The Evolution of the Franchise.

Everyone has to of played a “franchise” game. The majority of games released in modern day are what I consider to be continuations of franchise games. Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Halo, Zelda and GTA are just a few off the top of my head. Games like Call of Duty tend to centralise around different events in their set of games. Others like The Legend of Zelda follow timelines and evolve around a set of characters that appear in each game.

I often hear games referred too as trilogy's, sequels and so on. So what justifies a set of games being a franchise?

“A form of business organization in which a firm which already has a successful product or service (the franchisor) enters into a continuing contractual relationship with other businesses (franchisees) operating under the franchisor's trade name and usually with the franchisor's guidance, in exchange for a fee.”

Quoted from investorwords.com.

Now, you may think games are totally unrelated to the above quote but the fact stands that the companies that make these games still produce other games not within those franchises. Sega haven't only made Sonic games (even though Sega are not what they used to be). Ubisoft haven't only created the Assassin's Creed series, they have multiple titles that belong to a series – Rayman being one example.

But does the repetition of releasing franchise games ruin the gaming industry? There are definitely positives that come from a series of games. Even when an older game is brought back to life, the sense of familiarity with the game already is a huge selling point. Tomb Raider being a perfect example of how a franchise can evolve.

The above image is the evolution of Lara Croft, the main protagonist throughout the Tomb Raider series (franchise). It's a game that's been released on multiple consoles and on the PC. For myself, I do enjoy Tomb Raider.

The newer game being far more advanced and a completely different style of game play to the first and majority. It's definitely an open world action adventure game, even though you do have a set storyline there are multiple things you can do besides that. The fact they re-released the game only a year a so later in HD – The Definitive Edition made the graphics even better, and very similar to real life.

Tomb Raider The Definitive Edition

With the older Tomb Raider games, the majority were platform. Lara Croft could unlock other guns as you progressed, mainly stronger Uzi's and the Shotgun, throughout the game but there was never any customisation to her character, you couldn't improve any skills unlike the Lara we know today.

Yet each game had it's own storyline, artefacts and other extras (health packs, flares, ammo) for Lara to find in each level much like the 2013 and HD remakes too. The pointy angles of the graphics are quite amusing and look very bland in todays gaming age, but the games are still worth playing for the narrative and the action alone.

Tomb Raider I

Another gaming franchise that has been on multiple consoles and has been around for decades is Grand Theft Auto, or commonly known as GTA. The first GTA was released in 1997 and on PC (DOS) then PlaystationOne. Your main protagonist was viewed from a birds eye view, same as the cars and the buildings.

GTA 1's birds-eye view.

You had a wide variety of weapons as well as your basic body armour. The police would still chase you for killing people and generally disturbing the peace but in my opinion were quite hard to shake off, especially with a five star wanted level. The missions were usually quite humorous but always involved you driving around the different islands, performing various jobs for the big men such as Bubba, what a name!

There were more Grand Theft Auto's where the player viewed the game in birds eye view. Grand Theft Auto 2, GTA London being the other two. However, in comparison to GTA 5... Well, the game has come a very long way to say the least. GTA 5 has to be one of my all time favourite games, and I've loved a fair few Grand Theft Auto games.

And also. In 2014 we were treated to a HD remake (see the pattern here), The graphics were vastly improved, anyone that says otherwise hasn't played the Xbox 360/PS3 versions. The storyline in GTA centralises around 3 main protagonists. Michael, Trevor and Franklin. A big change from the other games where you mainly played as one character. GTA online has also been released and is a big success currently.

Trevor left, Michael middle, Franklin right.

There are different ways to play GTA 5. You can just play the game simply for the storyline, progressing through each characters story and watching how they all link together. Then there are side quests, so to speak. Collecting space ship parts, submarine parts (underwater, its very tricky), hidden packages, stunt jumps and so on. Grand Theft Auto games usually have some sort of collectibles to gather!

Then there's one of my favourite aspects of the game, the stock market! Depending on how you play the game, you can become a millionaire pretty quickly. By investing in shares and attacking their rivals, it boosts you're share's amount – giving you more money to play around with.

Purchasing property is a big thing also in the game (especially if you like collecting Achievements/Trophies) but it's a very expensive market. Not forgetting GTA 3, Vice City or San Andreas either because they were all individually fantastic games, but 5 is definitely a successful instalment of the franchise.

However, due to the amount of franchises around, are they overshadowing games that are equally just as good in storyline and graphics, but not as well known? Shenmue, to me, comes under that category. Released at a time before the PS2 was released and due to very bad indirect marketing... Shenmue only had two instalments. Shenmue had the potential to be a brilliant trilogy, even more. It could even be a competing franchise title with todays games. The irony in that!

But back to my main point, franchises have existed for years. Mario, Tetris, Pokemon, Kirby, Pac-Man, Super Smash Bro's even Mario and Sonic at the olympic games etc. And there will always be franchises around but is there any need to focus the majority of interest there way? If you are a dedicated fan to a series, even a TV series, you are going to continue playing or watching it.

Pokemon Soul Silver Japanese DS Box

But is there a lack of creativity amongst these companies? Or is the franchise all about profit? Is the consumer the one being ripped off in the end? Assassins Creed Unity is a recently released game, also part of a franchise. They had a season pass which completely failed, resulting in Ubisoft giving away a free game from their titles as compensation, which was a very nice thing for them to do, however by doing this, you agree to not suing them regards to their failure in bringing their consumers what they advertised.

Call of Duty – Advanced Warfare's Havoc DLC seems to not have a hardcore setting. Sledgehammer have been quoted saying “there are hardcore playlists” but the fans are not satisfied. There are even complaints that on the 360 version, the zombie levels aren't working.

So is it all hype? Are we expecting too much from companies due to next gen gaming? We want the best graphics, the smoothest gameplay, and great multiplayer functionality and we expect the companies that have previously delivered to continue doing so.

  

But it's not all doom and gloom. There are the 

generic franchise games such as FIFA, Pro Evo, Need for Speed, NFL, WWE etc. that will always be renewed, especially the sport based ones due to the fact they are based on actual people and events. They can be fun, especially when there are multiple players.

Just like Mario Kart, Tekken, Mortal Kombat and other competitive games. Gaming is meant to be fun and creative, competing against other players can show yourself as well as others how good you are at a specific game.

Most games focus on Online multiplayer in todays gaming world. The majority announced for 2015 centralise on working as a team. Lets hope the rest of the world can cooperate as well as you think you can.

One thing that I do know though is that the gaming industry is potentially the biggest industry going. The children you see today playing games, whether its touch screen or controller are developing this extra use for the thumb that we do not have. The universal index finger is slowly becoming the thumb, studies have shown kids that participate in gaming tend to point with they're thumbs instead of finger. How bizarre is that?