Who am I to point fingers? I’m part of the problem and I’ll admit that I buy/enjoy sequels (eg, I completed 100% of Burnout 3: Takedown last summer, and ran out to buy Burnout Revenge the day it came out, which I am now 89% through). That said, I also bought and thoroughly enjoyed Psychonauts and finished Jade Empire - both original games from 2005.

Anyway, thought it was interesting the extent to which Wedbush Morgan Securities is pointing to the proliferation of sequels as a major contributing factor in the current games sales slump…

Prompted by an IGDA Montreal chapter panel on the creative crisis facing the industry that I’ll be running next month, a local developer conducted some unscientific research into sequels. Pierre-Alexandre Garneau compared games to films under the premise that if we are blaming the maturation of the game industry as the harbinger of our woes, then looking at the much more mature film industry should give us some insights. What he found was that of the current games being promoted, 12% were original (ie, non sequel, non licensed), while 77% of films were original. Wow, 77%. Sure, it is very casual type research but it is still an interesting data point…

My guess is that our current troubles are much more due to our continued LACK of maturity (on many fronts) than a suggestion that “this is just what happens when an industry matures”…