Raising the Bar: Avoiding a Failed Sequel to Your Game

“You should definitely check out the first game.  But ignore all the ones after that.  They’re all crap.”

“I enjoyed the first movie, but by the time they got to the second and third film, it was just more of the same, and I had already seen the same.  Boring.”

“The first one had such soul, but the second was just an attempt at a cheap way to make more money.”

How often have you heard phrases like this?  Welcome to the hazardous world of sequels.

Super Mario Galaxy 2, the latest massive title in the world’s most successful video game franchise, is currently on track to match the seemingly impossibly-high quality bar set by its predecessor.  Reviewers are floored by the first ever 3D sequel to a Mario game on the same platform, calling it a “dazzling high water mark in Mario’s career”.

While making a game like Super Mario Galaxy is an incredible feat in itself, following a successful title up with a sequel or spin-off is often a far greater challenger for a game developer.  Sequels are seldom seen from members of the student or independent game development community for several reasons.  First and most distressing, many student game projects never get completed in the first place, much less built into a sequel or follow up title.  There is less of a profit incentive for young game developers to create a sequel; it’s seemingly much more interesting to come up with an entirely new idea.  Out with the old, in with the new.

Second, many independent developers have a bitter view of sequels.  While original new titles are often viewed as artistic visionary products, sequels can be seen as money-grubbing attempts for a corporate machine to pump more dollars out of what used to be a piece of art, turning it into a soulless hunk of code.  The marketplace is flooded with poorly executed sequels that not only fail to please their original fans, they tarnish the name of the original product that was once praised. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »