general media Passing a franchise into other hands=dooming it

[Sly 236]

Hi guys. Upon thinking about my HEAVY disappointment in the S6 finale of MLP I thought it was due to open this interesting discussion.

 

As you know, despite I loved the S6 as whole I HATED its finale, for a simple reason: it completely ignored every development the Mane 6 went through the in the previous 141 and treated them like they were weak Peach-like damzelleses in distress when they defeated a lot of villains and occasionally even some giant monsters in past (and I've fallen into depression for several weeks because that but this is another story). However I have to say.... before the S6 started... I was afraid of this happening, because after the S5 all the people who worked on this show since the S1, left to work on the Movie (which is why I'm not worried for it at all, and why I've chosen it as my de-facto series finale) or simply went to work somewhere else, and I was awarded of it.... as a fan of animated shows and videogame for over 15 years, I've seen a lot of series I loved, KILLED after having been passed into other hands, and since now it's happened to MLP as well, I was afraid it would have made the same end... for a while, my fears faded, because I was loving the S6, and I thought that the new directors were taking their jobs seriously..... and then the finale happened, and all my fears came to reality (they actually started to came real with the Cart episode, the only other S6 episode I hated.... for the same reasons of the finale) and in the end it looks like MLP did the same end.

 

Of course MLP wasn't the first and won't be the last victim of this trend, here'so some series who got destroyed after they've fallen into other hands:

 

-Crash Bandicoot: after Naughty Dog passed it to other developers, it slowly went in decline, and ended up being horrible with those AWFUL Titans games;

-Spyro the Dragon: like above, just MUCH WORSE;

-Sly Cooper: the fourth game was developed by Sanzaru Games instead of Suckerrors Punch, and while the game still presents some good elements, the plot really fucked up several things from the previous games. The most devastating thing: Penelope's betrayal. All the chapters that involved her relationship between she and Bentley in the previous game have been completely ignored, and Penelope has been turned into a bad guy and she betrayed Bentley and the Cooper Gang despite they even saved her life three times in the previous game:

-Metroid: with Team Ninja taking the development of Other M, a lot of things who made the franchise popular have been screwed up: from Samus talking and getting an AWFUL characterization, to the dumb Power Up system, but the worst thing of all.... SAMUS CRYING LIKE A BABY WHEN RIDLEY APPEARS DESPITE SHE KILLED HIM A LOT OF TIMES IN PAST;

-Spongebob Squarepants: you saw this coming right? Do I really need to explain? After the Movie, this show has got new people writing and directing it becoming really disgusting.... (who doesn't remember... the infamous tone tail scene from House Fancy, or the disgusting the Sprinter? Just to make some of the "lighter" examples.... );

-The Original PPG series: after the S4 and the Movie, it got new writers and directors, and has been turned into a cheap clip show disgusting almost as much the Modern SpongeBob.

 

But you want to know who was the worst victim of this trend? Even thought in this case we talk about a FULL developer house and not just one franchise.... RARE WARE. The legendary developer responsible of some of the most popular games of the 80s and 90s like Battletoads, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country, Banjo Kazooies, Perfect Dark and Conker'so Bad Fur Day. It was one of the best developer ever when it was working for Nintendo... and then after Microsoft bought it... it slowly went to decline until it was completely destroyed.... and ended up doing the most depressing job ever: WORKING ON KINECT GAMES... (of course after they left, it's former members founded an independent studio called Playtonic Games and are working on Yooka Laylee, my second most wanted game of 2017 after Zelda, but this is another story) I don't think I need to add more.

 

Ah whatever, let's cut this short. All my examples speak clearly, and sums perfectly the point of my topic: when a franchise falls into other ends.... ALL IS LOST FOR IT. That is all. What do you think? You agree or you know some franchises who survived after passing into other hands? To you the word...

Edited December 4, 2016 by Sly

[Twilight Dirac 721]

This depends on who takes over which franchise and why.

 

Electronic Arts is probably the worst offender.  They took out Microprose, Origin, Westwood and Maxis among other studios and ran each of them into the ground.  The loss of Microprose and Origin were particularly painful.  Microprose was probably my favorite software developer of all time, responsible for the original Sid Meier's Civilization, the original X-Com, the Master of Orion series and the best game of all time Master of Magic.  Origin was the maker of my favorite RPG series, the Ultima series, which instantly turned to crap as soon as EA touched it resulting in the awful sequels Ultima 8 and Ultima 9.  EA recently disbanded Maxis after the latest SimCity was botched, with the always online requirement that was likely EA's idea being part of the reason for SimCity's failure.

 

On the other hand, there are a couple of organizations that have proven to be good stewards of the property they acquired.  Firaxis is now the owner of the Sid Meier's Civilization IP and they have done a exemplary job with the last two installments, and they have revived the X-Com series rather successfully.  Wizards of the Coast obtained the rights to Dungeons and Dragons after TSR went belly up and I actually think their reboot of the pen-and-paper RPG series was the best thing that ever happened to it.

 

Then you got the middle ground of J.J. Abrams.  This guy has taken a crack first at Star Trek and now Star Wars.  These beloved series had been driven into the ground by their former owners, with the last two Star Trek films Insurrection and Nemesis being on the whole pretty terrible and the Star Wars prequels being infamously bad.  His reboots on the whole have been thoroughly mediocre (although I have yet to see Star Trek Beyond with I hear is pretty good) but they are still better than the likes of Nemesis and Revenge of the Sith and have breathed new life into two sci-fi series that otherwise would be dead, so on the whole it seems a net plus.

 

So on the whole passing off a series seems to be a crapshoot.  The only take away seems to be that EA sucks and should stop absorbing successful independent gaming studios.

Edited December 4, 2016 by Twilight Dirac

[Megas 27,659]

Not necessarily true, it just depends on the talent at hand.

 

Zelda is a great example of both ends of the spectrum, every one always cites the Phillips CD-i games as a reason why the series should never leave Nintendo's hands, and I don't think I need to remind everyone how awful those games are. On the other hand, Capcom was able to make some of the best games in the series under their hands

 

And with Call of Duty, people used to always shit on other devs that weren't Infinity Ward when it came to making Call of Duty games. Nowadays, Sledgehammer and Treyarch have proven that they are just as capable as Infinity Ward(if not more) at making a great Call of Duty, especially with the first two Black Ops games and Advanced Warfare being often considered some of the best games

[EmployeeAMillion 70]

What people don't realise is that there's also the fear of a franchise getting more stale and repetitive if it doesn't get a new kick of life into it. Of course there's The Simpsons, which has had Al Jean as the showrunner for 15 years straight now (compared to the previous showrunners who would usually serve 2-4 years), but then you have a video game franchise like Mario. Let it be known that I love Mario and that it's my favourite Nintendo franchise, but I can get the criticisms over it getting more and more old-fashioned and boring over the past decade or so, especially with the RPGs which have taken a decline in regards to story content.

IMO, they should keep on making games like Super Mario Galaxy, as that seemed to be the height of the series' wackiness and story content (without turning into Final Fantasy, which I just find to be weeaboo fuel that you play on a console), and the New/3D games taking an intentionally retro throwback vibe in regards to it's mechanics and design ticked off a lot of people. I still consider them good games, but it's clear that the older Nintendo's fans get, the more they crave something serious from Italian plumber jumping on turtles and riding dinosaurs to save princesses and mushrooms from bigger turtles (and occasionally a monkey wearing a tie).

[Castle Bleck 19,364]

Whoever took the reins after the original Teen Titans and made Go!.

Most-noteworthy example yet, IMO.

Edited July 14, 2021 by Anti-Villain

[EpicEnergy 23,218]

Star Wars was passed into Disney's hands and it's still successful, so that isn't necessarily true and varies depending on your perspective.

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,406]

Yeah, the company that made Rise of Skywalker doomed it when the Death Star II somehow survived  

[Tom Gallagher 33,588]

I think that's happening with G5 right now. 

[schizo 85]

Unfortunately, in most cases franchises do go down the drain when they're passed onto someone else,

though I wouldn't say its due to the fact they were passed on in general or that passing something on will absolutely in every case ruin it.

If the creator/whoever is passing the franchise onto someone else knows who they're passing it onto personally, knows they can keep it running successfully etc it could save or at least help a series progress.

If not which is in most cases it ends up going on a horrific downwards spiral and dooming the whole thing.

It's a double edged sword 

[Megas 27,659]

On 2016-12-03 at 4:30 PM, Sly said:

-Crash Bandicoot: after Naughty Dog passed it to other developers, it slowly went in decline, and ended up being horrible with those AWFUL Titans games;

-Spyro the Dragon: like above, just MUCH WORSE;

I mean Vicarious Visions/Toys For Bob handled both franchises recently and definitely showed the franchises could be in good hands as both Remasters, CTR Nitro Fueled and Crash 4 were met with tons of praise and sold extremely well

They were rewarded for their efforts by being dissolved into a support studio for Blizzard and being sent to the Call of Duty gulags respectively

On 2016-12-03 at 4:30 PM, Sly said:

-Metroid: with Team Ninja taking the development of Other M, a lot of things who made the franchise popular have been screwed up: from Samus talking and getting an AWFUL characterization, to the dumb Power Up system, but the worst thing of all.... SAMUS CRYING LIKE A BABY WHEN RIDLEY APPEARS DESPITE SHE KILLED HIM A LOT OF TIMES IN PAST;

Everything that went wrong with Other M wasn't because of Team Ninja, which people always either forget or ignore entirely. Everything that went was because of the franchise director Yoshio Sakimoto, who's been the director since Super Metroid, so it's not like he's inexperienced. He's even admitted to as much

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Whatever response I made still stands, it's better to wait and see what happens, bug as long as whoever new they get working on the franchise gets what it's about it should be fine