The Michael French column: Why remakes are bad news

In almost direct contrast to the view taken in this feature by James Bowden, Michael French argues that the current glut of HD remakes and PSN/XBLA 'arcade' offerings are "the gaming equivalent of being put on hold by a call centre".

Do you worry a lot?

I worry a lot.

I'm paid to worry a lot. I run two magazines, oversee two websites, and have a team of seven that write them all. I worry about the health of the markets those publications cover - videogames.

I'm bred to worry a lot. As a recent parent, I find myself sharing responsibility for the upbringing of a very curious one year old. In his eyes, everything is a challenge and something to play with. In my mind, everything is a hazard or an untoward influence. I worry about at what point I can expose him to videogames, and what effect it'll have on him.

And as a gamer, I'm often worrying about my favourite past-time. Are my beloved consoles going to be extinct? Are the big budget experiences I enjoy going to be undermined by a wave of social games that ask me to pester friends for in-game currency? And, crucially, are we getting enough of the new good stuff that games are so good at?

Right now, the answer to the last question is: no.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a neurotic mess. And, in a games sense, this year has seen some top drawer experiences being release: L.A. Noire, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Driver: San Francisco, JetPack Joyride - games of different scale and type that have refreshed old franchises and introduced new ones.

But 2011 has seen a glut of 'HD remakes, re-releases and remasters. and it all feels rather too cynical.

Sonic Adventure, Space Channel 5, Crazy Taxi, Halo: Combat Evolved, Metal Gear Solid 3, Radiant Silvergun, Mortal Kombat, Fruit Ninja, Sega Rally Online, Bangai-O, Beyond Good & Evil, Tomb Raider Legend, Tomb Raider Underworld, God of War: Ghosts of Sparta, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Ico & Shadow of the Colossus, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, Nintendogs, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, and Resident Evil 4.

That's 20 amazing games right there, but all of them have been released once, if not multiple times, before. The trend to repackage old content is getting out of hand.

Later this year, we're even getting '15th Anniversary' celebrations of the Crash Bandicoot games, spruced up for XBLA and PSN. Who on earth wanted these? What developer accepted the commission? How does 15 years since the launch of a long-aborted Mario-challenging mascot qualify as an 'anniversary' to celebrate? Thank God Sony hasn't realised it was 10 years since the launch of Jak and Daxter this November, or we'd have to suffer that gurning duo's first outing once more, but this time in pointless stereoscopic 3D.

Rehashing once-great games is starting to get stale. Struggling with not having produced enough games for current-gen consoles in the post-Wii transition, publishers have plundered their back catalogue, dusting off old games - at times, any old game it seems - for an HD remake, or its twisted cousin, the 'Arcade' version for PSN, XBLA or Virtual Console.

While it is right to preserve gaming's history, the speed with which this stuff is being churned out in 2011, plus the glee with which it is lapped up by gamers, perturbs me. Mostly because it sends the wrong message to publishers.

These re-releases are, more often than not, a distraction by publishers hoping to draw your eye from the fact that this year there aren't as many games out on disc.

It's not comparable to a Blu-ray or remastering of a movie, which simply aims to refresh an older work while a movie studio pumps out new stuff. It's not like a Best of Abba CD because even in this day and age games regularly go out of print, and this year's HD remakes will be as scarce in 2012 as they are freely available today.

What's happening is that this old guff is being used in lieu of new material.

So buying these games doesn't send a message to publishers that we think the original games being released today aren't good enough. It tells them that we're happy to be fed their regurgitated back catalogue, happy to be treading water or standing still. In the end, HD remakes are the gaming equivalent of being put on hold by a call centre.

Even worse, the money spent on the redevelopment of old games for new platforms sucks some money from new games, so in part it stops publishers investing in the new stuff. Admittedly, the budgets for all 20 remakes mentioned above still probably wouldn't have paid for one L.A. Noire, but it would've paid for some DLC for another title, or a handful of those 'smaller' games that are seriously disrupting the business.

Thankfully, the games industry being what it is, this self-cannibalisation can't last forever. Eventually, publishers are going to run out of old games to remake for the HD era.

But by that point will it be too late?

Michael French is Editor-in-Chief of games industry websites Develop-online.net and MCVuk.com & magazines MCV and Develop. You can read his first column for made2game, on how the 'big three' publishers are being naive in their view of the iPhone/Android/browser-based gaming revolution, by clicking here.

Follow Michael on Twitter @Michael_French

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