We all complain about gaming mimicry, but should we games take more responsibility in the support we give developers we bitch about on forums?

Sequel syndrome. Attack of the Clones. Whatever you want to call it, are copycat games the developers' fault for making them, or gamers' fault for buying them?

Lamsh: A tricky question, as usual :)

I personally don't have a big problem with the idea of sequels. I don't mind playing games that are a lot like games I already know I like, Golden Sun 2 and Soul Calibur 2 are good examples. The problem is that the games that get tons of sequels are the games that sell good, which are not always the games that play good. The blame has to go to both the gamers and the publishers here. The gamers are to blame because they follow trends rather than quality, the publishers for mostly caring about money and using advertising to sell uninspired games.

I don't blame anybody though. As long as there are publishers that put out games that are fun to play, either because they are refreshing and original or just because they're very good, you won't hear me complaining about bad sequels. If you don't like a game, don't play it!

Ash: A bit of both really. It's an age old discussion with movies, are all sequels bad? Obviously not always some sequels are better and the same is with games.

Developers that aren't that 'big', for lack of a better word, who have one OK game and then decided to make fifty sequels out of it, making it medicore at best are to blame for the amount of bad games are coming out. Then, as stated, you could blame the gamers. They buy the game, some people are so sure that a sequel is going to be great they will buy it blindly. I think it's more the developers faults though, for being money hungry and publishing the same old game with not much difference. The Fifa series springs to mind...

Ben (Haver): Game developers aren't stupid. That's for sure. They know we will buy countless sequels if consumers like the games. Hence cash-ins, such as Tomb Raider and the PC-based Tribes series. In a sense, it is the consumer's fault for buying the actual titles, but as we covered in a previous roundtable, the injection of mainstream ignorance caused by the appearance of the PlayStation, means that "casual" gamers will happily play endless uninspired sequels. But, I bring you back to the point that publishers are not stupid. If they know a game will sell, they will sell it. It is a case of clever marketing.

I'm not saying all sequels are bad, far from it, I am merely pointing out that mindless sequels can be produced, and they can sell well, because of the mainstream ignorance displayed by many "casual" gamers across the world.

Blackbird: First of all, man should think about the difference between look-a-likes and sequels. If a game is popular (as Quake, Doom and Zelda are), it's very likely that a developer considers a sequel (or maybe even 5 of them).

On the other side of the spectrum, there's the look-a-likes. It doesn't really matter whether you place Donald Duck, a talking tomato or a three headed bird in a platformgame, but it's about the new features the game brings. So developers, for God's sake: create an original game, not an original character.

Conor: It's a toughie indeed.

At the end of the day publishers are here to make money. If they didn't make money then they would cease to be. So you can hardly blame them when they take a successful game, and then milk it for all it's worth. And milk it some more. And then a little bit more, just for the craic. Sometimes there isn't a problem; when the original is great and the sequels genuinely improve on it and introduce new ideas then it's welcomed. But the FIFA's (just to give an example...man EA get picked on a lot) and similar series really get on my nerves. And the sad thing is, mainstream gamers lap it up, meaning we all have to suffer.

But still, it wouldn't hurt for developers to make some effort to come up with new ideas, and try to be a little oringal ever now and then. I mean, it wouldn't burt their sales that much, now would it? Would it!? Alas, to quote This Is Spinal Tap; "Money talks, and creative integrity walks". As a whole, we gamers can dictate what we want from developers. But this power has been left to the mainstream crowd, so the sequel situation isn't all that surprising.