Since Super Mario Bros 2 was announced for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the late 1980s, gamers have been salivating over the prospect of a sequel to their favorite video game. That’s why the past thirty years have birthed countless gaming franchises with some including dozens of sequels. Mario has over 200 games to his name alone. And other franchises like Call of Duty and Madden Football have built their success on yearly releases. So there’s no overstatement in saying that sequels have become the backbone of the video game industry.
But that’s about to change.
Recent advances in technology have signaled that the end of the traditional video game sequel may be nigh. Between advances in streaming, the ubiquity of DLC, and the advent of play-to-earn (P2E) video games, sequels will likely become less and less common. This isn’t to say that game companies won’t continue to leverage their current IPs. It’s simply that games will look more like ecosystems that organically grow and evolve.
Let’s look at some of the reasons why.
Video Game Streaming Technology
Over the past several years, internet access and speeds have increased to the point where many consumers can enjoy their favorite video games without needing expensive hardware. Video game streaming technology makes it possible for games to run completely on a server. This allows gamers to play on virtually anything with an internet connection, from a smartphone to a smart TV.
Obviously, this doesn’t bode well for the console industry. That’s likely one of the reasons that Microsoft has spent so much time promoting its Xbox Game Pass, a Netflix-like subscription service that offers hundreds of games for a monthly fee. Many of these games can be played via streaming. And Microsoft isn’t the only company exploring these possibilities. Both Sony and Nintendo have experimented with video game streaming technology.
So, how will this impact the future of video game sequels? As games more toward a more subscription-based, streaming model, the need for disparate, individual releases will lessen. Instead, new stories and content will simply be added to the current game, like seasons in a television show. And that brings us to the second major technological shift heralding the end of sequels.
Ubiquitous Downloadable Content
Downloadable content has been around for years. But today, it’s everywhere. Nearly every video game on the market features DLC, whether it take the form of new skins, new levels, or entire new campaigns and storylines. In fact, some DLC is so large and far-reaching that it is — for all intents and purposes — a sequel.
This is why traditional sequels are destined to come to an end. As video game streaming technology and DLC updates become the norm, video games will look less like movies and more like television shows. Rather than releasing three or four sequels to a game, companies will treat a single game as a single organically growing entity.
We’ve already seen this approach taken with MMOs like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. But soon, it won’t just be MMOs that have these kinds of full-game expansions. All games will take this approach.
The Rise of P2E Gaming
Finally, it’s worth recognizing the place of P2E gaming in all of this. P2E gaming gives players the ability to earn real world rewards as well as buy, sell, and trade in-game assets. As with video game streaming and DLC, P2E gaming will put pressure on game companies to view each game world as a self-contained ecosystem offering multiple experiences rather than a single adventure. This is where the idea of the metaverse and traditional video gaming collide. And as more and more games are developed as whole worlds, the need for traditional sequels will fade slowly away.
About Starter:
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About Starchi:
Starchi is a Starter-incubated DeFi game built on the Polygon network. The theme of the game centers on the adoption of unique creatures, known as Starchi, from infancy and nurturing them into adulthood. The game has a built-in play-to-earn economy that offers players wages and rewards based on their completion of certain tasks. The game will function on a dual token economy, $START and $ELIXIR. The $START token is used to gain access to the game and trade Starchi while $ELIXIR is used to gain access to different in-game and economic rewards.
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