I have to admit that it’s frustrating to see legacy stories and games being...

I have to admit that it’s frustrating to see legacy stories and games being remade/reworked/rebooted in order to either continue a series or to continue to make money from it.

For example: recently an Ubisoft employee tweeted a tease about a new Prince of Persia game, then had his account deleted. Deleting the account aside, a new Prince of Persia game? Why, why not, etc? According to Kotaku, the most recent PoP game came out in 2010, four years ago. To some, that might not seem like that long ago. But in the age of constant updates and new media, four years is an eternity…which is a shame. We are so starved for updates and new DLC/games/sequels/prequels that four years passing between entries is decades.

Once upon a time, there wasn’t master plans in gaming and movies. Today companies talk about sequels before games even release; look at Titanfall and Watch Dogs as examples. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will be chased by TASM 3, Venom, Sinister Six, and then TASM 4. They have this written out. They have it plotted it. Same with Marvel. Same with Disney and the Star Wars movies. Franchises are born now, not created — it used to be that studios would take a gamble on a property, then roll with it, and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

Storytellers: take risks. Try something new. And don’t keep it going just because you can. God know how many Sookie Stackhouse books there are. Harry Potter ended exactly where it needed to, and even though the expanded universe is still being worked on, the main story ended. Which is fantastic.

Every story has an end, but not every publisher wants to see it end.