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<blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 5360841" data-attributes="member: 40177">Respectfully, I think you're missing a few things here.First, Halo: Reach (the newest incarnation) is one of the best-selling games of all time, and it outsold Halo: 3 on opening day.&nbsp; In other words, it was a huge success.&nbsp; And this carries on with all of those games you've mentioned - sequels are made because the gaming public WANTS them.Second, Sequels in video games are done for a few reasons - the primary being that it is easier to make a game based on past work (ie, using the old engine and tweaking the gameplay, rather than starting from scratch).&nbsp; If you're running a software company, would you rather spend 2 million to release Awesome Game 2: The Sequel or would you want to spend, say, 12 million to release a game completely unrelated, and hope that it catches on?&nbsp; Fact is, game one will probably sell more units than game 2, and for a cheaper production cost, to boot.Third, there is always a downturn in Q3 sales for video games, because all the big games get released in Q4 for Christmas.&nbsp; Developers (and gamers) know this, so you tend to see a reduction in the quality of Q3 games, with gamers also reducing their spending budget to save up for Christmas.&nbsp; Also, smaller developers tend to release original games, with the middle-stream developers trying to play catch-up with the big guys.&nbsp; The smaller guys often run 3- or 4- man outfits, and release smaller-scale, addictive games.&nbsp; Simply go on XBox live arcade to see an example of this.&nbsp; They specialize in making cheap games that are still fun - while they may not see the millions in sales, their overhead is small enough that it works.But when you run a big software company, you don't want to spend millions developing a game based on a new gameplay experience - it's much smarter to try and copy what the big guys are doing, and instead attach some tweaks learned from their mess-ups.&nbsp; And remember, this is how games like Halo, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect started - taking an existence genre of game and reworking it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Wik, post: 5360841, member: 40177"] Respectfully, I think you're missing a few things here. First, Halo: Reach (the newest incarnation) is one of the best-selling games of all time, and it outsold Halo: 3 on opening day. In other words, it was a huge success. And this carries on with all of those games you've mentioned - sequels are made because the gaming public WANTS them. Second, Sequels in video games are done for a few reasons - the primary being that it is easier to make a game based on past work (ie, using the old engine and tweaking the gameplay, rather than starting from scratch). If you're running a software company, would you rather spend 2 million to release Awesome Game 2: The Sequel or would you want to spend, say, 12 million to release a game completely unrelated, and hope that it catches on? Fact is, game one will probably sell more units than game 2, and for a cheaper production cost, to boot. Third, there is always a downturn in Q3 sales for video games, because all the big games get released in Q4 for Christmas. Developers (and gamers) know this, so you tend to see a reduction in the quality of Q3 games, with gamers also reducing their spending budget to save up for Christmas. Also, smaller developers tend to release original games, with the middle-stream developers trying to play catch-up with the big guys. The smaller guys often run 3- or 4- man outfits, and release smaller-scale, addictive games. Simply go on XBox live arcade to see an example of this. They specialize in making cheap games that are still fun - while they may not see the millions in sales, their overhead is small enough that it works. But when you run a big software company, you don't want to spend millions developing a game based on a new gameplay experience - it's much smarter to try and copy what the big guys are doing, and instead attach some tweaks learned from their mess-ups. And remember, this is how games like Halo, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect started - taking an existence genre of game and reworking it. [/QUOTE]

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