Nintendo has IP lawyers. They have to, at their scale, because they will constantly be bombarded by patent trolls, licensing companies etc. trying to extract profit out of Nintendo. So, like any other large business, they hire IP lawyers to protect themselves.
Most patent disagreements are resolved by cross-licensing. That’s where one business says, in response to a law suit, “oh, but you’re actually using 6 of our patents, so maybe we can come to an agreement”. A patent is both a shield and a sword. Even against trolls they can be useful, as they can be used to argue against troll arguments, if it gets to court, or pull in other business to the defense, if helpful.
IP lawyers know this. So they extract every patent they can out of everything a company does, as a way to build up the IP bank.
So, I highly doubt “Nintendo wants to prevent others” bla bla. It’s just IP lawyers doing their job.
I’ve sat in MANY discovery sessions with IP lawyers where they push and prod at software I, or my team, have written. “So, what you’ve effectively done is written a unique data structure to connect elements in memory?!”, “no, it’s a linked list, next question please”.
I dont understand this argument. When a game is considered very good, particularly by people that are already invested in a series, those people want remakes and remasters to more or less be exactly the same game, with only technical improvements such as graphics and framerate. The game is beloved and changing it more often negatively effects the experience. This way new players and old players can have discussion about the game and their experience is more or less the same. Changing the game means new players will have a totally different experience from old players, and ruins discussion between the two.
Why can they not make their new version a separate mode, like New Game Plus?
A remaster is what you describe - technical improvements such as graphics and framerate.
Remakes are (supposed to be) additive - improving the story, changing un-fun mechanics, implementing new stuff that still fits the themes of the game (or that they originally wanted to include, but couldn’t due to budget or time or publishing constraints).
If you’re looking through nostalgia lens, yea, a remaster is all you need. But, when it’s not a studio just looking for a cash grab, devs can have plenty of reasons for wanting a second crack at their game.
FF7 Remake is a great example. Sure, there’s been a lot of controversy around the changes. But I’ve really enjoyed a lot of them because it’s different from the original. It didn’t ruin the discussion - it added to the conversation.
A remaster is generally a re-release of an already existing game. It is a new build of the same game, on the same engine, with the same assets. The only difference being compatibility with new hardware, etc. In my opinion, a lazy cash grab that realistically shouldn’t even exist. Often times these new builds aren’t even the same and have many bugs not originally present in the original game that the remaster developers never even fix.
A remake should always try to stay as close as possible to the original for its initial presentation. The intention of a remake is to become the current market replacement of an old product, for various reasons. Maybe it doesn’t run on new hardware or the original code was deleted/lost. Maybe the original game was poorly received and the developers want to try again with some QoL adjustments. Maybe the graphics haven’t aged well but the story is timeless. This is why a studio would opt for a remake instead of a lazy remaster.
The issue comes from something like Silent Hill 2 Remake. It did not include a “Classic Mode.” The remake alters some pretty important themes in the game, changes multiple story elements, and entirely changes the focus of the gameplay, putting a greater emphasis on action and combat than the original ever did. The remake shifted the tone away from a melancholic exploration of a character into a Hollywood action movie with an over-reliance on jump scares (basically every Bloober game, honestly).
This has problems when fans attempt to talk about the game. Which version is each talking about? People do not always specify. If one person talks about the Coin Puzzles in the apartments for example, the clues, hints, and solutions are completely different between versions. Players of the original game needed to get a crate of rotten juice cans and drop it down a trash chute in order to receieve a coin for that puzzle, but that entire sequence was removed in the remake. This is only a minor example that doesnt impact the story, but the problem of discussion disconnect is apparent. You can imagine how confusing it would get when there are other major changes that do impact the story later on in the game.
These differences are fine if the developers add them as an “Arrange Mode” or “Remake Mode,” but not as the only way to experience the game. That effectively says “our new version is the only good version, because we won’t allow the players to directly compare the two with the same engine and graphics. If you want the old version, you can’t, because we definitely aren’t selling the original and pirating the original that we refuse to sell you is copyright infringement.”
A remake should always try to stay as close as possible to the original for its initial presentation. The intention of a remake is to become the current market replacement of an old product, for various reasons.
Reading your comment, it seems like you’re locked onto the idea that all remasters are lazy, low quality cash grabs and that remakes should actually just be high quality remasters.
Remasters don't change the content of the game. Remakes do. And there's a spectrum of quality for both.Life is Strange had a bad remaster. They updated the graphics, but there’s original aesthetic looked better than the uncanny “upgrade”. Skyrim - Special Edition had a better visual upgrade and fixed bugs.
Twin Snakes was a bad remake of Metal Gear Solid. They added unnecessary cutscenes and tried to bork in mechanics from MGS2 just because it was newer. RE4 was a good one.
It sounds like you wanted a high quality remaster of Silent Hill 2, and instead they gave you a remake and never released a digital version of the original. So now everyone’s playing the remake and calling it Silent Hill 2, instead of properly differentiating it as Silent Hill 2 Remake/Silent Hill 2 (2025).
And I agree that the situation is ass for navigating online conversations.
But a remake should not “stay as close as possible to the original”. That’s what remasters are for.
Isn’t this discussion already murky by the fact that persona games re-release with upgraded versions even without ramakes? As far as I know, they are actually remaking the Golden version, which is already notably different from the original (many touches rather than a full on overhaul)
It’s weird to me that game devs don’t experiment with alternative organizational structures more often, kind of like Motion Twin; or how they’re only just beginning to unionize in some places. The “capital” in game development is a little bit computer hardware, but otherwise the vast majority of value in a game design studio is the human beings and their talent and skills.
I cannot think of any other industry where the workers are more essential, and management more superfluous and replaceable.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with what they’re saying. I just feel like it only sounds like deep wisdom because the industry is so fucking broken.”
How many times do the developers of Baldur’s Gate 3 need to explain the basics of how to make a popular game and we all treat it like deep wisdom?
I mean, I grew up basically raised by PBS and even saturday morning cartoons and thought that it would be basic, fundamental knowledge in the world today that reason and knowledge are power, that con-men will tell you what you want to hear, and not to believe people who say they’re “the best” and instead look at empirical evidence of all claims.
I thought “wow the future is going to be amazing, we have all these programs that are telling us kids how to live, how to navigate a complex world, we will have a future of starships and science and wonders!”
Now I’m here every day talking to the team I manage when they share obviously AI-generated “news articles” about scientists discovering mermaid cities and trying to get permission to spread their essential oil pyramid scheme through the company.
As a species, we are far, far stupider than we want to admit. As individuals, sure we each have great potential, but when you get more than one person in any kind of situation, the intelligence levels drop to the lowest common-denominator, and the more people, the lower that level drops.
Gonna have to do it forever until businesses figure out that half of what makes a game good is that it needs to be a literal passion/art project, and not just a checklist of shit that needs to get done.
Capitalism doesn’t really see building a well treated highly compensated team of exceptional high skill workers as consistently generating more money for them.
For this to work you need a few people at the helm who actually give a shit about long term results. Capital wants bigger numbers with each earnings report which doesn’t always happen with gaming.
I for one have no comprehension as to how blizzard has maintained it’s following, but it’s a great example for how even the best companies can turn to shit by shareholder/board member directions. The money got too big with WoW.
But Larian themselves released a buggy mess even with early access for 3 years? Why did they rush it out?
Fuck EA and AAA in general, but like practice what you preach Swen. You aren't the small studio you think you are anymore, you have nearly 500 employees.
I mean, all due respect, to the guy, but this doesn't go down until 2027. At least give them a minute to get in the position where they could feasibly fuck up before you berate them for it.
If you look at the Internet they are apparently definitely dismantling the company to sell the pieces but also definitely continuing to make what they make but with MAGA politics but also as a muslim theocracy and trimming down and speeding up but also doubling down on live service at the same time somehow.
And man, one or multiple of those may happen, but almost certainly not all of them and none have happened yet. Given how much of a public-ass public company chasing short term gains they've been historically I can't help but think there's a fair amount of projection going on.
Here's my stance: I have no idea what this means and I have no idea what they're going to do. This is all weird and I have zero frame of reference for how the new owners are going to gel with that organization or what their new objectives are going to be when compared to the old "make more money this quarter than last quarter" thing.
Yeah, but have you considered the fact that this gives Saudi Arabia &/or Jared Kushner “anti-cheat” level access to millions & millions of PCs in the USA?
That is reason enough to never buy another EA game.
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