Keiji Inafune—a designer and producer on the original Mega Man—recently spoke at South Korea’s Console Game Developer (CGDC), where he discussed some of the creative stagnation in game development (reported by ThisIsGame, and translated by Automaton).
Inafune believes developers should keep pushing the envelope in game development, even while many studios rely on sequels, intellectual property and trendy genres to generate guaranteed revenue.
Sequelitis
“I’m not saying it’s bad to continue existing franchises or make games that riff on popular genres. What I mean is that these shouldn’t be the only games being made,” Inafune warns.
Inafune goes on to reflect on the early years of his career, when genres had yet to become solidified. There was no popular game that Capcom could model its games after, so Inafune and his fellow designers had to conceptualise games from scratch, which he describes as “simply the norm.”
The legendary designer believes he became such a well-rounded game developer because he hopped from genre to genre and from series to series. “[My career] was only possible because I didn’t dwell on past hits,” Inafune explains. In contrast, Inafune says developers are now adopting a “defensive” stance, which he thinks will be a net negative for the industry over the next few decades.
“The 11th game in a series, the 13th in a franchise. While such choices may be necessary for fans and business, when considering the essence of game development and the passion for creation, it should not become the entirety of the gaming scene,” Inafune adds.
Inafune makes a valid point, for every new, independent hit like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, there are a dozen mediocre but commercially successful sequels. It’s easy to see why — even if your sequel is cookie-cutter, fans of the series will continue to buy additional entries in that series, and the name recognition of the franchise will convince others to invest their money, too.
However, each of these popular franchises was once someone’s new idea. If triple-A development keeps moving from sequel to sequel, there won’t be any new IP to capture the attention of players as they become fatigued with existing series.
