[TheGamingBritShow] Remakes are Cringe and There's Nothing We Can Do (2024)

Sir Lucan said:

The problem with this argument is that your premise is entirely based on an assumption. They are not replacing anything with the remakes, they are simply selling a new game and it just so happens it is a remake of a gaming that's currently not available.

At no point in that process are they thinking "Now that we're giving them the remake they'll stop asking for the original". The original is not a part of the conversation, you are making this to be about something it's not.

Companies that like to port their old stuff (like Square Enix) will treat them as different things. FFVIIR did not prevent them from making the FFVII remaster, in fact they announced them pretty close together.

They are different products and if you still want the original that's entirely valid, but this remake won't have any influence on whether you get it or not. If anything, if this revitalizes the franchise there's more of a chance of them doing it, since there'll be money to be made.

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There's no problem with my views in that way, I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. I'm talking on an artistic level, of games as art, the integrity of art.

In that regard, it is very much an issue to me that the originals are unavailable. It is also an issue that remakes are often positioned as replacements for the original, both in terms of the original being unavailable as well as some widespread attitudes about remakes that some people have, a passive accepted attitude that's not the healthiest for how we view old games and which doesn't quite do justice to them as art - in that way we could take a page out of how much better and more respectfully old movies are treated, for example.

From my point of view here, you're making it to be about something that it's not, something that I wasn't talking about, and I think you misunderstand the fundamentals of where I'm coming from here and why what you say doesn't matter one bit to that. My conversation is entirely about the way remakes are effectively positioned, the attitudes held around them, and what I think the issues are that lie in it all and how I feel it would be better served if we changed the attitudes around them. And really, I'm not assuming anything in that regard, now am I? My feelings are essentially rooted in the truth of the situation, and how I feel about that situation. Effectively, from an angle of games as art, integrity of art, preservation and availability of art, a remake effectively works as a replacement for the original if it's all that's available, and especially when many people view a remake as if a strictly better replacement for the original it also creates a lot of issue from the lens of games as art.

And indeed, when looking at it through that lens, of art and the integrity of art, it is a problem that the original is unavailable and all that's available is a remake. You put it as 'Well the original isn't in the conversation, they just decided to make and sell a remake.' and while I get what you mean by that, why should I care? How does that affect how I feel? The original is still unavailable and that is a problem that, from an angle of games as art, I cannot abide - and that amidst that unavailability a remake is put out and effectively becomes treated as a replacement for the original or as a strictly better version of the unavailable-original makes it all the more worth of critical discussion from that lens.

The difference in attitudes between movies and games, again, especially serves as a stark difference - a remake is often cause for celebrating the original with movies, the original often even gets a remaster or re-release, meanwhile original games languish and are sort of passively/casually treated by many as an obsolete earlier revision rather than its own experience with its own merits and so on and so forth. It isn't always this way, and indeed wonderful exceptions like FF7 exist, but from the perspective of games as art I believe that should be the norm where it is presently more like an exception.

I'll clarify again as well that for all of this, it need not be some deliberate plan or decision, whether it's an active decision or indeed as it often is merely neglect, the effect is essentially the same - corporate intent doesn't make a lick of difference to the effective end result on games as art. In all such cases I view it as still something to be remedied by availability of the original and by engaging with remakes not as replacements or substitutes but treating them as entirely different coexistent games that do not take the place of one another.