Sacred Heart Cathedral's student-run newspaper. We've got issues.

The Emerald

Sacred Heart Cathedral's student-run newspaper. We've got issues.

The Emerald

Sacred Heart Cathedral's student-run newspaper. We've got issues.

The Emerald

Re: Joseph Stableford’s “Let’s Rant about Reboots!”

Previously on the “Joe Show”, Joe Stableford had ranted about how the many reboots of video games could slowly lead to an “endless wheel of constant reboots”, which would then prohibit the production of new games. As much as I genuinely enjoyed his rant, I feel obligated to voice my disagreement (so I guess you can call this piece a rant in response to a rant. A re-rant?).

I too am an avid fan of video games. I grew up with the Gamecube playing Super Mario Bros every single day with my lovely siblings, and spent my time wisely attempting to capture all Generation III Pokemon on the Gameboy Advance. I eventually bought a Nintendo DS, which I then broke by playing Cooking Mama. I sold my DS and then established myself as an Xbox 360 owner. I also own the PS3, PSP, and Wii, although I’m slightly biased in favor of the Xbox 360 because of Halo and Gears of War.

Mr. Stableford has already established for you what his definition of a “reboot” is, and at this point I started to disagree. Stableford claims that these rebooted games are created solely because the game companies ran out of ideas to create new, original games.

Stableford’s words: “These games are meant to be a message from their respective companies: ‘Hey, remember these games?! We can still make games like that! We aren’t terrible game designers yet’ ”

Let me counter-argue with an example of one of my favorite gaming companies, Square Enix. In 2008, Square Enix had released in Japan a rebooted version of the beloved game Final Fantasy IV for the DS. Now think, why are reboots made in the first place? It’s because the gaming companies know that these reboots will sell. Why will they sell? Because they know that fans want them. Why do fans want them? Because they are classics. They are good games. Most of the time, reboots are not created because gaming industries ran out of ideas. Square Enix didn’t reboot FFIV or FFIII because they suddenly lost all their creativity to create another game. Just next year they released Final Fantasy XIII, the newest game of the Final Fantasy series. Highly popular, beautiful, though not necessarily brilliant, the game was undoubtedly innovative. It introduced a whole new battle system (the paradigm shift), that worked unbelievably well. Reboots are wanted if it’s a good game. Heck, I’m still praying for Square Enix to make a reboot of Final Fantasy VII. Not just for my sake, but for the sake of newer generations who will never own the first PlayStation (the only console that can play FFVII), so that they may experience the euphoria of defeating a particular “one-winged angel”.

In contrast to what Stableford has said, reboots are not “everywhere”. Let me show you what I mean.

Top Ten Games of 2008:
1.   Grand Theft Auto IV
2.   Braid
3.   LittleBigPlanet
4.   Rock Band 2
5.   Gears of War 2
6.   Dead Space
7.   StarWars: The Force Unleashed
8.   Hunted Forever
9.   Fieldrunners
10. Spore

Top Ten Games of 2009:
1.   Modern Warfare 2
2.   Batman Arkham Asylum
3.   DJ Hero
4.   Borderlands
5.   New Super Mario Bros. Wii
6.   Geo-Defense Swarm
7.   Scribblenauts
8.   Halo 3: ODST
9.   Assassin’s Creed 2
10. Uncharted 2

Notice the one rebooted game on the 2009 list, the classic Super Mario Bros. Notice the other nine new games that were all released in that year. This clearly shows that the amount of original games weighs more than the “scary amount of reboots” in the gaming industry. Yes, in the future these games might be rebooted. But by then, new games equivalent to the originality of the ones mentioned above will be released. In short, the ratio of the amount of reboots to the amount of new games produced is and will always be tiny in comparison. There are more original games than reboots. And this is the reason why reboots aren’t a problem at all. Recycled games do not make up the gaming industry. Therefore it will not cause video games to deteriorate into “an endless wheel of constant reboots.” As the newer generation plays the rebooted classics of our generation, we will move forward and play the new original games of the future. We leave the newer generation with our classics as well as current games.

Stableford also poses this question: “The old games (reboots) are being offered to the new generation, but what will we have to offer the next generation?”

Mortal Kombat, God of War, Super Mario Bros, Pokemon, etc, are reboots. But they are highly popular because the original games were classics and by rebooting them, we preserve these classics for the next generation. The next generation will offer and suffice for itself. There has never, nor will there ever be, a shortage in the amount of original / new game material, as you can see from the 2008 and 2009 list above.

And anyways, if in a parallel dimension reboots did make up a majority of the gaming industry, I for one would be content with most of the rebooted classics, plus there are a lot of classics out there that I had no time to play yet. And you can never get sick of the classics.

I thank Stableford for his opinion. It’s good to know that there are other gamers out there.

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