this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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The title seems to be poking at fans, but the repeated name was always bound to lead to confusion. Activision is out of ideas.
It's not just Activision. It's all of AAA gaming. If you want something new go to AA or indie games.
Hollywood too. Everything is a sequel or reboot.
Sad, but true,
Ehhh well, I've kinda regained a bit oh hope after starting Alan Wake II, but yeah the big three (EA, Activison, Ubisoft) are hilariously bad.
Alan Wake is pretty much the definition of a modern AA game, though, so that just plays into what he's saying.
While Alan Wake 2 is super well executed, its development costs is dwarfed by modern triple A games that cost at least 10 times more to develop.
(Alan Wake 2 reported budget 50-70 million euro, compared to games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Red Dead Redemption 2 or Cyberpunk 2077 which were all reported at ~500 million euro, while games like MW3 (2023) and GTA VI both have billion dollar+ budgets).
Wow, had no idea the first one was made with such budget constraints... Though I am curious where you got the budget estimate for 2 as I haven't found anyhting.
Oh yeah no that was a typo, that budget is for Alan Wake 2 - its on the Alan Wake 2 wikipedia page, sourcing a Finnish newspaper at the time of writing this comment.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Wake_2
Oh, I see :) Thank you for clarifying.
It's really impressive what they've been able to achieve then.
I don’t think it’s so much that they’re out of ideas but that they’re too scared to risk new ideas. These games are so expensive to make now so they squeeze out as much as they can with MTX and season passes to stuff their pockets as much as possible. The longer they can keep you playing, the more money they can make off of you with minimal additional effort. Wrapping up that plan with a nice widely-recognized Call of Duty logo makes them a lot of guaranteed upfront cash.
Doing the same thing for a new unknown property won’t have that guaranteed audience, will require a lot more marketing effort, and possibly years of underperforming results before it starts becoming worthwhile. And even then it’ll be impossible to catch up to the behemoth of the biggest shooter franchise in gaming history. So it just makes financial sense to keep remaking and rebooting the tried and true. Their CEOs and shareholders demand it and their audience (for now) is happy enough to keep it that way with their wallet votes.
tl;dr With development costs growing exponentially, publishers looking for the easiest path to the most profit, and gamers already primed to keep buying the next installment no matter what, sticking to old ideas is what makes the most sense. Goes for movies too.