Remasters are cop outs? Agree or disagree?

[marvelvscapcom2]

Hello everyone .    I was talking with a few other gamers recently about remasters.  Specifically the Bioshock collection and last of us remaster.   And 2 of us including me were talking about how developers use "remasters" as a clear diversion to avoid making a new piece or giving the fans what they actually want.  We were saying how it seems almost like a cop out and also a giant money scandal tricking people into buying the same game twice.  It's such a brilliant marketing tactic we all fall for.   Sure remasters are awesome and visually look better and maybe have an extra mission or two but not 60 USD worth of new content.  They should be discounted from the original .  But companies think just improving textures and res warrants it being a "new" game that they can double dip their cookie in profits on.


 Our reasoning is that everyone is clammering for a Bioshock 3 and have been for years.  But instead of putting their resources into giving us what we really want and wait for they just make a upgrade of the games we already played 6 years ago.  Spending minimal money with just improvments to the textures and resolution but still taking full game price.    Why is a remaster 60 dollars? it's a old game.  We already played it.

And than game publications have the nerve to give a recycled game a 10/10.  Like last of us remastered.   


I love HD remakes very much .  I love reliving especially classics in HD like the mega man collections.  But I also notice the companies double up their money from an old project.  It'd be like selling left overs for what you sold the main corse for.  It's a distraction and an obvious business ploy.    I don't know how to feel about it or if it's really like that.  I'm eager to hear everyone opinions on this


Remasters are an amazing idea and I wish they'd do it with more games but it seems Nintendo does it the best way imo. Especially for 8 bit and 16 bit classics like how Nintendo does them.  Nintendo does it perfectly.  They charge 5-10 dollars for the Virtual console remakes and they don't pretend like it's a new title or a "remaster" they just give you the original game upgraded for a cheap price.  that's how it should be.   



Where do you stand with remastered games?  Do you think they are getting overdone and are just easy money pots for lazy devs or do you think they are essential and amazing to have just the way they are? 

[xnblank]

Im fine with HD Remakes. I think they're okay as long as the gap between the official launch and the relaunch is wide enough. It brings games that are on outdated hardware to those who may have not played them before. No one is tricking anyone to buy anything. You're not forced to buy a HD remaster or remake. Nintendo doesn't remake anything from Virtual Console. It's just emulation. Though Nintendo was one of the first companies ever to do a remaster of games ( Super Mario All-Stars ) so they initially set the standard.

Also 3 games with all their DLC for $60 is fine imo. ( Referring to the Bioshock Collection )

[hawk767]

I mean, no matter how its spun these are businesses trying to make money, if they have existing tech and assets they can reuse or rework into a money making project, more power to them. It puts money into the industry and allows that money to go towards other projects and paying devs and publishers. Whether its a "ploy" seems pointless to think about, its not a distraction so they don't have to put something new out, that's ridiculous. 

[emporerdragon]

I'm generally fine with them. The biggest thing is the fact that I am not the target audience. There are people for whom the current generation of consoles is thier first generation. These games are for them, allowing them to play the games from the older generations without needing to find and acquire the hardware and software from them as well. It's even better when companies allow multiple ways to do so, Bioshock and Assassin's creed on the Xbox being great examples, as people can either play the remastered versions, or play the original versions via backwards compatibility.

What I don't like is when companies are incredibly lazy and/or money-grubbing about it. The best example I can think of are the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, as all they did was make a port. They didn't change the graphics, fix any bugs, or anything like that; they just plopped them out as-is with a price tag of $40 apiece, which was a ridiculous sum when you consider that both games's original versions were easily found for under $5.

[cirno]

An hd remake for a game from a long dead console entirely makes sense

An hd remake for a game from the directly previous console that's still in stores is just pathetic

[bikingjahuty]

Depends; if it is a significant remaster then I feel like in a way it almost becomes a new game worth experiencing. However, remasters of games that are less than a decade old and less then one gen old are sort of a mixed bag. I think it's cool and all they are porting them to new consoles and they generally look better, but often the differences in versions are so minor it really isn't worth it to pick it up again if you already own it.

[tripredacus]

I'd like to mention this fact that was left out so far in this thread.

Both Bioshock and Bioshock 2 remastered and Skyrim Legendary Edition, while they were sold as separate products at retail (and online) these new versions were made free to users who had already purchased/registered the original games. I use these three examples because I got the updated versions of these games for free on Steam because I had previously purchased the original versions. And Skyrim is a slightly different case because while I only bought Bioshock and Bioshock through Steam, I bought Skyrim in retail box.

So if the publishers have this feature built in, I think it is fine. They aren't making anyone re-buy something on the same platform. The opposite side of this argument is of course with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare remastered. In this case, this updated version was only available either sold separately, or in the more expensive release of Infinite Warfare. It was not available to anyone who had previously registered Modern Warfare on the platforms it was already available, notably PC. And it was obvious that not enough had changed in this update to warrant even the standalone purchase. You could say the same thing also for the Bioshock releases.

Skyrim seems to be the only one that has a "real" remaster, in that the game was updated to support 64-bit and is well worth the purchase for someone who had not played the original version. Outside of PC however, there does not seem to be any real reason to get the new Skyrim because you can't experience the differences the new version brings. Updated textures and bug fixes are not what makes this and those things could easily have been added to the original game using updates.

[matimo]

It's an obvious cash grab, but for some i think it's needed. like there are some ps2 games that have gotten the treatment lately and i couldnt be happier! Although when it comes to re-releasing ps3 or xbox360 games i just see it as a cash grab with little to no worth... they're just too new to be getting a remaster esp when i know it doesn't require much effort.

[thewelshman]

It's an obvious cash grab, but for some i think it's needed. like there are some ps2 games that have gotten the treatment lately and i couldnt be happier! Although when it comes to re-releasing ps3 or xbox360 games i just see it as a cash grab with little to no worth... they're just too new to be getting a remaster esp when i know it doesn't require much effort.

I agree. I absolutely love seeing the older PS1/PS2 games get rereleased on the current platforms. The only exception I could see for a PS3/XBOX 360 game is if it never got released on a certain country and finally gets a release on a new console. That's mainly due to my want for the PS3 version of Tales of Vesperia to be released in the West.

[rayne315]

I believe any remaster should be discounted from the original list price because overall the amount of work put into a re-master is significantly less than into something new. don't mistake that as me saying I hate remasters though. I love them. it allows me to play older titles in a newer format usually with updated control schemes (how many people like playing 1st gen 3d games only with an 8 directional controller?) and some bug fixes.

I do not on the other hand believe that as much money should be put into the remastering process as there is. im no game maker but shouldn't they be able to bring a game 1 console generation sooner with only 5 people or so?

but the cash grab argument is one of utter discust to me. these people created this game so people could play it and they could make money. so if the next console comes out and people still want to play that same game why not give it to them? it gives the developers a cash influx so that they can do amazing things like create whole new IP's with less financial risk to them.

your example of the Nintendo remaster is entirely different. the stuff they bring out isn't upgraded to 1080p it generally does not have a new controller scheme its more of a direct port of a 3-4 generation old game.

[burningdoom]

Yes, and no. I mean, it depends on the quality.

 If it's just a straight port, that is absolutely a cop-out. But if we're getting extra features, added content, online play added, etc. then it's worth it. And it's absolutely worth it when they completely rework it like the Resident Evil remake or Metroid: Zero Mission. In those cases, it makes them better.

But in those cases where it's just a port...why would I want to pay a brand-new price for a game I can likely get for $10 on eBay?

[badATchaos]

To me it kind of matters how the game is marketed. If they try to bill it as a Remaster but all it does is go from <720p up to 1080p or 4K? Screw that. Its even more pathetic if the game in question was running on PC, because PC games are generally expected to scale to a wide variety of resolutions and aspect ratios. Simply flicking a switch to make the game render at higher resolutions is trivial. -Granted, this new console is a more powerful one of course.

To me the minimum for a HD remaster/remake would be something like Wind Waker HD. Better/new lighting, higher resolution textures, new/alternate control scheme, a few new bits of content here and there, bug fixes.

[telly]

I usually don't mind remasters at all. It's good for people who may not have the original hardware or game.

But I'm not gonna lie, when they announced the Shadow of the Collossus remake I got a little miffed. Why the hell does this need a remaster? It got a perfectly good HD port on the PS3.

[triggerhappymonk]

I'll be honest. if there's a bunch of remasters that came out last generation, especially late last gen, then yes, it's a cop out. For example to me, PS2 games remastered for PS4 are fine, but lat PS3 to PS4 just seem cheap and should just be a port then a remaster

[tripredacus]

Its even more pathetic if the game in question was running on PC, because PC games are generally expected to scale to a wide variety of resolutions and aspect ratios.

This depends on the age of the game. There is definately a big issue between games designed for 4:3 and 16:9. In a lot of cases, the game engine (for 3D games) have no problem switching between these modes and some take very little modification to do so. However the big problem for a lot of games is the menu. Many games cannot render the menu on 16:9 at all. I remember this problem was originally found when widescreen monitors became the defacto standard at retail, even games released in 2006 could not be used on a widescreen monitor.

I think any 4:3 game that is redone to display on a 16:9 monitor is a good one. BUT not the cop-out of just making the game play with pillarbox frames!