Big-names make money, i understand that. Super fans will buy practically anything, i understand that. But game developers and publishers need to understand that driving a franchise into the ground will do more harm than good. When Activision gets a successful franchise, they milk it literally to the death. They did it with Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk and they will do it to Call Of Duty. I'm sure at one point or another you've played or seen someone play a tony hawk game. But not anymore. What happened to it ? Skateboarding isnt anyless popular among the youth, tony hawk is still relativley famous. What happened was Activison being greedy parasites and destroyed the reputation of a good brand overnight by releasing a new game every year, with the quality dipping and the ideas getting more desperate with each consecutive outing. The same thing happened with Guitar Hero but was even more of an issue with Activision having to produce over expensive fake instruments with each outing leading to them wasting money every year with an audience that just wouldnt purchase the goods.
Activision is currently doing a repeat perfomance with Call Of Duty, by having two studios work on the games simultaniously so one can be forced out every fall. The games are still of good quality and have a massive following, there are some gamers out there who only buy a FIFA game and COD game every year. These people oblivious to the other excellent games are a bit of a tragedy but even they are feeling the burn of this corporate monopolisation with many fans saying the latest outing Modern Warfare 3 is the last they will buy. Even recent statistical analysts have said that recent MW3 sales dont match those set by the previous title Black Ops at the same time last year. Is this the beginning of the end ?
On the other side of the gaming spectrum we currently have Halo 4 being developed by a new microsoft owned company 343 industries instead of the previous developers Bungie who have moved onto newer greener pastures. 343 was built by Microsoft to be "That Halo company" , the guardians of the franchise and developers of any new games. The Sci-Fi franchise Halo has been described as this generations star wars, an epic science fiction shooter series with an expansive universe and mythology ripe for stories to be told. As Sci-Fi franchises go i have always prefered Bioware's Mass Effect series , mainly for a better universe, more interesting characters and deeper gameplay. But hey, its two different genres and its all up to opinion. Around the time of the original Mass Effects release i could happily say Halo was my favourite game series of all time, but more intelligent shooters like Bioshock and RPGs like Mass Effect stole that crown. And even then the Halo games from Halo 3 have been going downhill in my opinon with Halo Reach being the last hurrah and second best only to the orignal. I'm still a Halo fan though so why aren't I jumping out of my seat to play as the Master Chief again ?
Firstly, the reputation of 343 as a developer is still to be determined and is currently the equivalent of a fourth Lord Of The Rings written by an previously unknown writer. The next reason is franchise fatigue, pure and simple, I'm willing to wait another 2 years for Halo 4 with it heralding the end of the xbox 360 and ushering in the next generation. My final reason is a bit whiny, I want a completely new, radical change to the Halo universe and the direction of the universe to get me very interesting. One of my recent gripes is the knowledge that I'm fighting the Covenant again, please 343 give me something different !
My belief is that Halo 4 will finalise the idea of Halo as the new cash cow for microsoft eventually bringing in a situation similair to the one described about Activision. But in the end, Halo 4 could be a excellent game, or a terrible one, only time can tell until my belief is solidified.
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