"Sequelitis" and Shortening Development Time

**Melf** · 07 Sep 2012, 08:33 AM

Madden's sales say otherwise.

**Yoshi** · 07 Sep 2012, 08:39 AM

Originally Posted by James

I hate to be fair to EA, but licensing NFL is crazy-expensive.

Maybe for exclusive licensing, which shouldn't be allowed anyway.

**bVork** · 07 Sep 2012, 11:36 AM

I look at this in a different light. I think that well-known franchises can give major publishers the willingness to be more experimental than they might with an entirely new game. Look at something like Need for Speed this generation. It has most definitely had its major ups and downs, but Shift, Hot Pursuit, and The Run are all vastly different styles of racing. Joust mentioned the numbers game that the suits in the boardrooms play, and I think this can work both ways: publishers might be more willing to try something new if they know the name on the box will sell regardless of the contents.

**Joust Williams** · 07 Sep 2012, 02:17 PM

I agree with that.

But Banjo Kazooie 360 might have been pushing it. Especially since no one cares about BK.

**Yoshi** · 07 Sep 2012, 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by bVork

Shift, Hot Pursuit, and The Run are all vastly different styles of racing.

But two of the three suck, and Hot Pursuit, the good one, was started two generations ago.

**bVork** · 07 Sep 2012, 05:25 PM

Except that the latest Hot Pursuit does not handle like any prior NFS game at all, the three prior games in that sub-series included.

And I actually rather liked the first Shift. They really borked the handling with the second, though.

**Diff-chan** · 07 Sep 2012, 07:16 PM

How deep into Shift did you go? That might be the first racer I've played that gets worse as you get more cars and upgrade them. That game is terrible.

**Yoshi** · 10 Sep 2012, 05:29 PM

Dishonored's Executive Producer has a different opinion on sequels. The best part was on a different debate though:

Originally Posted by Julien Roby

I mean, it doesn’t make any sense to make multiplayer if it’s just to add it on the box. As a checkbox, you know?

The idea was to make a great single-player experience, as we did with a lot of player choice, and if we had to lose some time making multiplayer it means we would lose focus on the single-player and spend more time on multiplayer and in the end you just get lower [quality] single-player and crappy multiplayer.