“For a lot of companies, remakes are a way to drive revenue. It’s sub-cost, it’s an IP that’s there, you can remaster, and that’s great. We don’t do that here. I don’t think that’s ever been in our culture.”
The above quote is from Electronic Arts’ COO Peter Moore. You know, the same guy who worked at Sega until 2003 where he worked on the Xbox with Microsoft until 2007. This is when he ran EA Sports. He’s been EA’s COO for four years now.
When I hear Mr. Moore criticize the current amount of remaster rereleases of existing games I think he needs to watch himself. He’s certainly correct in that remasters are a low cost way to make easy money. However, I find it difficult to hear him say it since he’s one of the top executives in a company who puts out a yearly sports game in the Madden series.
I know a remaster of a game and a new entry in the Madden football series isn’t exactly the same thing. But when that yearly football release has little differences from the previous year, you can see how the Madden games might feel like a rerelease instead of anything actually new.
On a similar note it’s why I haven’t bought any new WWE games since 2003. They’re also a yearly release with little additions or improvements along the way. In fact, after seeing footage of the newest title, WWE 2K16, I think it looks particularly ugly graphically.
I think remasters are cool, but there needs to be actual effort put into them. An example of no/little effort would be God of War III and an example of real effort would be Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition.
GameSpot news: EA Exec Criticizes HD Remasters
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