Comment on Novels and Movies Offer Closure. Video Games Should Too. [The New York Times]
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 days agoOh, fair enough. But it’s still only going to have so much gas in the tank, and a cliff-hanger or sequel potential is very different than some continual expectation, either by consumers or the developers that the game can or should be updated forever.
mohab@piefed.social 3 days ago
Yes, but it's also devoid of creativity and takes up space that could be occupied by more creative endeavors, so it's a similar path at the end of the day.
My point is pointing a finger at Fortnite and Epic Games is fair, but same finger should also be pointed at Universal, Disney, NBC… etc.
And the biggest finger should be pointed at capitalism itself.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I enjoy the Fast & Furious movies. The advantage to them releasing one movie at a time, or in games, one game at a time, is you can more accurately gauge the appetite for the next one, and they don’t have ongoing costs to keep the last one going. The ten F&F movies out there now are not in danger of disappearing if F&F11 bombs. The people who worked on those movies don’t have an expectation for or reliance on employment any longer than the time it takes to make one movie. And outside of Fast X, despite being pulpy and constantly recontextualizing and retconning old events, they all have their own endings with closure. Fast X does have a cliffhanger, and that is a bet that they made with their audience that they’ll be back, but the most likely scenario is that the next one offers closure. In some ways, cliffhangers can be closure themselves, too; I think more highly of Arcane season 1’s ending as closure for the series than I do of season 2, for instance. Meanwhile, the most likely scenario for a live service game is that it doesn’t have an ending or even exist anymore, only a few years in the future.
And all that said, it also doesn’t mean that I don’t understand your perspective, but I do see eye to eye with the author.
mohab@piefed.social 2 days ago
Hmm… but isn't it an "ongoing series"? Like, you can have short or long arcs, but if the continuity is the same, the story technically hasn't ended.
I agree gaming takes it a step further, but this is like comparing a worse example to a bad one… yeah, one is worse, but they both suck at the end of the day.
I'm glad you like Fast and Furious, but it's only one example of many. It's not the only movie franchise being milked to death, and won't be the last.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It can be an ongoing series, but you can get a sense of closure each time. Star Wars had closure in 1983 and 2005 and 2019 as they kept adding on to it, each time seeming like it was done; and each spin-off had closure by the time credits rolled.