Summary
This week,Did You Know Gaming’s Liam Robertsonreportedthat back in 2015, Vicarious Visions was working on a pitch for a new 3DDonkey Konggame tentatively titled Donkey Kong Freedom.Nintendoreportedly liked the pitch, butActivisionstepped in to prevent it from going any further. Apparently, the corporation was against the idea because it didn’t want to lose VV as aCall of Dutysupport studio.
Goodbye, Vicarious Visions
Vicarious Visions, which has since been renamedBlizzard Albanyand reassigned to work on theDiablofranchise, has way too many stories like this in its history. If you check out itsWikipedia page, it even has a “Canceled Games” section with 13 games listed.
Most notably, Vicarious Visions madeTony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, the 2020 remake of the first two games in the seminal skate series. That gamesold one million copies in two weeks, making it the fastest-selling game in the series. Unsurprisingly, Vicarious Visions began working on a second remake that would have collected the next two games in the series, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4. The project was unceremoniously shut down when Activision Blizzard moved Vicarious Visions to the Diablo franchise.
Hello, Blizzard Albany
It’s a frustrating trend at Activision Blizzard, and it parallels Hollywood’s obsession with mega-budget blockbusters over everything else. Activision has a whole host of mid-level franchises in its back catalog, but only seems interested in a few big series that can be monetized to death. Call of Duty, Diablo,Overwatch, andWorld of Warcraftall can support long-term monetization, while a game like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 is designed to be played (and replayed), but doesn’t encourage further spending after the initial purchase.
Players like that, companies don’t. But just like the fixation on every movie having a budget of $200 million or more led to last year’s 15 flop pileup, there are consequences when every game is meant to be played forever. We’ve seen those consequences yet again this year, asSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League(Rocksteady’s first full-length game in nine years) released to critical pans and disinterested fans. A few months later, it’s crystal clear that spending that amount of time and money on a game designed to chase monetization trends was a major mistake. Suicide Squad repeated the mistakes of Crystal Dynamics withMarvel’s Avengers, BioWare withAnthem, and Arkane withRedfall.
you’re able to’t build a functioning industry entirely out of games designed to be played forever. People only need so many Destinys in their lives, and “so many” usually just means one. When a game requires daily check-ins, it can easily start to feel like a job. If you’re playing multiple games that require that kind of consistent attention, you won’t have room for anything else That’s whyayers tend to stick with the service games they know they like. They might try out something new for a while, but if it isn’t better than their old reliable, they’ll revert back. New live service games don’t just have to be good, they need to be better than the big players in the space.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 and Donkey Kong Freedom wouldn’t have needed to do that. Traditional single-player games are designed to be completed. For a healthy gaming ecosystem, we need both kinds of games. Thankfully, there are publishers besides Activision to fill the need.
