The Digital Cash Cow and Those Who Would Milk It to Death

Never let it be said that video game publishers are bad at finding the "Withdrawal" button on a cash machine. Large game companies, second only to the people who brought us the Sweet Valley High books, are truly superb at churning out sequels to successful titles well past the point at which there are any interesting stories left to tell in the franchise. Far be it from me to tell them not to sell a product that people will still pay money for. Hooray capitalism and all that. It's just that sometimes it feels like the beautiful new growth on the forest floor is getting smothered by all the big recycled trees -- like this year's bestselling entries, Pine 2010, Birch: Redux, and Oak 8: The Oakening.

Sam and Grookey were Arguing On The Internet recently about this very issue.

G's way into this was a note about the apparent decline of music games as a genre.

Grookey: It's crazy to see in music games in their saturation decline. I can't remember where I saw it, but someone created a typical timeline for genres.*

 Genre is created (Street Fighter / Kung Fu) -> genre defining game is created and goes mainstream (Street Fighter II) -> Genre is polished to height of popularity (Street Fighter 2 Turbo) -> Genre is flooded with clones and spinoffs (King of Fighters, Marvel Vs..., Samurai Showdown ) -> Genre declines to where games only target the hardcore audience (Street Fighter 3, Samurai Showdown 5, KoF 99).

This can also be applied to Tony Hawk.

*I think it's this.

Of course, this genre life cycle applies to other areas of endeavor. Vampires, cupcakes, and N'Sync-ish boy bands come to mind.

But back to games. Nothing in this genre lifecycle description says that the publisher of the "genre-defining game" can't be a contributor to the eventual flood of clones and spinoffs. With games, in fact, that seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

The S and G discussion soon fell to who, among the major game companies, is the worst offender in this regard.

Sam: Activision is the king of oversaturation.
 I'm curious if Harmonix will try to re-innovate after RB3, or if they're going to continue with RockBand in the same format.

Grookey: hah, no way. Capcom is the king of oversaturation: Super Street Fighter 2 turbo, Mega Man 10, Mega Man X8... etc.... etc...

Sam: Well, if we're going there, Konami is the king of oversaturation:
Dance Dance Revolution 7th Mix, Beatmania IIDX 9th Style, Pop'n Music 18, Drum Mania 10th Mix, Drum Mania V7, Keyboard Mania, Guitar Freaks...

Grookey: Oh yeah, Konami has a ton of Bemani games. Probably as many Street Fighter games. Plus there's the Silent hill series and the Castlevania series.
 I'd still argue that Capcom has more franchises they've milked.

• Street Fighter
• Mega Man
• Resident Evil
• Breath of Fire 
• Ace Attorney

Sam: We could count them.

 I should revise my claim: Activision has built their entire business plan on oversaturation.

Grookey: Somewhat. They're sort of the Wal-mart equivilant of EA Games.

Sam: Well, Activision basically built themselves out of Tony Hawk.

Grookey: Sort of. Neversoft is only 1 of the 15 game studios they own.

Sam: I suppose you're right. They did publish that amazing game, Fishing Derby, in 1980.

Grookey: Pshhh, picking on their first game. 
They developed Pitfall on the 2600. That's one the top 2600 games of all time. They developed their fair share of games.

Sam: Okay, fair enough. They did some really sweet games in the 80's. Then there was a 10 year gap with nothing in it, then Mechwarrior2, Quake 2+, Interstate '76, Battlezone and Civilization: Call to Power. Then, they built their modern empire on the success of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater by strangling it to death, dragging its dead body through the middle of town square, then raping it for the next ten years. Still today, the rape continues.

Grookey: Actually, here's the best argument in your favor.  Actvision list of series:


• Crash Bandicoot series

• Call of Duty series

• Guitar Hero series

• Spider-Man series
• Spyro the Dragon series
• Tony Hawk series
• James Bond series

But, I think this may prove the ultimate king of saturation.  EA Games list of series:

• Battlefield series

• Burnout series

• Command & Conquer series

• FIFA series

• Fight Night series

• Madden NFL series

• NHL series

• Medal of Honor series
• NBA Live series

• Need for Speed series

• Rock Band series
• The Sims series"


Sam: I'm not sure that's a fair comparison, due to EA's sheer enormity. I'm more curious to see the series-to-single-game-or-sequel ratio. 
Also, I'm not sure I feel like sports games count. For sports fans, roster changes and keeping current is a huge factor in enjoyment.

Grookey: Sports games absolutely should count. If that's not flooding the market when you release the same goddamn game game year in and year out ...

(My own contribution, after the fact, is a little company called Sunstorm Interactive.)

So what do you think? Is this the kind of thing that can be objectively measured? Is there an equation that can be devised to measure the degree of a company's over-saturating transgressions? Like:

O = [# of series] * [sum(# of games in series - 3) over all series] / [avg. rating of all the company's series games] / [# of non-series games in company library]

Once we solve this one, we'll get back to work on our perpetual motion machine.