4 ms·
This isnt exclusive to NG. This phenomena exists for seemingly every IP. I'll give video games as an example because it seems so clear cut and many people expe
by hospitalJail 3y ago
This isnt exclusive to NG.
This phenomena exists for seemingly every IP. I'll give video games as an example because it seems so clear cut and many people experienced this cycle already.
>A company starts out relatively small and is able to turn a profit or attract investment. They continue to be relatively unknown.
>The company releases their first breakout hit (Halo, Morrowind or Oblivion, Zelda OOT). The employees who worked on this have been at the company for about 5-10 years.
>The employees of the company are excited about how their hard work paid off, and are excited to expand on their previous success with their coworkers and teams. Their second hit is on par, or exceeds the previous release. (Halo 2, Oblivion or Skyrim depending on if you though Skyrim was a great game, Zelda Majoras Mask) The original employees mentioned now have worked at the company for 10-15 years.
>The downfall begins, between poaching, rivalries, promotions, opportunistic new hires, the teams are transformed.
>The next release has mixed reviews. The hype machine and the backscratching between reviewers and producers(Driver3 scandal as a proven example) leads to favorable reviews despite something being wrong with the game. Many users are less impressed, but those obsessed with the IP at this point are fine to ignore flaws.
>The following release is nothing like the breakout hit, but the IP fans continue to buy. At this point the company has been sold, teams have almost 0 original workers. These are different products, with the IP skinned over the top of them.
>The IP fans continue to buy each product. Some will be optimistic, some will be pessimistic, doesnt matter, they will continue to buy.
- chinchilla2020 3y agoUse DICE and the once-legendary Battlefield series as an example.
- stefan_ 3y agoThe story of Battlefield, only now the clueless newbies they hired to underpay & make it believed it must be a Battle Royale.
- moolcool 3y agoZelda's not the best example of this-- their mainline releases are fantastic as ever.
- ginko 3y agoNintendo was also already a corporate behemoth by the time OoT came out.
- hospitalJail 3y agoThat is the larger organization, there are microcosms inside each company.
- moolcool 3y agoBut OOT was a AAA title already, and there were already several wildly successful Zelda games before OOT too. There's so many reasons why Zelda is, if anything, a counterexample to this phenomenon.
- Kye 3y agoI wondered about that line too. As big a hit as OOT was, it just barely beats LTTP once all the re-releases are considered. The original NES game was comparable. Link's Awakening (1993) stopped just short of 10 million, beating them all. Then there's Breath of the Wild (2017) running laps around them at 30 million. The sequel just came out and it's already at 10 as of numbers released in the first week.
- hospitalJail 3y agoYou might be falling into the >The IP fans continue to buy each product. Some will be optimistic, some will be pessimistic, doesnt matter, they will continue to buy. Source: I'm one of those OOT/MM fans. But admittedly so, the 2D Zelda's were great. I imagine these were different teams that peaked at different times. Windwaker was most definitely a game 3 for me, with TP being a game 4, with all the signs of a game 4. Now we are getting average-mediocre open world games with Zelda IP skinned on them. Its hard to say BOTW is anything like Majoras mask who had somewhere between 7-10x more unique enemy types. This one and Blizzard(Starcraft/warcraft/diablo) hurts the most in retrospect.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoyep... you start with passionate founders who were the key to success, and then water them down with company growth