SF2010 remake on SNES is coming any day now! The thread of video game remakes in the fandom

[Ghost from Spelunker]

I keep seeing the word "remake" in the videogaming world. Youtube comments, Twitter threads, even in person. There seems to be no escape besides the walls of Talking Time. As soon as a game has it's 5th birthday people are all "they should remake this game for modern consoles right now!"

It's reached a point where I wonder where this is all coming from.
Is it Gamer Entitlement?
Lack of understanding of the industry?
Do people not understand that getting the rights to an obscure, dead-for-30-years game that pops into your head and actually remaking it in 3D (or 16-bit graphics!!! That's just like the NES isn't it?) would take more effort than the profits?
Maybe people have always been mad about remakes?
And where did this start?

What say you?

 

[Peklo]

There are many factors involved, but part of it is undeniably that video games as a medium and hobby cultivate some of the worst understanding of their own history and encourage active rejection and ridicule of it. Out of any hobby and interest sphere I've witnessed and been part of, nothing comes close to the level of condescencion, dismissiveness and ahistorical disinterest that's treated as a totally expected and desirable aspect of how video games are talked about--phrases like "it hasn't aged well" are part of the stock vocabulary that get applied on increasingly short notice, where games hardly five years old get treated as outdated relics if they communicate their vintage in any way, and the myth of linear improvement where of course a newer thing signals a better thing is clung to as a foregone conclusion. The fractured nature of the media across incompatible and constantly put to pasture formats where few but the biggest things ever get re-released and those that get picked up often come out the other end transformed doesn't help matters; they play into the expectation that anything sufficiently old must be "fixed" before it can be presented to current audiences again, if ever. Intersect all of this with a tech sector mindset of wanting new and shinier toys all the time and apply it to evaluating a rapidly changing and evolving artform (because of its recency), and you have now multiple generations of people who have been taught to discard what they have and demand that it be immediately reintroduced according to "modern standards."

 

[FelixSH]

I find the demand for constant remakes weird. In my experience, remakes often are different enough from the original, that they feel like a different game. I have talked a few times about Metroid NES and Zero Mission. I just don't understand how people considere these two games to be basically the same. They are very different experiences - I haven't played them in years, but Zero Mission, even before the stealth part at the end, has new abilities and bosses, right? Together with the more colorful graphics, it is way more of a reimagining, but can't replace the original at all.

That's my go-to example, because it feels so very different to me, while so many others see it as the definitive version. But the same is true for most remakes, when I try them. So, I'm not quite sure what exactly it is, that the people who want a remake even want to conserve, because there are always changes.

That said, I'm not sure if I might not simply misunderstand something. This isn't just "bring this game to the new console", right? Because I get that, it's simpler to have everything on one console, so that you can pack the old one away, not taking up space. But as I understand it, people don't just want the original, they want changes, so that it fits better to how games have changed, in general. But these are two different points, I feel, and I'm not sure what we are talking about here.

But yeah, even when it is just a port, there are way too many complications in the way, for it to be simple. It's likely a lack of understanding. I don't think there goes much thought into that, besides "I want to play it now". People don't get how hard it is to make games. And it seems to me that they want them cheap, they want them instantly, they want them without bugs, etc... Like, I'm constantly amazed how people can demand these new, giant open-world games, having them come out sooner rather then later, and then complain about bugs. I'm amazed, that these games aren't breaking apart the instant you start them. Which might be me, also not getting how the industry really works, but every open-world game, that roughly works, seems like a marvel to me.

I feel like I'm drifting of, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Torzelbaum]

I'm amazed, that these games aren't breaking apart the instant you start them.

As someone who made software for a living I can tell you that this more or less happens with everything, not just games.

 

[Falselogic]

I think a lot of the factors that are effecting the movie industry are also hitting the triple A video game space. The cost of creating is very high, publicly owned companies have to show a profit, and large corporations are, in general, run by old men with MBAs who have no knowledge of the industry they are participating in. All of these factors lead to trying to make a safe a bet as possible and one thing that is seen as safe is a game/franchise that was already successful in the past.

 

[Beowulf]

I think the biggest distinguisher between remakes is, like Felix said, whether the new thing is a fundamentally different experience. Final Fantasy Adventure, Sword of Mana and Adventures of Mana are my go-to example because you actually got both cases from a single base game: Sword of Mana has the same plot and cast, but is a new game and new experience. Adventures of Mana is the original game with some updated graphics and controls. It's like seeing Hamlet with an American cast on Broadway (fundamentally different) versus an all-male cast in period-accurate costumes at the Globe (as close to the original as modern sensibilities allow).

And I'll admit that in most cases the dividing line between the two is blurry! Do the Pixel Remasters change enough of the first six Final Fantasy games that they're fundamentally different? Did the GBA games? Is the Switch version of Link's Awakening far enough from the original experience to call it something new?

(I say this as a started a new playthrough of the SNES remake of Dragon Quest II yesterday, because I think that's the best version...)

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

And where did this start?

Super Mario All-Stars.

 

[Falselogic]

Super Mario All-Stars.

The SCI re-make of King's Quest I has that beat by three years.

 

[Becksworth]

I would definitely argue that one generation's dismissive reaction to previous generations' media as "dated", for both justified and unjustified reasons, isn't particularly new to video games, but the relatively rapid cycling through of hardware in which we interact with said media has certainly shrunk down how long those generations last. Like during the millenial generation's dominance over pop culture there were around 3 or 4 hardware cycles representing further cultural subdivisions.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

The SCI re-make of King's Quest I has that beat by three years.

Did it seem to set off the wave, though? After SMAS, I remember we got Mega Man: The Wily Wars and Ninja Gaiden Trilogy, just off the top of my head, and just seemed like a much bigger deal. It was even a pack-in and bonus promotion to get people to buy Super NESes.

I mean, credit where credit is due, but sometimes the first isn't the one that really sets things off. Look at PUBG and Fortnite, for example.

 

[Torzelbaum]

The SCI re-make of King's Quest I has that beat by three years.

Hmm... What really separates remakes from ports or conversions? Because ports and conversions have been happening since more or less the beginning of video games.

 

[RT-55J]

Another factor with this is the videogame-speculation-industrial-complex. Speculation about remakes of popular, beloved properties requires zero creativity to fabricate and is guaranteed to bring in some eyeballs. While these kinds of channels and personalities might not have especially large followings in the grand scheme of things, I believe that they have a disproportionate effect on the broader games culture and discourse.

 

[Bongo]

Games have a significant component of engineering, and have been made during times of rapid increases in the capabilities of the tools used to run them and in the sophistication of the techniques used to make them. All highly technical art forms, such as architecture, impose strict physical limits on what is possible or practical for the artist to achieve; but unlike with architecture, major advancements in computer technology have tended to arrive much faster than major advancements in materials science. Games, especially older ones, often feel like they are low-fidelity approximations of themselves, which naturally leads to the desire, either by creators or players, to rely on superior future computer to renegotiate the compromises made in the initial development.

At the most basic level, this might mean using art assets with more colors or polygons, using audio assets with more layers and higher-fidelity samples, playing animations at a higher framerate, drawing more elements on screen at once, using higher-resolution textures, increasing the detail of lighting effects, and so forth. Even artists who artfully respond to the limitations of the medium often nevertheless feel that "let's just do as much of this as the computer allows us to" is the intention they bring to some parts of the work.

Improvements in home audiovisual reproduction technology play into this as well. With movies, translating a film print to a home media format (which basically has to be done again every time a superior format is invented) is basically the same process for each film, because all the source materials were produced using the same format. You don't, for instance, have to shoot the movie again, just redo the transfer. But unlike movies, every game uses unique custom technology, even the ones that use a lot of middleware. That means that any time there's a desire to reproduce a game to take advantage of the existence of higher-resolution televisions or whatever, it's an undertaking comparable in effort to programming it the first time. This is compounded by the fact that platform manufacturers rapidly drop support for formats deemed obsolete, so to make a product available in a new market might require remaking it (give or take the possibility of emulation).

Because of that high cost of producing a remake, it's often thought to be economical to do it only if the product can be improved in some other way in the process, perhaps by altering the design, redrawing the art, or adding new features. These changes may or may not be "authentic" in the sense of involving the same artists. There isn't a fine line cleanly separating higher-fidelity versions of the same game from new games based on older ones.

That's in addition to the previously mentioned marketing aspect where historical successes are seen as safer bets than untested new works, a phenomenon affecting all mass media; as well as the general stinginess of publishers, who try in all things to sell as little as possible for as much as possible.

 

[Ghost from Spelunker]

Thanks for all the feedback, everybody.

In my opinion one of the really big names in remakes was the Resident Evil Gamecube remake. After that game came out it was really hard to be around Resident Evil fans. Up until 2019 whenever any RE news was announced it was always "RE4? RE5 has online coop? Yawn, where's my remake of RE2 with fixed camera angles? And RE3? And Code Veronica and Gun Survivor? I know you never said you were going to make these but you have to!"

Another thing I was going to say was that it feels like back in the 80s-90s when you really liked a game, you fantasized about a sequel, or a cartoon, or even a movie (how's that Metal Gear movie coming along? Zelda?).

And speaking of movies, it's funny how the video game world has the opposite attraction to remakes as movies, often from the same people.
It's always "This movie is being remade, we have to stop production!! How dare they destroy my childhood! Don't they understand it was good enough the first time? Hollywood is officially out of ideas!!!" and then "Now where's my remake of Galactix, but with artwork by Akio?? Don't you want my money? I should be running your company!"

 

[Voncaster]

Reaction to remakes maybe different from internet movie vs. game fans. But that must be vocal minorities of internet fans.

Clearly remakes are big business, because movie and game studios keep pumping them out.

Established IP is a safe bet. And giving the audience an established IP with a familiar story or game play is an even safer bet.

If you're spending millions on a movie or game, don't you want it to be as safe a bet as possible?

That being said, the public (and I include myself!) could use some new and challenging movies and games.

How do your shift focus from remakes? I don't know if that is up to indy film makers and game developers to make something as compelling as the big studios or up to me to seek out new experiences more.

Resident Evil 4 maybe a soul less cash grab. But it also looks amazing, plays great, and has characters I like! I'm part of the problem!

 

[Becksworth]

Also, worth noting we tend to exaggerate the recency and relative quantity of remakes when discussing them because our high minded selves loathe them even as our reptile brains not so secretly crave them.

I mean look at the number of theater plays adapted over and over again in the early days of film.