Remasters and their subsequent demand from the gaming community are becoming a bit of a beast. Bringing back experiences from the past by applying a new veneer based on modern needs has become a bit of a problem really, and it’s causing a distortion in the market of products available to gamers. It’s also changing what gamers expect from developers and what developers expect from gamers and the relationship is leaning the entire industry towards a stagnation, even while upstart and indie devs are furiously pushing out fresh titles. What are the consequences of a remaster culture and where does it come from? For video games to move forward as an art form and as an industry, these are questions that must be addressed.
The Same Ol’ Same Ol’
The biggest and most egregious consequence of the proliferation of remasters is they discourage the development of brand new IPs, especially from industry heavy hitters. This slowdown in the amount of new games to learn about and discover adds to the sludge of recycled ideas and names that are backed by recognition and resources and get the most attention. Just a quick visit to any number of news sites and aggregrators shows a rotating short list of topics and news on games we’ve all played for years: Final Fantasy VII, Skyrim, Crash Bandicoot, Final Fantasy XII, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Resident Evils, Ratchet and Clank, God of War, did I say Final Fantasy?, Devil May Cry, Dark Souls and those are just the ones that are a reality.
When I was young, there was a local buffet nearby called the Carousel Buffet. It was a revolving carousel of food, which consisted of a handful of options. It was a revelation at first, helping ourselves to as much as we could and we loved it. But over time, it wore, as we all stood and watched as the same 5 dishes rotated past us, hoping that when the mashed potatoes came back around, they’d be as golden as the first time we had them. It was a sad scene for everyone involved and the food became as poor as the atmosphere.

This discouragement of risk permeates the industry similarly and trickles down so deeply that these remasters become mega announcements on convention show floors. It’s like being told there’s a big surprise in store for you, you’re brought into a room surrounded by all your friends in a huge party atmosphere and you’re presented with your middle school picture in a nice frame. Everyone screams, they tell you to get hyped and you’re wondering if someone has spiked your drink and holy crap did I can’t believe I wore glasses like that and did my hair that way.
Furthermore, remasters retread the old, so it rarely breaks any new development ground with innovations. It just pretties up dated experiences. The adage of putting lipstick on pig applies here 100%. These games are usually old and by modern standards, are now bad. This is not just visually. They may feature poor controls, outdated conventions related to gameplay or designed around technological principles that were modern once but no longer.
However, even in the case of a game considered a classic, like FFVII, it’s perceived perfection is a function of it maximizing the potential of the development at that period in time. Re-skinning it is anachronistic and awkward, putting the game in a weird uncanny valley. It’s as odd and arresting as asking Paul and Ringo to re-record the White Album using more modern instruments and recording equipment. What would come out the other would be good, but it would not be the masterful experience that changed music and allegedly drove other competing musicians into despair and insanity when it released in 1968.

Overall this is development time and resources wasted that could be better spent exploring new frontiers and technologies with processing and peripheral architecture. This is even more ridiculous when the game being demanded is from the most recent gen. It’s still cooling down from its first pressing and is already on its way to the rigmarole of remastering. Sometimes I wonder if it’s actually feasible and profitable for a company to make one game ever, and just remaster it for re-release every new gen. The thought that this is something even within the realm of possibility is terrifying.
Fool Me Once
Moreover, remasters rip off gamers. You shouldn’t have to buy a non-consumable product twice, providing it hasn’t broken. Sometimes, the marketing powers obfuscate this production and give the game a slight rename, not only adding to confusing but exacerbating the psychological problem of excess of choice. Appending Mega Redux Ultra Definitive Version and other ridiculous suffixes is A. Confusing and B. Infuriating. I can’t look at that title and determine if it’s even a game. Once you do surmise that this is the same game you spent sunrise to sundown playing while eating Cheetos and drinking soda, you’re faced with a decision. Should I spend my hard earned money that’s possibly tied up in bills and needs on a game that 20 years ago, I already purchased with my hard earned part time job money that was earmarked to wine (soda) and dine (burgers) a high school flame at a local diner? Having something drive a wedge between you and a choice once is unfortunate. Twice is masochism. Having it separated by decades is something new altogether and it’s nothing nice.

Games are expensive. Yes, they provide value. But, they’re expensive. My first car was an 89 Corolla and it’s probably still running. I’m just really not in the market for an 89 Corolla right now, even if it had a new paint job, all the dents were fixed and the engine was cleaned up. I have new needs and I’m certainly not interested in something that was suitable in the past, especially at full price, and especially when I can typically reacquire the original, used, and for a fraction of the cost.
Even reboots and sequels are a better alternative because they are freshly developed experiences that can often take the genre forward. Not all sequels are bad, and some can even be better than their progenitors. Reboots, similarly still exist in the modern development architecture. Crash Bandicoot is a perfect representation of the problem. While there is something to be said for the nostalgia of keeping the experience in the past, a reboot of the franchise could transport the character into an adventure setting that takes advantage of modern hardware, providing a completely brand new experience. However, it’s a remaster we’re getting. It will look nicer, but it will be familiar and uninspiring. They run the further risk of ironically alienating fans by attempting innovation within the remaster, which is a terrible position for a developer to be in.

How Did We Get Here?
But why are these such risk free moves? Why is so much attention and so many resources poured into these experiences? It’s because of us, the gamers who demand these remasters. This is our fault and our appetites will have to change for the industry to move forward. There isn’t even anything inherently wrong with the nostalgia. I love connecting my NES and playing Mario Brothers and Captain Skyhawk and the incredible demand for the NES classic is a testament to that.
The issue is we want our childhoods back but we don’t want to boot up the old console or load the backwards compatible old version. It’s a twofold combination of laziness and hedonism. First, we want things to be easy and don’t want to have to manage a bevy of old consoles and chords. The console makers are partially responsible in this case, as their inability to create consitent backwards compatability creates a hoarding issue. This is probably the only unique situation where I can concede the point a tad, especially if you don’t own the old console anymore. Still I’d gather you could get lucky and buy a used console and the original game for about the same price or close. Just a quick shopping search of the Playstation One shows that for $60, I can get the console, controllers, and a few games. It’s ultimately the better value as you have an entire new platform to explore on the cheap.

However, the desire to be scintillated constantly is an increasingly common byproduct of the digital era, where enhanced visual experiences are the rule. This results in a general distaste for anything low res or outdated looking. Graphics, graphics, graphics. The pursuit of which is fine as I love the photorealistic experiences of Uncharted 4 as much as anyone, but if it comes with an inability to appreciate the past as it is, it can result in a troubling bit of revisionism. Yes there are new generations who did not experience the game in its prime, but these are opportunities to cultivate an appreciation for the effects of time on art. Modern visual art takes advantage of tremendous new technologies, working with new tools, materials and other tech advances like we see in Jeff Koons’ work. We know the renaissance painters did not have access to this and couldn’t possibly create an impeccable stainless steel balloon animal, but that does not mean both the young and old can’t appreciate the work of Da Vinci in its original state, and in fact be inspired by it.

We wouldn’t ask our aging loved ones to get a remaster and although games are not people, the fondness and memories attached to them can be just as powerful a prompt of a time or place we’ve been in life. Personally, I’d prefer to remember them as they were, because that is when they were at their most meaningful. It does no one justice to re-purpose our old memories for today’s desires and instead just encourages us to forget the value of the past and the potential of the future.
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35 responses to “Remasters Are Bad For Gaming: Here Is Why”
So, I definitely prefer when a game has sufficient-to-excellent mod support, as it really becomes a living breathing entity with the community.
Skyrim is such an example. Re-master? The 64-bit exe is much appreciated, but it does suck that things like skse have to be refactored.
id Software games, NWN, plenty of mod support, great.
ROM hacking communities, great.
Now, for console exclusives,
Essentially texture updates between generations, don’t mind. Sometimes I miss a title and get to pick it up later, but I’m not going to re-buy/play.
I did play the Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventure of Mana remake on mobile. That was really well done, and played faithful to the original GB title, without the puke green. Pure nostalgia.
It’s a wait and see on FF7, may just be an unprecedented undertaking.
I agree with most of what you are saying. When I saw FFX/X-2 Remaster was on Steam for sale I bought it for my husband. he had been playing it on my PS2 and the disc would randomly lock up. He loves it on his laptop. He gets all the key elements of the original game with a pretty coat of paint and on a machine that will not break down.
As for Skyrim… I am disappointed and yet not. I really felt as though the “remaster” was to appease console users and thankfully those of us who owned it already on PC did not have to buy it again. However, all the “upgraded” textures have the worst interpolation than if someone had done it themselves. 72% of their meshes were not upgraded properly and in the CK they fall through the ground. 62% of their meshes were missing object bounds and had to be redone. They also created a giant, nasty image bug where on the PS4 and the XBox you can see the orange/blue markers of player activated meshes. Are you freakin’ kidding me? And it took the player the base to fix it, Bethesda still has not touched it. Not to mention it took them months to fix their own time stamp issues; previously we had to download a third party program and change the numbers ourselves. On the flip side, for the PC, there are less memory leaks and we can use a lot more plugins.
Crash Bandicoot… I still play the original. I like the music and the cheesy graphics so I would never buy a new version. I also still play games like Oregon Trail and Kings Quest because it is nice for my own imagination to fill in the gaps rather than BIG PRETTY PIXELS.
That being said; if a game company wants to fix previous bugs in their games and offer updated graphics, that is fine. I think that players need to be discerning in their purchases. I have a strong feeling much of these remasters are a quick and easy way to raise money for R&D in their company.. or so I hope. Maybe this lull of “remasters” will bring about a new generation of gaming. VR is probably the next stage of the human condition.
I think with anything, some companies are worse culprits than others. One of the reasons I haven’t seriously considered a FF game in a looooong time is the fact that they rely so damn much on fleecing customers based on the nostalgia factor.
When Cloud was a secret unlockable character in FF: Tactics it was cute. It soured quickly when you learned he started off at level 1 and was basically a gimmick unless you really wanted to invest a disturbing amount of time getting him THEN leveling him to a functional place. But fine…no harm really.
Now it seems like everything has Cloud and Aeris callbacks. They’re popular. I get it.
Here’s my “E Take” though. Replaying FF games in that era several times over the years (VII – X), it’s hard for me to say that’s the path they should continue on. VII has some of the worst writing. The characters are all one dimensional. It’s actually now my least favorite to play. I’ll give credit for the open world, mini games and side quests.
But those all existed long before VII and are elements that can be introduced into a game WITHOUT going back to the VII well. Every dip back into those particular waters is pulling from a well that was never very full to begin with. A lot of character development for that story line is stuff they made AFTER the game. There’s more about Cloud’s backstory on a oft forgotten PSP title than there is in FFVII.
Hi, Fex: yeah, that’s a valid point in relation to movies. The recent remake of the old remake, Magnificent 7, didn’t last long enough in theatres for me to see. I just watched the Star Trek reboot trilogy and dang if the second one wasn’t a bad remake of the original second Trek movie. Willy Wonka reboot. Half the Aliens movies. The 3rd Raiders movie. Two-thirds of the Matrix trilogy. The list is endless. Remakes and sequels are definitely stagnation in the film industry.
I’m going to riot if they try to remake To Kill a Mockingbird!
I read elsewhere that there are rumors that Tales of Vesperia is going to be remastered for PS4. Yeah, I’ll be all over that if that comes to fruition. As you all know, Vesperia was an Xbox exclusive over here (lol, JRPGs on Xbox) and a different version was released on PS3 in Japan only. So, Bandai owes it to their largest customer base to bring it here.
It’s certainly fun to read the varying opinions on this. I feel like movies set a terrible precedent for remakes and reboots, they are so frequent and often so bad. With games it’s somewhat more justified, and I would really like to see some older games brought back simply because I miss them XD
Emergence, that is precisely what I’m imagining and talking about: remasters with trophy support. I want to earn new PS4 trophies on Demon’s and DS1. I want remastered PS2 games because the originals don’t pop trophies.
I also care about appearance. I’m told the original Fable is a great game. I gave up after an hour because the faces were too creepy, like somebody was badly mimicking Modigliani. Fable 2 was quite good, however.
So this trend may be bad for gaming in some gamers’ opinions, but I want more.
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Soft reboot, retcon?
What’s being done with FF7 still isn’t quite clear. At first the idea was to simply recreate the same game but with modern day visuals and fully rendered 3D environments. Now they want to change the story at certain points, or basically pull a Full Metal Alchemist in regards to the two anime series, where they’re both pretty much identical up until a specific point, whilst also completely redoing the combat system.
It’s almost like being somewhere between a remaster and a reboot, but as far as I’m concerned everything that happened after the original game might aswell take place in a completely different universe.
I’m sorry calling what is being done to Final Fantasy 7 a reboot is incredibly loose. A reboot is what the new Tomb Raider was; something that takes a known IP and brings it to a new format with a new story etc. The only thing it shares usually with the original is the name. Final Fantasy XV is effectively a reboot since it’s not a direct sequel and takes the franchise in new genre directions. I don’t think it’s conflation to include the new Final Fantasy 7 in the current crop of projects that are basically screwing with the past, no matter how much they’re overhauling the game.
Fex is correct, I may be ahead of her in line for a Demon’s Souls remaster because my inner indulgent self sometimes wins even if I functionally disagree with it haha.
To the point about Demon’s Souls not being on PS Now, this fits with my gripe with the game creators who bear some responsibility in this. The resistance to make hardware backwards compatible and to exclude stuff from services like PS Now does help to create the market demand for remasters. I find this manipulative. Remember when the old consoles could play last gen games and in some cases even upscale them? Imagine if your PS4 could play Demon’s Souls with trophy support? I’d still be playing it actively. I’ve probably opened up a whole can of worms now that I’ve brought backwards compatibility into it but there it is.
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Yeah, but that’s your choice. You can’t say the remasters are the only ways because excluding very rare instances (Like, say ICO) they are both available and cheap and you’re choosing not to get them.
What? No. Emulators aren’t illegal, and they aren’t “pirating devices” either. Downloading or distributing copyrighted software (so games or the official bios) is illegal. Emulators don’t do either of those things, so they aren’t illegal.
Emulators mimic the machinery of the console in question and usually have custom made bios files that don’t use any of the originals copyrighted code (or in rare cases they require you get those files legally from the system in question.) There is a reason I talk about putting the physical disks in my PC, because it doesn’t involve the illegal distribution of copyrighted software (even though, at least in the US, I’m within my rights to copy every game I own to my HDD provided I maintain posession of the physical game.)
It’s no more illegal to make, have or use an emulator than it is to make, have or use an off brand 3ds charger or replacement coffee filter.
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I understand you perfectly!
Iconic games elicit such a reaction. Ultimately it`s all about portability. Why it`s so hard to port such masterpiece games to new hardware? And I`m sure Sony doesn`t plan to sell more PS3 units…
Heh co-oppers I guess? Noobs to guide through levels and watch have amusing deaths as I desperately gesture for them to be careful.
I think Demon’s Souls won’t happen easily because the publishing rights are distributed among not two but three different publishers. What could happen is a Japan only remaster makes it out, and everyone else buys it from the Japanese store.
I have a feeling about Dark Souls One tho… I think it’s happening. And it would be glorious as well.
Fex, what is “a fresh influx of coopers…”? Are those people? Graphical upgrades? Workers who make barrels?
But the millions who didn’t have a PS3 but now have a PS4 should get to play the original masterpiece. I believe Demon’s is absent from Playstation Now, which makes me suspicious. And the recent Famitsu poll where it was voted best game ever on PS3. I believe it’s secretly being developed but on a Last Guardian timetable.
Demon’s Souls is my number one wished-for remaster. I periodically tweet Shuhei Yoshida to beg for it. DS1 would be great to play on my PS4. I so favor my PS4 and now Pro that I can hardly bear to start up my PS3 and only do so to finish off some backlog. I would abandon those purchases for a PS4 version. Price is irrelevant. I don’t want an old PS2, or even a new one.
Btw, isn’t an emulator a pirating device and therefore illegal? Why would I do that? I’d sooner buy a PS2, which I will not.
Emergence makes some excellent points, but if there was a Demon’s Souls or Dark Souls remaster that brought the game to PS4, with modern graphics and a fresh influx of coopers… I’d be all over it in a hearbeat.
I understand that it creates stagnation, and in some cases it seems strange (Scholar of the first Sin was so close to the original). But… if Demon’s Souls… yeah I think E would probably be standing in line in front of me to buy
To be fair stuff like the new Ratchet and Clank is NOT a remaster. It’s a reboot. The collection of the first three RaC games that came out on PS3 was a remaster.
The new Final Fantasy 7 would also be a reboot. I think it’s important to distinguish between these two.
Remaster=Cleaned up, made HD/increased resolution. No changes to gameplay elements.
Reboot=An entire remake of an old title.
Please do not conflate the two for clarity’s sake.
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In my case, such a game is Lord of the Realms 2. A strategy game about Middle Age warfare, with the same turn-based map strategy and real-time combat as the future Total Wars series. With just the right amount of complexity.
As for the re-run of some game series like Lara Croft, or “re-engineering” some old games… It`s not my cup of tea, and it`s a waste of time, effort, and creativity. Or lack of it…
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I completely agree with you about the preservation of art. Which is why I don’t have a problem with say buying Medieval from the PS store digitally and playing it on the PS4. The game is in its original state but has been brought along into the new format. I just strongly feel that the game should be preserved as is for posterity and history. Some of these games are still a blast to play, which shows how timeless some mechanics can be regardless of how pretty it looks.
For me I really only buy remasters of games I haven’t played. Seeing as I own a PS4 now after years of having an Xbox and a 360, my first buys were remasters of The Last of Us, God of War 3 and the Nathan Drake Collection. The only remasters of games I already had were freebies – Oddworld New’n’Tasty from Playstation Plus (which was awesome btw) and Skyrim Special edition for already owning the original and DLC on Steam.
Depends on the title for me, Skyrim, Dragon’s Dogma: DA, and the upcoming player made KOTOR all appear to be quality made products. But I avoid some that only seem to slap a coat of paint on old games, and do little to nothing to truly update them. In this regard, some might say that Skyrim looks to be this way, but the inner working of the game received a tuning as well, and runs much smoother, esp with mods.
Some games deserve a remaster. The classic games. For instance, I`ve bought the remastered versions 0f BG1&2 and IWD. Sometimes I still like to play these; and for young players it`s a good opportunity to play them. And since it`s Beamdog who made the remastering, it doesn`t divert the resources of say Bioware. Skyrim was probably an one off, being an iconic game for Bethesda, and they wanted a graphic update.
If you consider some games a form of art (and iconic RPG`s qualify easily) then preserving the best games for the next generation is a worthwhile task. It`s like the classics in art, music and literature. I won`t stop listening Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, King Crimson, so I need their music available in new formats. Like “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis, holding the record of the most remastered jazz album. The same for literature. Having e-book versions of novels from H.G. Wells, J.R. Tolkien or Frank Herbert is normal. These are part of our classical culture now, and so are some classic games.
This doesnt` mean I consider everything should be remastered. Far from it. The distinction between a classical work of art and something not as good emerges only with the passing of time. Most games are not in the masterpiece category. Also, there is not much point to remaster the original Civilization game when there is the new Civilization VI to play.
As for the remastering: it`s important in my opinion to preserve the original game elements as much as possible (environment, art, combat & movement, dialogue). Otherwise it`s a different game. Just like “remastering” Shakespeare`s tragedy “Othello” by allowing him to use a surveillance camera network in order to spy on Desdemona. Updating a classical game in order to make it playable by contemporary equipment sounds good; remastering every game is a very bad idea.
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Or you could, you know, buy a PS2 (which plays all PS1 games.) They’re like 40 bucks, and most PS2 games run under 20 bucks. Or throw the disk in a decent PC and emulate the PS1 and PS2. You can also play PS1 and PS2 games on early PS3 models.
I like them and want more. Many PS4 gamers did not have a PS1 or PS2 so the only way is the remastered way. I think I just read that the PS4 has sold 53 million units so far. That makes it potentially profitable to remaster. Skyrim was only 2011, last-gen, so maybe that remaster was questionable but I bought it anyway, on sale. I would like PS2 games remastered, with updated graphics and trophy support.
It’s an option, and I appreciate more rather than less gaming options. Does it lead to stagnation of creativity in game development? I don’t know, maybe a little bit. But I would still like to play PS4 versions of the oldest Harry Potter games, with trophies. So I vote for more remasters.
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