Sequels come out too quickly these days!

I haven't even finished Mass Effect, and the third game in the series is coming soon. I'm only at the halfway point for Final Fantasy XIII with its sequel just around the corner. I'm stuck at the second Scarecrow fight in Batman Arkham Asylum. Why are these sequels flying at me at the speed of fast!?? Can a bro have a few years in between games to enjoy things a little (or to actually finish them! I'm looking at you, Skyrim!)?

It's just killing me that between schoolwork and working all summer, I haven't had the time to finish these games, and their super special awesome sequels are almost here. Where did the time go? What makes it even worse is I can't even talk to other players about the games without hearing some spoiler, you know?

Did someone mention Skyward Sword is out next weekend?? Oh great and powerful Kratos, why me!! Which reminds me, aren't there like, four God Of War games out now?

wat...

Just saying, I'm slow at my games, and it takes me some time to finish, but it feels like developers want to spit out a sequel these days every holiday season.

It doesn't help that I just bought my PS 2 last year...

Nobody else has this problem?

Mass Effect 2 came out 3 years after the first, 3 will come out 2 years after the second. FFXIII-2 is 2 years after FFXIII. Arkham City also came out 2 years after Arkham Asylum.

Your argument doesn't any hold water.

edited 11th Nov '11 8:24:36 PM by Spirit

5 GOW games actually.

Not counting the cellphone one.

Maybe you should just be interested in less games.

This.

Perhaps, If you bought Mass Effect when it came out, you would have finished it by now. And if you did buy it when it was released, then you have no one to blame but yourself for failing to finish it sometime in the past 5 years(the same can be said, to a lesser extent, about Mass Effect 2 and Final Fantasy XIII)...

edited 11th Nov '11 8:44:13 PM by Swish

Five years minimum between sequels is best. That's how they did it back in the 90s, and it was good.

And yes, I am in to way too many games! The ones coming out today are just so so good, you know?

A five year minimum between games probably isn't feasible from the developer's standpoint. Call of Duty keeps getting more popular because people are reminded that the series exists every year. And even then, there's only like a 4-6 month gap between the last map pack released for a previous Co D game and a brand new one.

Hey, listen, the next installment of the Half Life series won't come out until sometime after 2012.

And people say modern games are worse than the old ones. Hah! Our standards have gone up.

But yeah, good point about release schedules. Gaming making's gotten to be a lot like movie making, with large multi-million dollar projects and a real emphasis on getting something out quick. This doesn't have to be bad, but there's a reason that DLC is getting popular: shorter development time. Working with sequels also cuts down the need to court new customers aggressively and you can build off of the engine.

Really though, Arkham City proves this isn't a bad trend...

Gabe is fat, now is coming in 2013

This...is surprising. What with so many games becoming shorter.

I guess I'm just more experienced at video games than OP is.

^True, it's not like the sequel will come out before you've finished the first game.

I think its less "games coming out too quickly" and more "you picking up games too late"

This.

Well everyone plays games at their own pace. Not everyone has the opportunity or the ability to slack off on other duties in order to get in more game time.

Shit, the only reason I'm not playing Skyrim is because what little free time I already have will be eaten up by Skyward Sword and MGS Collection. That's why I recommended that you just pick and choose which games you want to be interested in.

That, or just take a week off from work during summer/winter break and NEET it up to wrap up your backlog.

Seconded. If you picked the games up earlier, you would have them finished before the sequels came out.

Yes, but the problem isn't that sequels come out too fast. I too am pretty late on getting games (only got PS 3 this year) but I didn't have any problem with the fact that the games I bought were getting sequels later this year.

edited 11th Nov '11 9:30:49 PM by Saiga

Yeah, but look at all the games the OP is juggling. Mass Effect, Final Fantasy XIII, and Arkham Asylum aren't exactly short games to begin with. But it seems like he doesn't even have the time to play them for long stretches of time.

Arkham Aslyum and Mass Effect are pretty short...

I'm sorry... But even if one plays at a pace where they only play 4 hours of a game a week, they can still finish a game like Mass Effect or Final Fantasy in under 9 months(16 hours a month for 9 months is 144 hours of gameplay...) unless they utterly fail at playing video games, or they don't want to beat the game...

Edit: My point, being, that fact means there are few reasons for a game like Mass Effect to be still unfinished at this point(5 years later)...

edited 11th Nov '11 9:48:28 PM by Swish

Length is subjective. Especially Arkham Asylum, where how long the game is depends entirely on whether or not you feel like going after all the extra crap they shoved in that game.

That's entirely dependent on if the person even wants to spend four hours of every week to play games and not do other things.

^^^ Arkahm Asylum maybe, Mass Effect is 30-40 hours average. 15-20 without side missions.

^ If you can't manage 4 hours a week, well, good on ya. But that hardly means 1 new game every year or two is too fast.

edited 11th Nov '11 9:53:09 PM by Spirit

I agree 100%.

But if one cannot (or doesn't wish to) spend at least that amount of time to play a game, then one has no adequate reason to complain about sequels coming out "too soon" after their prior game... Because one hasn't been bothering to play the prior game to begin with...

edited 11th Nov '11 10:00:28 PM by Swish

I think I can agree on that.