Do We Need Annual Sequels to Games?

It seems to be a growing trend in the industry for games to release sequels every year as oppose to the every 2-4 years we expect from most sequels. Most recently appears to the Assassins Creed franchise, Ubisoft appears to be releasing Assassins Creed: Black Flag (the next in the franchise) later this year when Assassins Creed III only came out last year. On top of that they also have Assassins Creed: Rising Phoenix coming out on PS Vita. Assassins Creed is now arguable Ubisoft’s biggest franchise and it seems the big franchises can get a game every year, following in the footsteps of Call of Duty and FIFA, or any EA Sports game for that matter. More recent iterations of the Call of Duty franchise have added very little to the franchise and FIFA 13 did not improve nearly as much on its predecessor than FIFA 12 did. With very similar games coming out year upon year, is it worth paying full price retail for a few new bells and whistles?

To be fair, Infinity Ward and EA Sports aren’t nearly as guilty of releasing (arguably) worthless sequels as Capcom is. Much of Capcom’s history is based on releasing sequels that don’t exactly inspire innovation, probably at most fault is the Street Fighter franchise. In the early 90s it was the release of Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, Super Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II: Turbo. Each version added minimal changes, arguably not enough to warrant a whole new game. With so many versions, it’s no wonder Street Fighter II is Capcom’s best selling game to date (although being an incredible game in itself did help). Even today, in a world of DLC, Capcom still insisted on releasing Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, a sequel to Marvel vs Capcom 3 with refined gameplay, balancing and a few new characters. Ultimate MvC 3 released less than a year after the original, packaged as a new retail game and rightly so had people furious.

Hulk, it's not Spidey's fault Ultimate MvC 3 wasn't released as DLC

Capcom though is more the exception rather than the rule but it does beg to differ, in a world of DLC, is there a need to bring out sequels this often? £40 is a lot to be paying for a game and you’d hope that in about 9 months it doesn’t become outdated as talks of the sequel begin to murmur. After which, you don’t really want to spend another £40. DLC on the other hand can cost from £5-£12, roughly a quarter of the original price. At the moment DLC is often used to add a few new missions to games, but it could be used for much more. Instead of paying £40 for FIFA 13 imagine if you could pay £15 and get all the updates, tweaks and new modes (essentially everything FIFA 13 has over 12). I’m no programmer, but I know that small tweaks can be put in as an update, this regularly occurs as bugs are fixed so in theory it is possible. Or, imagine buying Call of Duty and then the next year getting a bunch of new maps, guns, missions and modes, all for a cut down price. Halo has been doing this for years already, adding new modes and playlists, for free!

Obviously, this sounds like a fairy tale world where big corporations actually care about their consumers. No developer is going to sell an update for £15 when they can sell a ‘new’ game for £40. However, in the world of PC games, something similar already happens. This is most apparent with The Sims franchise. The first Sims game launched in 2000 and now is currently on The Sims 3, that’s roughly a game every four years. Maxis, the developer has released many more Sims titles than just the three you would expect. The series releases countless expansion packs for its games, usually and half the price of the original. These expansion packs often add huge new content to the game, adding a totally new dynamic that other games would put into an outright sequel. For those of you who don’t know The Sims is a game where you control people living in a house and dictate their lives as if they were real. Each expansion pack gives you new items for your characters (known as Sims) as well as new places, actions, opportunities and more. Since its release in 2009 The Sims 3 has released 9 expansion packs! Each and every one adding a whole new dynamic to the game, and Maxis don’t seem to be slowing down with the release of another later this year. If you bought the game as well as all 9 expansion packs you would have spent £165 in almost four years, on one game! If Maxis released a Sims game annually at £30 each, they would have made £120. So, expansion packs actually have the potential to generate more revenue than standalone titles. Also, gamers get choice as to which packs they want to buy and so pick and choose the features they will utilise, a win, win?

Even in a rich man's world money isn't funny

The problem with expansion packs is that they change the game to such an extent that it often requires the games to be installed and hence possibly why it has not caught on within console games. However this could change, there are rumours the new Xbox will require you to install games and will not allow you to run the games off the disc. This seems like a great opportunity, if implemented correctly, to allow expansion packs into the console market.

The games industry is ever changing, particularly the way we buy games. In the past few years Steam has taken off, Free-to-Play seems to be the next big thing, while mobile devices have shown how you can sell a game at a tiny price and still make it profitable. The next generation of consoles could see a huge change in the way we buy and play games. Gamers love a bargain, developers love to make money, with the right infrastructure we could see annual sequels replaced by big DLC packages similar to Expansion Packs. It seems like a win for everyone, but what really decides if a change like this will occur, is if developers and publisher make more money from it that the current model. Money makes the world go round, the real and the virtual.