Sequence and Assemblage

Sequels are an established pattern in the culture of video games. Any game that sells even a modicum of units will surely see a sequel in the near future. I suppose that there are a variety of reasons for this. Video games are expensive to produce and probably just as costly to market and distribute. There is a huge collective user base out there but as individuals most people only a purchase a handful of games each year. With so many titles for Joe Sixpack to choose from the competition for his hundred bucks is fierce. The logic that publishers seem to follow is that if Joe bought Super Mario Snuff Porn last year then maybe he will be compelled to buy SMSP 2: Extreme Monkey Attack this year.

Of course, in the rarified world of AAA titles sequels are demanded. I mean, am I going to turn my nose up at a Metal Gear Solid 4? No way. The sooner I can get my hands on it the better. But there is always the risk that once great franchises can run thin over time. A good example of this syndrome is Konami’s Silent Hill. After hitting such a high point with Silent Hill 2 the series has been showing diminishing results ever since.

Critics by their nature play a lot more games than the average person. Awash in a sea of sequels, they do their best to direct people towards original creations. Games like Ico, Beyond Good and Evil, and Killer 7 are lauded but critical acclaim and high volume sales are rarely linked. One unique game that made the critic’s top lists and went on to sell more than a few copies was Katamari Damacy. Well, here we are less than a year later and there is already a sequel in the stores. So it seems that there is no real way to escape from sequels unless the public radically changes their buying habits and I don’t hold out much hope for that.

Perhaps one way to look at it is to acknowledge that all video games are in some way sequels to one another. The history of video game development is not so much a linear progression but more of a vast, expanding assemblage. Think of it like a coral reef. Each polyp is an individual but remains part of a larger organism that is growing in all directions Certainly technology has moved methodically forward, reaching towards some mythical goal called “realism” but that fuzzy endpoint always seems to be just over the horizon, making it an endeavor that is as futile as chasing the sun.