Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4196571-20160617034108/@comment-107.4.117.27-20160619180311

While it is true that you can't dwell in the past and hope to get by making the exact same thing over and over again, you also can't just ignore the past and not attempt to learn from what helped make you successful in the first place.

There is a certain inertial intractability in these sort of things. The reason AC could be so successful on the PS2 was that there was nothing else like it for it to compete with, so anyone with an interest could hop on board. It was also at a time where the affordability of both the console and the games were very good, so it was a low barrier to entry. Again, say what you will about how many people bought the Xbox 360 and whatnot, but there is a deflationary effect on the base and its momentum when AC6 came out as an Xbox exclusive. I myself remember at the time buying my PS3 specifically with the thought in mind that AC would continue on that system, and they instead went Xbox exclusive. That hurts momentum, which was an especially big problem in Japan where the 360 did rather poorly.

Add on top of that the decision to change up as many things as they did - trying too hard to take advantage of DLC, the lack of basic content in the games themselves, taking it out of strangereal. I look less at mega blockbusters like COD. Those sell well in part becuase they have huge pushes behind them advertising wise to get them going and keep them going. How many internet ads, TV commercials, do you get inundated with when a new COD comes out. Heck, even Watch Dogs 2 has had the same commercial running seemingly constantly on every website and Hulu commerical break since last week. This skews what new and different the game has to do becuase the hype put out to the populace to drive sales puts a thumb on the scale. I look at something like the Conquer franchise, which got in its head the same ideas AC has seemed to get, in terms of wanting to change things too much. And now, the C&C franchise is dead, despite once being the only real actor in its field. It kept moving further and further from what it was, what made it successful, in an attempt to accomadate the prevailing "wisdom" of what they should be.

There is a balance that has to be struck. Saying they can't look back to figure out what they need to do is folly. They don't need to make a remake, but they do need to study those past successful games and make intelligent decisions about what worked and what didn't in terms of generating that success.