The Problem with Yearly Game Releases

So, let’s say you have a favorite burger joint (we’ll call it Bloody Birch’s Burger Bunker and Barbeque Barn, or BBBaB for short),  and you’ve been going there for years because they have a burger you absolutely love. It’s practically orgasmic. You moan heavily every time you take a bite, ignoring the strange looks from children and the elderly. The food fetishists give you a hearty nod and wink in approval though, so that’s cool.

Antonio Brown loves the Colostomizer!

You’ve probably eaten sixteen cows worth of meat, eating the same burger – the Colostomizer (1/4 pound chuck, blue cheese, yellow cheese, white cheese, black cheese [because you aren’t a racist], lettuce, tomato, four pieces of super crispy bacon and Colostomizer secret sauce on an toasted asiago cheese bun). But lately, you are getting tired of it, and even the restaurant seems to be getting a little stale. It’s not as good as it once was for whatever reason. Maybe you’re just getting used to it, but part of you thinks the restaurant is getting lazy. Lately the buns are dry. The meat isn’t seasoned. The lettuce is soggy. It’s almost like the restaurant is complacent. They have a new burger, but it’s not nearly as good. It uses an almond flour bun and mixes tofu in with the meat, and just tastes awful. It’s not the same anymore.

So you try out a new burger joint – The Slaughterhouse Five Burger Pad. You try the Dresden burger – a charred burger made to perfection – and you’re in love again. You leave BBBaB behind.

The analogy of burgers to yearly game releases probably isn’t a 100% match, but it certainly makes some sense. When you look at the glut of game franchises that are released on a yearly basis, there are two ways developers milk their cash cows to keep consumers playing. They either grow complacent, barely changing anything except the packaging and menus (every sports franchise, Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry to a smaller extent), or they go off the fucking rails and create a game that’s nothing like the original (Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare).

SPACE!!!!

It’s a tricky slope game developers climb when treading on known franchises. It’s expected the games will give you something new, while still maintaining a sense of familiarity. In my opinion, the problem has nothing to do with the development itself, and everything to do with the yearly release.

And I get it. If you’re a sports fan, you want the newest rosters for your favorite team, and why wouldn’t you want roster updates? If you own Madden ‘16 and you’re a Houston Texans fan, you want the Brock Lobster throwing the ball to Deandre Hopkins in Madden ’17.Lions fans may cry not having Calvin Johnson on their team though, but that’s beside the point. So what do developers do? Slap on a coat of pain and ship out the game with “updates” that cost the full price, just so players can get the updated rosters.

FIFA is another example of this. I own FIFA 15, and I recently bought FIFA 16 on sale. Their franchise mode hasn’t changed in years. It’s the same fucking thing essentially. There’s absolutely nothing different about it between the two games. The gameplay has barely changed. I will admit sports games require a gameplay that feels similar, but that doesn’t mean they can’t try and shake it up occasionally.  

Vardy points to where FIFA fans go to cry after buying
FIFA another year.

Assassin’s Creed? Yeah, they keep putting the game and story in new timelines in history, but it’s the 

same damn game. “Unlock areas of the map, stab people, hide in crowds, poison some dude, get some shops and make gold, etc.” Rinse, lather, repeat. Always, always repeat.

What about the biggest cash cow, Call of Duty? I will give credit where credit’s due in terms of changing the basic gameplay. Over the span of ten years, the game has gone from a tactical World War 2 shooter to what appears to be space battles with the upcoming game. I’m not a fan of the COD games, but I think it’s a cynical move by Activision to change the game so dramatically. It’s like they heard the complaints about stale repetitive gameplay and said, “Fuck it, we’re going to space!” The franchise no longer feels anything like the original.

So why do publishers release yearly games? The obvious answer is money. They know consumers will buy them anyway because of their loyalty to their franchise, or players want the updated rosters for their sports games. Where players once played for gameplay, now they play for remarkably cynical reasons. Activision could call their next game Call of Duty: Fuck You Players, and involve everyone fighting with rubber dildos, and it would sell millions.  EA could release a new FIFA game with the same cover, same menus, offer nothing but updated rosters, and sell millions. Wait, they do that already.

Assassin's Creed: Boredom

And that’s the problem. Players need to stop giving their money to cynical publishers who publish yearly franchises. Stop eating at BBBaB, and try new places. Ubisoft decided to not release Assassin’s Creed this year, which is a move in the right direction. It will allow Ubisoft to spend the additional time building something new and refreshing. Sports games should release updated rosters online and let the players download them. Hell, they could even charge $10 or $15 to do so, and people would be happy with that. I think this would provide developers more time to, you know, develop their franchises and keep things fresh while maintaining the core of what drew players to their games.

I’m not suggesting additional time alone will solve stale gameplay, as it’s all up to the developers to create something new and fun. There are plenty of examples of sequels that blew chunks like the kid in Stand By Me hurling blueberry pie everywhere. Something must change soon before everything is as stale or strange as the burgers from BBBaB. 

What are your thoughts? Comment below!