Why today’s biggest game franchises are failing

Why today's biggest game franchises are failing

By Dom Reseigh-Lincoln

For a very long time franchise games have been king of the proverbial castle. Sat upon a throne wrought from multi-million dollar advertising campaigns, lucrative energy drink tie-ins and over-indulgent celebrity launch parties, they surveyed the industry like a conquered kingdom.

But those days, it seems, are numbered.

Some of the biggest franchises in video games have seen sales begin to fall. Call of Duty saw its first entry in over a decade fail to top its predecessors. The critically acclaimed Hitman series is now seemingly staring into an abyss as its developer and rights are strung up for sale to the highest bidder.

Even Mass Effect – that much-loved sexy time simulator in space – has seemingly been taken out of cosmic rotation thanks to a lukewarm reception to its latest installment.

Has the bubble finally burst? Have the likes of CoD simply grown too fat on its own success, with even its staunchest of supporters finally starting to tire of overpriced map packs, predictable killstreaks and celebrity voice overs?

It’s a complicated question to answer, but it’s clear our industry is experiencing something of a shift that’s sent hairline cracks through the upper echelons of games development.

Outside of the big …read more

Source:: techradar.com – Gaming

All hail this autonomous stone-stacking robot Previous post All hail this autonomous stone-stacking robot The ReMarkable tablet is original and ambitious, unlike pretty much all the other ones Next post The ReMarkable tablet is original and ambitious, unlike pretty much all the other ones