How many clones will there be?

The game industry is somehow behaving like the movie and music industry. The market is over-filled with sequels, prequels, reimagining of a franchise and all those "the begining" stuff. I always come to the point where I get bored of sequels or clones.

The same thing happens in movies and music. And I'm talking big productions here...Not the independant studios which often specialize in producing strange original stuff (still applies to movies and music).

I'm somehow allergic to this because it kills a lot of inovations...but at the same time... Why is it the case for the big productions? Because the corporations behind those productions want to make profit out of it. I'm an IT developper (with contacts in the gaming industry) and I say let's not hide our head in the sand. We want profit out of our business. At least not paying for our work. A studio developping games which don't sale will make one... maybe two games... then be bought (if lucky) or closed.

Let's say your at the head of a big project in a fictive game studio (a music of movie studio still apply here) and have a 1 million budget for the production and the promotion of a game. You don't want the sales of that game to return less than that. And if you want to keep a good position in the studio you HAVE to target something which is to make at least a little profit.

There are games which will break barriers and will please critics but will still not be selling much. Then other games will take back concepts, bits of gameplay and story and make bit hits and classics with it.

Then come the clones... I won't cover FPS or MMORPGs or simply RPGs here, which reprensent an ocean of unoriginal titles borrowing on others... let's talk about one big hit...

When I first played God of War (I will often talk about that game because it stands high in my all time favorites), I thought... man that is like Rygar (if you know your NES 101)... The character, the greek mythology, the blades which were alike the flail (though I learned after many years that it was not a flail at all in Rygar)...

Then I found that Rygar The Legendary adventure has been made for the PS2. So I bought it...and...? I found a not much entertaining game. It was not ugly and the gameplay was fun for the most part. The problem was a weak platforming, cheesy dialogues and story, many areas were almost empty.

When I got back to God of War it was clear to me that the designers played Rygar TLA and decided to be inspired and make something much more engaging and entertaining. The rest is history...

But what happens after the peak of concept. Others try to make money of it too. That's why we have Dante's Inferno following God of War for example and so many generic FPS or MMORPGs, which are still good games but lacking originality at different degrees. Some are very good still, while others fall flat. Sometimes it's hard to reimagine a story or a game without taking risk.

I think the best way for a big company is to find the good balance between original concept and games and other games which improve greatly on existing concepts. Of course it's hard to improve concepts and ideas today as so many games have been done already. And it's still a market which has to live on.

That's why there will always be sequels, prequels and whatever other -quels. No wonder why some original concepts are a blast when they come out. Originality comes with a risk but often redefines a genre or literally defines a new one.