New old games

Sometimes, game companies create new IPs. See: Mirror's Edge, Mass Effect, any Tim Schafer game. Usually, though, they realize, "Hey, we're a game company." Then they let the purpose of a company (to make money) get in the way of the creative part of game creation. They see that Madden consistently sells millions upon millions of copies each year despite the fact that changes to the game from one season to the next are mostly superficial. They see that Psychonauts and Okami do not sell despite near-universal critical acclaim. Maybe it's the funny names. Maybe consumers just don't have as much money as they used to. Maybe Average Joe fears change. Barack is president now; maybe his inauguration can be the turning point for the game industry as well as the economy. Maybe people will start trying new things because the old things are boring. The old things don't work anymore. Change, as they say, is good.

Then why do game companies continue mining the past for ideas instead of looking to the future?

Space Invaders Extreme. Galaga Legions. Geometry Wars. (It's Asteroids in Technicolor. Zip it.) Halo Wars/Recon/ODST/4/5/6. DDR Super Max Ultimate Extreme Hyper Fighting II: The World War Road Warriors. Once-fresh ideas are now being re-hashed so continually and consistently that whole generations are now being robbed of the initial "wow" factor of a new game or a new technology. When GTA III was released and instantly popularized the sandbox world genre, people were amazed. They said things like, "Now I expect so much more from my games." Flash forward through Vice City and San Andreas and you have GTA IV - more polished, but basically the same game. Is it still fun? Most definitely, but not as exciting, fresh, or new.

Which brings me to my question: is the amount of fun you have with a game related to the amount of innovation in it? Are remakes (Prince of Persia, Bionic Commando, Ninja Gaiden) fun because the source was so pure and undiluted? How long can you milk a concept or franchise before it becomes obsolete and unplayable? Square Enix has made each new Final Fantasy game a fresh take on the classic RPG formula to varying levels of success, while the Tony Hawk games started to stink so bad that they finally took a year off to regroup.

Madden will always be fun despite the lack of substantial updates. Mario will continue to charm gamers the world over with each new adventure. Game developers will continue mining the past as long as there's money to be made (*cough*Sega*cough*). Still, as long as there are people that are not content to merely rest on their grandad's NES laurels, the future still has a future. And maybe it all doesn't have to be in the past.