it, they don't make on rails shooters much anymore. I guess that's more of an arcade genre, so it will seem more niche today. You know, that might be another big reason why Star Fox hasn't done well since Adventures/64. People back then got that it was a console on-rails shooter, perhaps once time stretched into the mid to late 2000s, the new generation of kids didn't get what Star Fox was.
I've heard some theories regarding why Star Fox hasn't got a new game in years and it boils to the fact that the most successful games in the series, the original and SF64, were in some ways a sort of tech demo for their respective systems, the original being a 3D game on the Super NES and 64 introducing the Rumble Pak functionality and having a lot of voice clips.
The Star Fox franchise doesn't have the same WOW factor as it used to have in the 90s, and as you said, rail-shooters are more arcadey experience, that why we haven't seen a brand new Panzer Dragoon game in ages. I've seen some suggestions from fans that Nintendo should turn Star Fox into a different type of game, some saying making a new SF Adventure, but that doesn't make sense since they already have the Zelda series
@@pablocasas5906 Someone said that Starfox should take inspiration from Ratchet and Clank. Interesting idea, but I'm not sure Miyamoto would be comfortable copying Sony???
Interesting subject. The only " gripe " I have is how much a series like , lets say Megaman , need to sell millions of copies to be successful. Especially considering not all games require voice acting , mocap or other expensive stuff.
Still , numbers dont lie. Im a bit mind blown at how much that Horizon game sold. The more you know 😂
i'm not shocked at all considering how good that Horizon game was
@jacksonteller3973 no offense to the game itself , just surprised others like Uncharted, TLOU or GOW arnt higher 😉
It's sad that the Silent Hill series has 4 games in development but the lack of updates and activity makes it pretty much (still) dead.
That's Konami for you. "Fuck the Yugioh card economy! Fuck Kojima! Fuck all our IPs! Make more pachinko machines!"
@@Rahnonymous Good news: the creator of Silent Hill is making an action horror game as we speak.
As for Metal Gear, Unmetal and Volume are good alternatives.
Blazing Chrome is very similar to Contra.
I openly expect Silent Hill 2 remake to be even worse than Warcraft 3 Reforged and the XIII remake, and Silent Hill F to be the worst game of whatever year it releases in.
@@devonwilliams5738 There's an upcoming game called Slitterhead, that will have some of the staff from Silent Hill.
Not to mention the horrendous quality.
my favorite dead fransche is definitely the legacy of kain series. and hopefully if we get a new game it ends up in the right hands were it actully ends up good.
That Armored Core 6 has made so well has made me so happy to see that one of my favorite franchises is alive again.
Now i'm just waiting for a new Twisted Metal game, i hope the TV show can get something in the works.
Twisted metal tv is getting a season 2 so maybe in the future they could make a new twisted metal game
Hey! I watched that Ghost of Tsushima video - and loved it! I just don't comment because I don't wanna comment on one of my favorite UA-camrs and not get a response! (Even though you got like 100,000 other commenters to response to)
This might be part of why people push for more crossover games such as Capcom's Vs. Series, to see their favorite IP get in as roster filler in something like that.
I think that's also a reason why Smash Bros. character speculation topics can get so heated, people want to see some of their favourite character/series represented and seeing how Sakurai and his team has often included obscure characters gives people hope that maybe their wanted character maybe added
@@pablocasas5906
Indeed so. CvS3 conversations also get pretty heated, because the first two games had a very specific focus, and the debate is about whether this focus should be kept, relaxed (SvC Chaos noticeably relaxed the original focus), or abandoned completely, especially due to the various franchises people want to see again.
@@pablocasas5906yep people even demanding non gaming franchises to make it in Smash bros as well like Goku and Marvel characters is always a hilarious one toe lmao 🤣.
@@iraford5788
Multiversus’s extremely loose roster concept didn’t help. This led to all sorts of strange speculation.
Great video as usual. Hopefully it doesn't become niche ironically. Though I would like to add another reason why Conker Bad's Fur Day sold so poorly was because it was released very late into the N64's lifespan.
Also Nintendo didn't market it like at all.
Yo this guy is speak truth.
Mega man, Jak and daxter, parappa... NOT popular.
What is popular is the other game you like to play on the channel like god of war and.... ahhh... and ahhhhh..... *starts snoring* zzzzz ... and... zzzzz
Sadly yeah
I think another thing people should take into consideration when wanting these old franchises to return is the issue with how they could get "modernized."
This is something I've noticed especially with modern remakes where they will bring back an old PlayStation series with a remake but the remakes themselves, while faithful for the most part, also have stuff that's taken out or straight-up censored, not to mention how modern sensibilites also affect stuff like how the story and characters are presented and thus a lot of the charm of the original is gone (ie. the 2016 Ratchet & Clank remake and the RE4 remake) or if we're talking about sequels that they could end up retconing and retroactively censor stuff from the old games, like Mortal Kombat did with MK11 and now with M1K.
At that point, it is best if they should just leave the franchises and games as is, completely untouched with maybe something like an HD remaster since those don't get many drastic changes.
It's why, for example, and I know this doesn't count as a dead franchise, but I don't want the old Kingdom Hearts games to get remakes and the HD ReMixes will always be the best ways to play them.
Yeah, gamers have this weird obsession with not letting franchises just exist how they are. Like MGS wrapped up it’s storyline with the 4th game, did we really need another one? Or did we really need Classic Mega Man games after the first 6 on the NES? Look at Ninja Gaiden: that trilogy of games literally just existed and were popular, and there was no real need for sequels as they did what they needed to do, and if you want to play Ninja Gaiden, you can play the trilogy. Obviously you have the Xbox games, but those are entirely different and aim to be different things
RE4 remake is awesome and altering certain things ain't "Censorship", sorry but I don't get throwing a hissy-fit over Ashley wearing shorts and removing Luis constantly hitting on her. MK isn't censoring stuff fool.
In the case of the Ratchet and Clank remake, it was never even a remake, it was a retelling of a movie nobody watched (with good reason).
it was a pretty good movie IMO, better then that mediocre Mario Illumination film@@dragondelsur5156
And that’s not the worst case scenario: we could end up with absolute and utter ghoulware made with no regard for the original as a cheap cash grab.
Great video and well thought out analysis. I will say, a lot of what you talk about can be mirrored in the music industry. I am especially frustrated by fans of metal and prog bands who just endlessly bitch when a band from the 70's or 80's will attempt to put out a new album. Obviously, I am not saying that fans need to blindly accept anything that a band will put out, but if you truly care about the artist and their work and you want them to keep playing and putting out new material than I would say it is in your hands. I still buy CDs and records for the bands that I like. Unless a band really stops putting out music that I enjoy (here's looking at you, Dream Theater), I do my best to keep purchasing their products or go to concerts. My wife and I have seen Blue Oyster Cult four times in the past calendar year and Kansas twice (will see them a third time in April). We see Iron Maiden every time they come to Chicagoland. This is to say nothing of smaller acts like Helloween, of whom my wife is not as big of a fan but still goes with me to see them because we want them to come back.
I use Spotify to find new bands and new music
@@ryujithegoofydude2586 I have started using Spotify to listen to music while at work but if I like an album I still purchase it if I can. Bands benefit most from merch sales (records, shirts, etc.) so if I can buy it from them and support them I think it’s important to do so.
I think most people who are complaining that Sony only sells the same first party games are looking only at face value. Because it’s third party action. Which is funny to me because so was jac and dexter and ratchet and clank. Now they are more platformy and more collect-a-thons but that’s the problem face value observation. People’s complaints about modern exclusives capsule be said about the earlier exclusives. At face value J&D and R&C are the exact same game. But when you go into the mechanics and the story and writing you realize it’s completely different. Ghost and Spider-Man might look similar on the outside but when you play them they play different
The part with sales numbers is pretty disingenuous, you're not taking into account outside factors such as the fact that gaming was more of a niche hobby until around the PS2, games being more expensive and just general population growth.
Also corporations are never your friends, you shouldn't be expected to participate in their stupid research experiments by buying games you already own over and over and buying into mobile gacha games, people have done that with Mega Man and there's STILL no new game.
Game development has become a little bit too expensive for even developing slop or shovel ware games.
This can’t help but notice that there is a severe decline in movie tie-in games. The most you might get is some mobile title, but those are getting rare as well.
🎩
🐍 no step on Snek!🇺🇸🇭🇰
Video is the cold hard truth
I get where you're coming from, but I really don't agree with your opinion that if we wanna support our favorite franchise then we should just buy whatever they release. I bought the Saints Row reboot when it came out just to support the franchise and the devs, and I regretted it because it's possibly one of the worst games I've ever played. It didn't even matter, Saints Row is still dead now because the game was so bad.
The reason people think these franchises are more iconic then they actually are is simple. Nintendo UA-camrs or gaming UA-camrs in general, with the amount of UA-cam videos talking about games like Conkers bad fur day and Banjo Kazooie as opposed to say Croc for ps1 you as a young impressionable kid watching them would assume they were the most popular franchises ever but in reality a game like croc sold about as well as Banjo. Hell I’d argue that Jontrons Banjo video is the reason most people today know the series
I really disagree with this and I really hate that people think that one tweet about Banjo and Croc is something they can just extrapolate to a whole industry, no offense but the reason people talk about Banjo isn't because of Nintendo focused UA-camrs but its because Banjo in retrospect was a great game and Rare, a trailblazer in devleopment and creator of someof the best Nintendo games of the SNES and N64 era, has a level of prestige above Arognaut Software who made ass racing games for the gameboy.
@@KrankuSama Banjos a bit of an extreme case but you cannot deny that a large portion of the gaming UA-camr scene back in the day was primarily Nintendo focused with maybe some sonic here and there. Most video game centered critics, countdown UA-camrs, parody and comedy guys, animators, music artists etc were primarily Nintendo focused or at least 8 bit era focused, you know how many Zelda or mega man ost remixes there were on UA-cam back in the day it was nuts and you’d rarely see these guys talk about other games that sold well like say any Final Fantasy not named 7 or call of duty. Hell I distinctly remember how during the 7th generation of consoles the popular games that sold well at the time like Halo and COD were looked down upon and seen as dull repetitive shooters in favor of obscure platformers. I remember how worshipped Oot and majora was and stuff like ff7 was seen as overrated emo crap back in the late 00s and early 2010s even though ff7 was actually more popular and sold more then OOT/MM. This is probably because since the GameCube and n64 had less games then the competition people attached much harder to the few games they had while for say the ps1 and ps2 there were so many games people went to their own niche. Or I dunno maybe Nintendo fans are more likely to become UA-camrs lol
@@KrankuSama
Argonaut was involved with Star Fox. They also wanted to make a Yoshi game.
@@billyboleson2830 I think you're attributing a bit of temporal oversimplification to your experience growing up watching youtubers compared to the wider understanding of how these games were received at the time and the legacy that they've built, Im sure its the case that Nintendo focused youtubers have mythologised these games but they have done so for a reason, OOT, Banjo etc weren't just suprise hits like Croc was but generationally very innovative and also a defining experience for their respective platform much like how FF7 or metal gear solid was for the playstation.
The thing about just looking at sales numbers is that you miss an entire story of legacy, ambition and innovation and audience, or I'll put it another way, in 1976 one of the highest grossing films of the year was called In 'Search of Noah's Ark' it was a creationist film and it was absoloutely rubbish, this crap film that nobody remembers made almost twice as much at the Box Office as Taxi Driver, widely considered one of Martin Scorsese's finest films if not one of the best films ever made, in every directors top 10 and an intensely studied film in academics. Is it misguided to suggest that Taxi Driver is a more impactful and important film than some shitty documentary that panders to evangelists? It certainly has a more dedicated and large fanbase which has mythologised and elevated Scorcese's works, that generation of cinematographers and directors were ride or die for Scorcese even though none of his films have reached the highest echelons of the box office.
Sometimes it takes retrospection and a construction of a legacy audience to appreciate a game, I would argue that it makes more sense to put Banjo Kazooie on a pedestal than insist it is equal to Croc, regardless of sales.
Couldn't agree more. I adore Gravity Rush but no one ever bought those games or the other stuff Japan Studio worked on. So If a studio isn't making you a profit over the course of several years, can I really blame Sony for reconstructing them and putting all their eggs in the Team Asobi basket?
Also it makes me happy seeing studios like Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, and Guerilla branching out, continuing to evolve and working on new ips that are actually well made, sell well, and are loved by fans all at the same time. I feel like their success should be celebrated and not lamented just because they aren't making the game you don't want
Bloodborne: I was a worked on by Japan Studio.
FromSoft: Sony, he escaped again.
Sony: I’ll get the broom.
Aw dude i used to play the shit out of gravity rush and freedom wars
@@severus4504 Good News: the creator of Gravity Rush is making an action Horror game was we speak.
@@orangeslash1667 And he also expressed interest on making a new Gravity Rush game if the tech for it is there.
@@dragondelsur5156 mm
Second comment: so the crux of your argument is studios stop producing titles that aren’t profitable. Someone should give Disney the memo.
Banjo-Kazooie is one series that comes to mind for this. The series has like a single game that's well beloved, two games that are contended, and then two gba games that never come into the conversation. Despite that, the way people talk about it would make you believe that it was some juggernaut of a game franchise. Fans will be disappointed by no new Banjo title from Rare, but when you look into it you can get why Rare is working on stuff like Sea of Thieves over Banjo-Threeie or whatever
Side note: When it comes to Mega Man, I think the main issue is the series never meaningfully "evolved" past its roots once the 5th and 6th gens arrived. Legends was a spinoff, and by the time they tried with X7 they fucked up in a lot of ways so they never bothered trying a new angle for their classic or x series. Mega Man might have more of a chance with audiences if they took that "different game style" risk but Capcom wouldn't bother when other series can just fill that slot and still be successful in most scenarios (like Resident Evil).
Jontrons banjo video is half the reason its still talked about a lot on the internet I feel
Rare said they run out of ideas for Banjo.
Follow-up: Itoi, the creator of Mother, did say that Mother 3 was the last one he wanted to create. The series isn't dead, it's just finished. Now that doesn't mean that they should just... ignore porting it to modern systems, especially with mother 3 since that never has gotten an official non-japanese release
@@thejedisonic67 Mother 3 has too much copyrighted music, Nintendo could get in trouble if they localized it??
I recommend Eastward as an Earthbound successor.
@@orangeslash1667 pretty much figured, but the fans just want the first game... again somehow? like it has to be specifically the first game too, cause both tooie and yooka laylee are too divisive for them
I have just one issue with dead franchises. If a AAA developer/publisher has no intentions of continuing a franchise for any reason, why not just sell it then? The developer/publisher will make some extra money on the side, dispose of the unwanted franchise, and this will allow a chance for the franchise to thrive under a new ownership.
Theoretically, but they could very easily find a bad egg of a developer, and this also prevents things like crossovers.
@@austinreed7343 One example of company selling a series is Sly Cooper. Sucker Punch Productions gave the rights to Sanzaru Games, which resulted in Sly 4. The bad news is that Sly 4 is hated by fans.
If the company that created Sly can't come up with anything else for Sly, how would Sanzaru Games be any better????
TL; DR: i like the video but i feel youre overstating how much of this is merely because t makes money. These singleplayer AAA experiences sell well sure but in the insomniac leaks clearly not well enough. You can dislike the egotism but even new playstation will eventually stop doing AAA releases and do more live services and youll then be on the same side as the people ure criticizng in this vid
I really like this video’s thesis and think it’s something I’ve think you’ve hit the nail on the head about for years watching your stuff. The online discourse really does favor a certain type of online enthusiast and algos make that group think that these niche franchises and genres are super popular because they know 50 people who like them. I feel a similar thing happens with Nintendo, where its innovations as a company are overstated because Nintendo fans almost exclusively play Nintendo games
However I do contend a lot of your points and I will have trouble structuring this so I’ll kind of just list them as I think of them:
1. Your greater point around companies targeting sales I think is sort of incomplete, namely with Mega Man. Now you are correct that Mega Man doesnt sell many games, but the thing with Mega Man is it’s incredibly important as a *brand*. His design is iconic and recognizable and because of that Capcom makes a good chunk of change selling merch, t shirts, toys, books, comics, etc. Which is why even if the games dont sell well them selling good enough should and usually is what makes it wise to make more of them. Sure it’ll never sell Resi numbers but Mega Man fans both nostalgic 40 somethings and any kids they can convert will provide consistent revenue that I dont think Resi does. Sure Resi has merch but kids and adults can buy Mega Man figures whereas a Resi fan will probably just get a t shirt
2. I also feel that the meme you cite is moreso that people are annoyed that these franchises are all starting to play the same precisely because the industry isnt taking creative risks like they should. With the hundreds of millions they spend to make four high budget blockbusters they could make one blockbuster and multiple smaller scale games. Sure your point is that mid-budget games arent feasible, but I would argue that high budget games arent feasible. The new spiderman isnt going to make a profit until it hits like fourteen million units and even then it isnt going to get there until it gets bundled with a PS5, and multiple AAA companies are bleeding talent with all the layoffs because their lifeline is making sure they make one profitable game every five to ten years
3. I also feel like even with AAA gaming there’s a lot of bad decisions within these blockbuster franchises. Again, the new Spiderman apparently remodeled the world but it looks exactly the same as the PS4 game. They also are making mini-sequels between each release which even when they reuse assets and are meant to tide people over still take a whole ton of money and crunch time to make. The time table in Insomniac is insane, to be trying to push out a game every two years. It’s a bubble waiting to burst
4. I also feel that maybe im just way too naïve but Im somewhat of an optimistic capitalist, not a libertarian but I think with the free market but regulated systems the West has we’re not just developing these companies for profits. I believe their goal is to make people happy in order to make money: what I mean is that companies know to expand their horizons and maintain some level of good will because maintaining a brand and audience loyalty makes them more money in the long run. Because if every company was out for the dollar the only games coming out would be live service battle royales, because those are the most profitable. Sure God of War made money, but Fortnite crushes it. Heck im sure Overwatch 2 crushes it. Yet they still made GoW and they even put out a free update for it. Because they know that singleplayer motivates brand loyalty within a base that will buy up everything they put out
5. On the topic of this I will say that not making these new entries is a bad idea because making a little money off of a niche brand is still better than making no money by keeping the brand dormant. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk showed there’s an audience for a Jet Set Radio game that Sega couldve been milking with merchandise and the once in a blue moon new installment. Not as much as Sonic but still the people who buy Sonic merch do so because despite the games being bad theyre the foot in the door for a new generation. Same principle applies. I will use Timesplitters as an example: Timesplitters is an old console shooter that was a niche then and is an even greater niche now. It only ever sold a couple million copies, but it wouldve been smarter for the brand to be kept alive with some rereleases because now that theyve kept it on ice the series will never sell well. Whereas a HD collection in the 2000s then a new installment in the late 2010s wouldve had a chance of selling a couple million again, whereas the new Timesplitters got canned because the franchise only ever had one generation of fans: the ground zeros. Whereas something like Crash or Spyro even tho theyre unpopular now can at least concievably come back in ten years because enough kids will have tried out the HD trilogies to concievably be nostalgic for it later. Timesplitters was too arrogant and now will never have that comeback
6. There’s also a reason to bring these franchises back: they can be used to cut a new studio’s teeth and make enough money to fund these new big budget projects. IO Interactive made Hitman 2016 for 100 million dollars, then H2 cost 50 million and H3 a mere 25 million. The trilogy apparently has had 50 million players (idk if thats demo or full purchase) despite being a niche thing and because of that they were able to use Hitman’s loyal fanbase to fund their new James Bond games. So it can be done: you can be a AA studio, make a midbudget release or at least a AAA release with increasingly cheap sequels and then use the money from that niche fanbase to fund big blockbusters. You dont need to spend five years making a third person singleplayer open world game with shooting elements which if it flops will bankrupt your entire company
Overall tho i think your video is a harsh truth people need to hear. An example I can think of is Crash fans: Crash’s comeback sold well off of nostalgia alone. Crash 4 was a great game but the newest generation of kids and the nostalgic adults only wanted those two installments, the franchise was never going to come back and be a AAA mainstay in the age of Fortnite. That doesnt mean it was a bad thing to make these remakes or Crash 4, because of reasons ive mentioned before (a show of goodwill, reminding people the brand exists, short term profit) but people cant demand for Crash to get new sequels when that five year burst after a decade break is more than enough. The franchise simply isnt popular enough to be evergreen, you can just hope that it caught on with enough kids to be worth rebooting again or just be glad with what you have because it’s not like it’s a franchise that has such flexible gameplay that its got longevity in its legs
Edit: remembered two other things- bomberman doesnt sell all that well i would guess because its a party game that people wont seek out unless they already like it or a friend plays it with them. Rayman Legends sold well but keep in mind it was a sales disapointment at first ala megaman but because it was evergreen and cheap to rerelease it sold better and betyer in drips and drabs ala Okami. Ubisoft is actually a great example of this because its triple A franchises all came from niches like Far Cry and Prince of Persia turned AC and they also let their studios try their own thing like with Reflecions and Grow Home. I also feel conker didnt sell well because it was a late release N64 game. Im pretty sure south park on 64 sold well
I can definitely understand the point here, for God of War for example, personally I'm not super into the formula of the more recent games, but there's no denying that by the end of the PS3 generation Santa Monica really didn't know what to do with that series anymore. Sometimes the change is necessary
same deal with the Saints Row reboot, people can bitch all they want but at the end of the day it felt like Volition had exhausted every possible idea they had for the characters so a reboot that got back to the games gangbanging roots felt like the only logical way to go.
@@jadedheartszI think saints row reboot having some lackluster story was it's issue.
I dug the story personally@@BouncingZeus
@@jadedheartsz In the case of Saints Row, there was always a lose lose situation for Volition. The series has always been accused of being a GTA rip off so they changed the tone drastically with 3 and 4, pissing off the hardcore fans in the process.
The reboot failed because it didn't know which demographic to appeal. Fans of the first two games didn't like it because the game was less gangster and more a parody of one. Fans of 3 and 4 didn't because it doesn't go as crazy as said entries. At the end of the day, the reboot was a disaster in the making.
@@dragondelsur5156
I thought it was a pretty fun game that was an improvement over 3 and 4 overall but I can understand why some didn't get on with it.
I remember going on the old Volition forums and reading about the original plans for part 3 and they were pretty ambitious, wish they'd been fully realized.
I remember watching a playthrough of the Jak & Daxter games, where this person overall enjoyed the first one but disliked the second one in part due to some....interesting writing decisions, and people got...defensive in the stream chat.
I dont think that just buying games to "support the franchise" is valid, if the product is worth it sure, but if its a botched port/remake/remaster why should we? Id rather let the franchise die than to just get crappy games/rereleases of games eternally.
Then don’t support it. But if you want to have more games, you can’t not buy the product
The distinction is that there's a stark difference between a video game and its franchise. People can like a franchise a lot, but not be interested in a game just because it's in the franchise. For example Pac Man makes big money in merchandise. When it comes to games, there's no reason to buy a Pacman game since it's an arcade game. The core gameplay that defines and is part of the appeal is made for gameplay that's worth a quarter each time you play, rather than paying about $60 to own yourself (on a disk or something. Sixty for a cabinet is highway robbery). That said, people still like playing classic Pacman. In an arcade today, that cabinet will probably make the most money out of all the others. In something modern like Dave and Busters, that 4 player Pacman table is also popular.
A lot of these old franchises are good for their time, be it that it was a time for simpler games or it innovated games for the time. These game can be made so well it becomes popular just because of how great it is. It just needs to be more than just another entry.
Pac-Man also didn't really stay as the original mazerunner it started as in games either. It's had a crap-ton of re-releases throughout the years, and also several games that attempted to innovate on the formula to varying success from different creators, but the character has had a number of mid to low-budget games that step into the territories of platformer, kart racer, etc., and has even gotten a full remake of Pac-Man World in 2022. Pac-Man is just a marketable mascot character that was a little more fortunate than other franchises that started as games. It's main revenue source certainly isn't coming from its games anymore, just like how that's probably the case for franchises like Sonic or Pokemon at this point, but it still continues to dabble with games even today regardless.
Gamers must understand that video games, as a medium, are still new and growing. As such, only a handful of game franchises are genuinely iconic at a pop culture level. The sales of various game franchises speak for themselves.
Given how many game companies have acted since the 7th gen, for the most part, a franchise should end or rest.
Game companies should focus on developing new intellectual properties rather than continuously milking old franchises until they become disorganized and potentially ruin their reputation. Only consider reviving an old franchise when it's ready to return and if the game is up to par (especially in the gameplay department!) or at least generates decent sales.
Some examples of that?
Guitar Hero, Backyard Sports, Rock Band, Bubsy, Silent Hill (borderline), Army Men, Petz…
I'd love to hear your takes on Legend of Dragoon!
Why was it considered the "Final Fantasy Killer"
Potholes in the story (there's quite a few)
How the franchise could've continued (rather as a sequel or a prequel covering the Dragon Campaign)
And Killzone to it was affected by the next halo killer
I remember when the first Killzone was marketed as a "Halo Killer"
He did a video on it on his old channel. Also the plot is only bad cause of the terrible translation
@@jadedheartszthe first killzone has aged poorly. I loved 2 and 3 but don't know how they have aged been a long time since I've played them. The last one was a dud for good reason. Now that Horizon took off I doubt unless someone at the studio wants to tell a story there it will happen.
Super Smash Bros For Wii Us trailers have fooled a generation into thinking mega man was more popular then he actually is. Mega man was never “capcoms mascot” because Ryu is, he was always niche. Mega man much like Metroid and Samus the characters themselves are well known and popular maybe but this doesn’t translate into sales. these people that recognize him don’t buy his games
I feel like what makes certain franchises iconic is also a big reason why they don’t sell well. Mega Man is a perfect example because when someone thinks of Mega Man, it’s an amalgamation of the first 6 games. The gameplay is so iconic that there isn’t much you can do to evolve it, and the same game being released over and over again will lead to fatigue.
Compare that to something like Castlevania where at a glance all of the games seem the same, but each game feels entirely different. Castlevania 1 is the foundation, Castlevania 2 goes in an entirely different direction, and Castlevania 3 add playable characters that completely change the play style of the game with the foundation of the first game. And these additional characters tend to be what really sets each games apart in addition to completely different philosophies about level design. Then when the Metroidvanias took over the characters all played very differently from each other until they found what worked as far as control was concerned, then completely changed the way the map worked. Another thing that helps is that Castlevania has a way more varied cast and playable characters that each game feels distinct just by who you’re playing as.
I think it helps the fact that Smash Bros. is seen as a celebreation of video game culture in general and that Sakurai and his team do take into consideration some fan requests, I think that's the reason why we saw the inclusion of characters such as Mega Man, Simon and Richter and Banko & Kazooie, despite their games not being that mainstream nowadays. Sakurai did actually said in his Terry Bogard video that even if a character isn't as popular the important thing is that it's fun to play, though technically I don't think Terry actually fits the definition of an obscure character, considering that he has been mainstay of the King of Fighters series, a franchise that has been active for over 30 years now, and his home series, Fatal Fury, got revived after a 20 year hiatus. I think international popularity also plays a big role, the King of Fighters franchise is very popular in Latin America, China and the Middle East. Sakurai added Little Mac in Smash 4 due to its popularity in the West because the original Punch Out! arcade and NES games were huge hits in America, and he previously appeared as an Assist Trophy. Not and Smash Bros. expample, but Konami's most successful titles in Japan are the Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball games and the Momotaru Dentetsu series, which have sold millions of copies
Honestly one of the things that I like about PlayStation is how their developers get to move on to other IPs instead of staying with the old one. Sure they have some legacy franchises still going like God of War, Ratchet and Clank and GT but for the most part, each generation seem like their studios get to work on new things which I think is great
True, sometimes I feel that it's best for devs to move to other projects than stay with ones they feel did everything what they wanted for them.
I still find it funny as phuk that most Silent Hill 2 fans never played it.
This video is pretty eye opening to me, I never knew how poorly a lot of games sell but hey that's okay! I find games to be more impactful when there is a limited amount of games in a series, it makes me appreciate what the developers did a lot more!
I totally agree. I have never got into the Mega Man series, but a lot of the classic and X games all seem like pretty much the same game. Compare that to Castlevania where most of the games are completely different experiences despite having similar foundations.
Ah, the cult classic dilemma...
very impressively articulated not mean spirited and very true. Trust me i am sad about dormant franchises but the important rule is don't be a dick about it. Show some love by talking about it cordially. Franchise include legend of dragoon, breath of fire, alundra and chrono series
the thing at least with megaman is that the thing people are mad at capcom the most isnt them not releasing games is probably engaging in scummy tactics like nfts with the megaman x brand
I'm not a PlayStation guy. I'm gonna make fun of wolverine with medkits.
My issue is less with the sales and profitability, and the fact that companies have been consolidating through acquisition for so long that these massive IP hoarding companies effectively sit on the franchises that they probably don’t even realize they own. There are so many games that could be profitable and successful if handled by the right creative team for a modest budget. Especially with today’s digital distribution model, but the IP is kept under lock and key never to be heard from again.
"Your favourite franchises aren't popular"
Don't need to tell me twice. I'm a Darksiders and Rayman fan.
So like are you never going to adjust for inflation when talking about sales from 20, 30, even 40 years ago, or are you just assuming Capcom adjusts? Well, no, they don't, they count units, not money accumulated. A million units today is less profitable because statistically, and objectively, a million is worth way less than it used to. Ontop of that, the gaming market even in 2005 or so is nowhere lear as accessible as it is today, for many socioeconomic reasons I will not get into. If the 2000s are a smaller market than 2023 due to gaming simply not being as common, then the 80s of all things should be properly adjusted to analyze units for it's smaller audience. Percentage wise, it's why Mega Man seems to have sold badly, combined with Capcom's own decisions which lead to the series actually selling bad even for it's time by around 2000 (bad or a complete lack of marketing, and in the case of the European market, downright misleading marketing, too many titles being released at once without fanfare, etcetera).
Like, for 2001, Jak 1 selling 4 million is unprecedented, we're talking a pretty big success story for a still medium sized company like ND at the time. Jak 2 might not have been the best selling, but it was the fastest selling in the US. This makes it impressive on it's own since it somehow succeeded despite a lot of Asian markets receiving bad marketing, or in the case of Japan, bad marketing ontop of general disinterest. Jak 3 in retrospect seems like an even more likely failure, but somehow broke the million mark despite them not even bothering with the Asian markets. That's an entire region cut out of the game, obviously it's not going to get any official sales numbers (even if it did by that point it'd be niche so, yeah). Jak X sold badly since it was a late PS2 title, a racing spinoff, and again, a game they never tried releasing on Asian markets. This is also ignoring any kind of supposed market's ignorance, the whole "American gamers just want to buy war games" stuff you see? Yeah in Japan they have a thing like that as well, the obsessive MMO player. I don't think it's really relevant but I find it notable enough, we do pretend many Japanese games fail because of western gamers being supposedly ignorant.
I think Mega Man and Jak are good examples since they are basically polar opposites, one was very easy to produce, the other was so hard to produce that rushing Jak 3 was visibly apparent. Ontop of you ignoring the inflation, well really it's more like "ignoring" that you do, maybe note that most people who play video games don't actually give a shit about capitalism's grip on daily life, and they are not saying they want the series to come back because of some "logistical advantage." Sometimes people can't help but not care about soulless number counting, after all, if we cared about numbers exclusively, games would all just be microtransactions and gambling. A series' worth is not based by sales, but I felt like I had to point out the ignorance in comparing game sales from 1989 to the 2020s, because for such an understanding of sales mattering, you don't get how sales are not equal.
Someone recently pointed out that star fox command was announced and shown at yhe very same time the wii was shown off for the first time so it got over shadowed.
That said we don't really have clean data with starfox. Star fox zero flopped but was it because its an unpopular ip? Was it because it was on the wiiu? Was it the forced motion controls and it being 64 push people away from wanting to play it? Was it because it was unclear if it was a reboot or not, resulting in fans from the gb era not wanting their favorite games be retconned.
Star Fox is probably the most "mascot-y" franchise, and a lot of the franchises named here fit in that pattern and have so many devoted fans but so little mainstream players. Mario and Sonic are doing fine but the other franchises of that type not so much...
Speaking of the GB era, these games were only on the decline the moment they moved away from the 64 play style which at the time had no reason to abandon I in the first place. Starfox 64 sold incredibly well and was received well which means that people liked what they were given I 64 and wanted more of it. If the following games were like 64 but we still saw a decline in sales then it would have been a different story. Then the experimentation of gameplay genre would be more justifiable as to keep the series alive.
That's not even mentioning the jumping from 3rd party dev after another which results in lack of direction.
Edit: also no hate towards the GB games, I love assault but they unfortunately played a role
@@boptillyouflop Miyamoto says that he has no interest in making another Starfox unless he can come up with a new gameplay idea for it, which explains why Zero has motion controls.
@@orangeslash1667 At this point, Fox is a fighting game character! Which is fine by me.
@@boptillyouflop The good news is that arcade shooters are still a thing in indie games.
For the people going to Sucker Punch about Sly 5, I have only this to ask. They DO know Sucker Punch had nothing to do with Thieves in Time, right? So it's not a Sucker Punch problem, it's a Sony problem since they're the ones with the license and are choosing to do nothing with it, especially since it's thanks to their shortsighted bullshit Sanzaru was forced to cancel the Egypt DLC that was supposed to resolve the cliffhanger that's haunted us for soon to be eleven years. So if they wanna yell at someone, yell at Sony. I don't even care if Sucker Punch does decide they want to do Sly again, I just want it to be in the hands of a COMPETENT developer who can fix what Sony broke! Again, it doesn't need to be Sucker Punch, it doesn't need to be Sanzaru, it just needs to be someone who would actually know what the fuck they're doing (preferably with undoing Penelope's bullshit betrayal and giving Sly the happy ending his story deserves!)
We need more Megaman.
Great video, Counterpoint
I am still never going to shut up about the Mercenaries games until there's a new one, and it has co-op.
This video is a very interesting analysis on how we should view popularity. HOWEVER, I will say that in terms of examples you used for sales, I'd say Namco is the one company where I can say it's geniunely THEIR fault as opposed to the fanbase, in that they either promote their IPs HORRIBLY like with Klonoa Wii, or had a tendency in the 2000s to mismanage their release dates like with Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament. Even now, the beloved remakes of Pac-Man World and Klonoa relied on their fans to do the dirty work.
I think a big issue here, not necessarily with your logic, but the logic of AAA game companies, is the sales figures they use to justify whether a legacy IP gets to continue or just gets to rot. Mainly, they're looking at sales figures that haven't meaningfully been updated since the 80's or 90s, and extrapolating them into the modern gaming market, which is so much larger that the comparison just simply cannot be realistically made.
For example, yes, Mega Man has only had a handful of entries sell over a million copies. Now how many Mega Man games have come out since 2010, not counting compilations or free-to-play mobile games? One. How many games from the sub-series like X, Legends, etc have come out since the 2000's? None. You can't meaningfully judge how, say, a new mainline Mega Man X game would sell in today's market based on sales figures from 2005, when the last entry was released.
Another big issue is that these companies solely look at the number of units sold and not the amount of profit made from units sold. Using Mega Man as an example again, Mega Man 11 sold over 1 million copies, and since it, like almost every Mega Man game, was made on a low budget, it undoubtedly offset their development costs and made a nice profit. However, Capcom looks at that one million and says "But it didn't sell 8 million like the latest Resident Evil", not factoring in that Resident Evil games are exponentially more expensive to make and need to sell multi-million levels of units to break even, let alone profit.
It's a self-defeating mindset where if the latest entry isn't the best-selling game ever at launch, no matter what its actual sales figures and profit margins are, then it's automatically a failure and isn't worth continuing to invest in.
But they do factor in the expenses when making these decisions. The problem is that when you make a sequel you tend to not be sure if the new one will sell as much as the previous one, but you probably need to put more money into it to ensure it’s quality. So you are stuck in a situation where you aren’t sure what to attribute the success of the game to, and it becomes risky. If it sold 2 million copies, the risk would be a lot more manageable
@@thomasffrench3639
11 DID sell lots of copies.
I'm glad that Battle Network got a resurgence with the Legacy Collection. All there's left is to hope for a Starforce Legacy Collection, Legends Collection, and maybe one day, Legends 3, to conclude the Robot Timeline.
Where is the Resident Evil Legacy Collection?
@@thomasffrench3639Capcom’s already milking RE as it is
@@maxpops8427 And? The fact that we got the obscure Mega Man Zero series, but not the original RE trilogy is really backwards.
@@thomasffrench3639
We did get outright remakes
@@austinreed7343 they are different games. So we still don’t have it.
I'm just glad Ratchet and Clank has survived all this time and thanks to the leaks has another game set in the future.
The 2029 game will likely be the final one though (which I'm fine with especially considering what the next game's direction is via pre-production slides).
@@TerrorOfTalos What is the direction for the new game?
@@lazoali9555 analyze these concept slides and come to your own conclusion. imgur(dót)çóm forward slash "a" forward slash ym7 s4IR (just close the spaces and swap some characters).
There's a bunch of games that these days are considered cult classics, with more fans being introduced to these franchises, such as Klonoa, Twisted Metal, Ape Escape, Jet Set Radio and etc, which is an opportunity to the companies to test the franchise again, like SEGA is doing with both JSR and Crazy Taxi, what namco did with Klonoa, which the sales has done well despite they not advertising the game to both north and south america, but there's games that doesn't have that big cult classic fandom, such as Medievil, or even Gex, most of the people aren't interested in those, this is why Medievil remake has eventually failed
It do make me sad that Medevil remake didn’t sale wall
This is why crossover games, and to a lesser extent compilations, are valuable, for those D, E, F, G-tier franchises. Medievil was released too late after its last crossover appearance. Not sure if any compilations were done for the series either.
Thankfully the Medievil revival was good and not complete ghoulware.
Vocal minorities in gaming in a nut shell
I much prefer niche hidden gems over that over rated fluff. They may be "dead" but at least they're not a dead horse.
There are many franchises that are both, however.
My logical side wants to nod in agreement, but my nostalgia wants another Sly, WET, and Darkstalkers.😂
Are the majority of game developers really making the games they want to make, or are they just making the games that are projected to do well in the market just so they can pay rent?
Ape Escape was a great franchise. I played the 1st and 2nd game on the PSP and PS2, but did not play the third one. I just want playstation to make a remake of it and it would look great on PS5.
17:27 Part of that discussion reminded me of the whole "are videogames art" drama and how gamers desperately need validation to the things they like, otherwise they'll become enraged and toxic.
Another big problem is also this ultra consumerist mindset that gamers have nowadays, as if they are in their rights to harass publishers and developers just because they are the "loyal costumers" and their needs should be taken care of.
Pushing my buttons a bit bro. You may lose me as a sub. But hey you don't care.
It’s unfortunate a lot of great series won’t get new titles but a lot of companies like Capcom and Sega are still great at agnowledging some of their lesser known IP’s with things like crossovers. Not ideal but definitely shows they at least are thinking of them. Plus a series getting a new game is over rated anyways when the older games will always be there to play
You mentioned at the end when a new games comes out out, people enjoy it, and then ask when the next game comes out. This feels a bit of a double standard as zelda fans awhile ago were asking when the DLC for TOTK would come out then they get mad when they find out that theirs is none planned and have a fit about it. Or how every direct they keep expecting wind waker and twilight princess to be ported or remastered as if its expected of them. Now I don't hate zelda nor do I down play its popularity but what exactly makes people think that nintendo would do that? I get that they appeared on other consoles after the GB era but did they do that as some sort of tradition? I mean these games weren't originally loved by the fanbase and was only loved later on in life. TP got another release for the wii but that was due to its release frame and ended up being a cross gen title. Then the ports for wii u now did they so this because its traditional or is it because they didn't actually have games for the wii u?
I get the point of this video, I respect your opinion and enjoy both your old and new content but you got to see the problem with this. Fans of popular games demanding and expecting more even though they have two massive open world games, an HD port of skyward sword, a remake of a classic 2D game and a bunch of spin offs. Yet they demand more. All the while fans such as F-Zero and me, a Star Fox fan wants one game. Literally just one per console generation, that is all we need to be satisfied. It doesn't need to be popular, it doesn't need to have constant releases like mario or zelda. Just one game and if they made another that same generation thats fine, we weren't asking or expecting it but thats great.
I don't approve of harrassing programmers or developers when they stop making the games you like but its really frustrating and annoying when a developer keeps making the same mistakes everytime they try to make a new entry and instead of reflecting on what they did wrong they either blame the ip or its fans.
While i like the advice of just buying the next entry if it happens despite the fact that you won't play it, it is a double edge sword. In theory it would help show interest and maybe keep it afloat but at the cost of quality. In one of your sonic videos you talked about how sonic fans deserve better and should make that clear by voting with your wallet. What happens if nintendo decided to make another starfox game but its another Star Fox Zero like game or Command. Should we still buy a copy and give nintendo the impression that they can get away with retelling the same story and giving us unwanted hardware gimmicks? Or do we vote with our money but then give the false impression that nobody cares about the serise and it dies in definitely?
This whole thing reminds me of Darkstalkers/Vampire. a series that the fans have been clamoring for decades, and yet, refuse to buy any of the collections or remasters that release.
Yes, a new game would be nice, but fighting games are niche enough as is, and using up all that time, money, and effort on a new game that won't sell won't benefit anyone. Darkstalkers/Vampire fans didn't buy The Chaos Tower on the Dreamcast or PSP. They didn't buy the collection on the PS2. They didn't buy the HD remasters on the PS3 or 360. Capcom got desperate to the point where they had to trick people by calling the next attempt Capcom Fighting Collection and added a few other games to it. And guess what? They STILL didn't buy it.
So like, what were they expecting? If you won't buy the numerous rereleases and attempts made to bring the IP to a wider audience, that's just signaling Capcom that you don't actually want a new Darkstalkers/Vampire game, let alone any of the older entries.
OK, first off why did you even mention the games that where released on Dreamcast, and PS2 when both of those releases where in Japan only, with the Dreamcast one being only available though mail order.
Second when did Capcom ever say that the Capcom Fighting Collection was an attempt to see if people wanted a new DS game?
@@ThrashMetalWolf666 Because it's pretty dang obvious the Capcom Fighting Collection was yet another attempt to sell Darkstalkers to the masses.
Most darkstalkers fans are people who like morrigan and Felicia but at the same time have no idea what game they are even from 😂
@@billyboleson2830 I'd say that Darkstalkers' roster has some of the most creative characters designs in any fighting game, it's not just Felicia and Morrigan, other characters like Demitri, Jon Talbain, Hsien-Ko and B.B. Hood are very iconic, at leat for the genre. But I say that part of the problem why the franchise disappeared was due to it's gameplay, while it a pretty good fighting game, I think doesn't have as big of a competetivie scene compared to Street Fighter or other games from other developers like Tekken or King of Fighters
The fact that Darkstalkers was a vert cartoony looking game is another problem, I don't think Capcom is interested in investing their resources in making a new Darkstalkers game that looks like the previous ones, it'll have to look like Gulty Gear: Strive. Not to mention that it seems like Capcom is content with just having one big fighting franchise, it seems most publishers can only maintain one, Namco is having trouble with the Soul Series so it's just Tekken for them, SNK is the only one that seems to be able to have multiple fighting games (KoF, Samurai Shodown and Fatal Fury)
Chaos Tower at least added new content, as did the PS2 collection. The new ones do not.
I had to learn this the hard way with the godzilla pipeworks games