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No Soup For You!!! | 
As I grow more experienced in life (a.k.a. get old), I find myself becoming less patient and accommodating for daily idiocies that I once blew off without a moment's thought. I'm a pretty easy going guy, but there are quite a few things that are truly beginning to torque me off. o Clueless dolts talking on their cell phone in the check-out line at CVS
o The Fire Sauce Gestapo at the Taco Bell drive through window
o Two foot long receipt for my $0.99 Tic-Tacs purchase
o Idiots taking up three spots because they don't know how to parallel park
o My lady friend for making me sit through the Housewives of New York City When it comes to video gaming, there is one specific pet peeve of mine that is really starting to get my BP fluctuating as of late - the "No Soup For You!!" attitude of game developers. Let me explain.
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Like most gamers, I follow certain series and can't wait for the next release. I'd like to think of myself as an investor in these franchises - without forking down my hard-earned coin for their games there would never be any sequel. So what do I get in return for my loyalty, financial backing and continued support? You guessed it - usually NOTTA. There are some exceptions to the rule, but for the most part very few titles in the post 16-bit era allow you to import data from your previous adventure/season/etc. I am not necessarily looking to start off a new gaming venture with my super-human character from a last installment - that would basically ruin the new game experience/fun. But I admit I do want a little "sumthin-sumthin". Give me some bad-ass sword, first pick in the draft, a special mission, whatever. Recognize that I am a loyal follower of your series (as well as a suido-shareholder). I am happy to see new game releases like Mass Effect 2 that will actually take notice and compensate me for beefing up my Shephard in ME1. In my humble opinion, the employment of this "thanks for your loyalty" programming strategy should be the rule rather than the exception. There is no excuse why developers can't show us some love for our continued patronage of their respective gaming series. With today's technology and expanded media formats, they can surely squeeze in a few 0's and 1's to at least recognize our past efforts. It's bad enough that my wallet is getting brutalized like a contestant on Hell's Kitchen for DLC and the like. Throw me a bone (extra lives, cool outfit, a retro car, etc.) - I have earned it!!! Give me my soup!!
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The Quest For Glory series allowed me to import and grow Gabriel, my Paladin who dished out more pain than a 24 hour dentist.
Suikoden II did it the best (regarding importing data), rewarding players by being able to welcome back old friends.
| | Is my point of view coming from left field? What are your thoughts? | |
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I know Gears 2 let you play with the characters you unlocked in Gears1.
Dragon Age Origins came with a ME2 bonus item.
One of the Burnout games gave you a special car if you had a save for Madden '0something on the same HD/Mem Card.
SSBM had trophies that would unlock if you had save files from Pikmin (and/or Pikmin 2)
There are some games that still do reward you for being a patron. But like you said on the whole your generally getting squat for being a loyal patron to any company. Even most of the unlockables that were in these games were pretty crappy. They really gave you no edge/bonus/etc to make it REALLY worthwhile.
The Madden car was lame.(See Olimar trophy)
Having RAAM in GoW2 gives you no bonus. If anything it is a hinderance in multiplayer since he has a larger frame.
SSB gave you Olimar and some other trophy. Which who the hell cares.(Apparently i did. Since i copied over my little bros save files to get it)
I don't know what DA:O came with for ME2 but it was probably shite.
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All I ever see is the Madden and NCAA carry-overs for created players, but that's about it. An Ico gamesave will change the white pattern on your horse's head in Shadow of the Colossus. Need a mind trip, play up to the Psycho Mantis fight in MGS.
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It is understandable that most games (even by the most prolific developers) do not reward continued patronage through direct perks. Easter eggs are a more common and practical means of humoring established fans.
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There is one awesome act of fan appreciation that comes to mind. The Capcom Taisen Fan Disc was a bonus given away with Capcom vs SNK 2. It had saves for unlockable chararacters for most of Capcom's other Dreamcast fighting games, EPIC save data from serious VS battles, and even stuff for non-fighting games like Net de Tennis and Heavy Metal Geomatrix.
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The Saturn was pretty good for this. There were games that would check your save data.
Having a Panzer Dragoon Zwei save would give you bonus money in Panzer Dragoon Saga for every hour you played Zwei.
Then a Panzer Dragoon Saga save would unlock a new mode in Panzer Dragoon Zwei.
By far my favourite reward was for owning both Duke Nukem 3D & Quake. It would unlock an awesome multi-player game called Death Tank Zwei on Duke Nukem 3D which was even more fun than Duke Nukem 3D itself!
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I'm with you on this one. On the developer side though, I can understand the lack of desire. For example, PS3 saves are a piece of cake to copy, so how to know if someone even really played the previous title? Also with rentals being so common, it creates extra work for a feature that rewards players who the developer and publisher never made a dime from.
I can see some of this changing as we move to a download only format for gaming, where the creators see revenue for every player. The same thing is with what EA has done with some one time use codes for DLC in the game. I can't see why they can't go the Rock Band route and include codes that would only be good once in the next rev of the series.
Great topic, thanks for read.
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No soup? Please?
Seriously though, I do agree with you on some level. I guess this is due to the fact I rarely play a game with a continuing storyline, but there are far too few modern example of this sort of behavior. Someone always mentions Arc the Lad as an example of this. Most of the DL released content has this (Oblivion, Fallout 3, etc.), as well as the Legend of Heroes series for PSP (to an extent). However, I do have a few examples I would love to see implemented:
I would love to be able to convert one of my old Silent Hill 2/3 saves into data I can put on a USB drive in an attempt to "transfer" (if you will) some of the "non-crap" gameplay and story elements into Silent Hill: Homecoming. Also, would it be too much for Pyramid Head to comment on my love for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (from the XBLA) before he ruins my character's childhood or something? I don't think so.
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@Duke.Togo:
I dont know how it works in the US but in Canada the developers do make money from rental games. The rental store pays a licensing fee which is higher than a normal purchase of the same game. This allows them to legally rent the game as many times as they wish.
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It is kinda strange, how many developers mention putting work into the story or making sure there is a compelling narrative to drive player interest, and yet often they seem to miss the obvious, as you have mentioned here.
Our industry banks heavily on sequels and additional entries in franchises, spending untold marketing dollars to link properties together. Yet from a functional standpoint, in terms of direct connection, everything from story continuity to prefered features may be dropped entirely from one entry to the next, not to mention any rewards for being stalwart fans who have completed previous games in a series.
Unfortunately, since one series entry may be handled by a completely different developer than the next, often even the game's creators may have little ability to offer much to those who stay with the series.
However, given how tactfully some developers have connected narratives, I'd say the rewards don't always have to be gameplay directed. Personally I think that the team who wrote Metal Gear Solid 4 should be awarded our industry's highest story-telling award: not just for a great story in the game itself, but how the game ties together plot elements from EVERY canon game in the series, gives far better (i.e. actually somewhat closer to believable) explanations to some of the series' more ridiculous elements (such as Liquid's 'mind control' over Ocelot, and Vamp's immortality/vampirism,) further develops almost every main character in the series (including some previous side characters) and goes out of its way to give closure to everything in the entire saga, while still leaving open room for sequels. The game rewards players who have stayed with the entire MGS saga by nodding to your previous adventures and then letting you explore them further. Heck, the return to Shadow Moses, complete with original layout, sound cues, and ol' REX itself made me misty-eyed.
A less comprehensive but no less powerful example is the end of Shadow of the Colossus. In one simple story nod at the very end to the developer's previous work, Ico, the two games were suddenly revealed to show a story come full circle, and if you've played through that previous game, it brought with it an emotional weight of realization that made the entire narrative even more grand, tragic, and emotional. The game was already one of my favorites before that. After, it had my favorite ending.
Of any fictional story.
And that was worth even more than any gameplay bonus.
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@Crabmaster: It doesn't work like that at all here in the states. I would actually support something like this. I don't really rent games, and I think developers and publishers deserve to be compensated for their hard work. When I enjoy a game, I want the people who created to do well, so they can in turn create more great experiences for me. I think if this was the case developers would be more inclined to give special perks to purchasers like requested here.
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That is an interesting thing you brought up slackur about story continuity. I enjoyed the original Bioshock, although I thought the ending was messed up and had little thought put into it. The Big daddy process was meant to be irreversible. And yet you are clearly human in the ending. Despite how crappy the endings may have been, for a sequel to now come along and try to tell me to ignore all of that and pretend this is what happened instead... I lost all interest in the series and refuse to bother with Bioshock 2.
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Soup?
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Thanks for the comments all - glad you found it a good read.
Seems to be a little bit of ambiguity regarding the No Soup angle of my article. This was a take from a character from the series Sienfeld. Here is a sampling (Soup Nazi = game developers):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2lfZg-apSA&NR=1
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Agree whole heartedly.
I think the only series that really rewarded me in any way was Ratchet & Clank (I think you get a weapons vendor discount or something, if you have a save from the previous game; not much, but something)
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