I would say publishers only give money for what they expect to sell well.
The thing with remakes is, that your chance to target completely new audiences is relatively low compared to a whole new game or franchise.

Over at the worldofrisen site the team members of piranha bytes answer peoples questions on the forums. When asked whether they were going to make a gothic 1 remake they stated that this is not likely to happen. The reasons mainly being that they have another project to work on and that such a remake was not likely to be commercially viable.

Think about it. Whom are you going to reach with such a game? First and foremost the die-hard fans of the original, and maybe some players who for some reason didn't play the original, but would enjoy this kind of game anyways.

The ones who didn't like it back when it first came out are not going to buy it now either. And even some fans of the original might think that it's not worth the full price of a new game, since it is not essentially going to add anything new. Games are not exactly cheap after all.

So the bottomline is IMO, that remakes do not promise enough commercial succes to get the funding needed to produce them.
I might as well be wrong and maybe someone knows of a successful remke, that was done by a professional team with funding from a publishers (as opposed to a hobbyist project.)
I doubt that it happened, but in case it did, I would be interested in knowing about it :)

Quote:Original post by buckED
I would say publishers only give money for what they expect to sell well.
The thing with remakes is, that your chance to target completely new audiences is relatively low compared to a whole new game or franchise.

Over at the worldofrisen site the team members of piranha bytes answer peoples questions on the forums. When asked whether they were going to make a gothic 1 remake they stated that this is not likely to happen. The reasons mainly being that they have another project to work on and that such a remake was not likely to be commercially viable.

Think about it. Whom are you going to reach with such a game? First and foremost the die-hard fans of the original, and maybe some players who for some reason didn't play the original, but would enjoy this kind of game anyways.

The ones who didn't like it back when it first came out are not going to buy it now either. And even some fans of the original might think that it's not worth the full price of a new game, since it is not essentially going to add anything new. Games are not exactly cheap after all.

So the bottomline is IMO, that remakes do not promise enough commercial succes to get the funding needed to produce them.
I might as well be wrong and maybe someone knows of a successful remke, that was done by a professional team with funding from a publishers (as opposed to a hobbyist project.)
I doubt that it happened, but in case it did, I would be interested in knowing about it :)

Couple of things. I'm not suggesting that the team doing the sequel work on a remake.
Read this thread to understand what I'm getting at. From your reply I think you may have not read this whole thread. It's not that long is it? (^:

Commercial remakes were mentioned in this thread, they've been done.

Oh, by the way, apparently I was wrong. Team Ico is developing a new game, though very little information has been released about it. Ico 3: The Queen is a hoax, and that's most of what google returns, but many reliable gaming databases (IGN and Gametrailers each have mention) have announced that, at the Tokyo Gameshow, Team Ico announced their new game.

Just being made by them made it one of the most anticipated games previewed at TGS, and the most anticipated according to Gametrailers.

Quote:Original post by PokerFlat

Quote:Original post by buckED
I would say publishers only give money for what they expect to sell well.
The thing with remakes is, that your chance to target completely new audiences is relatively low compared to a whole new game or franchise.

Over at the worldofrisen site the team members of piranha bytes answer peoples questions on the forums. When asked whether they were going to make a gothic 1 remake they stated that this is not likely to happen. The reasons mainly being that they have another project to work on and that such a remake was not likely to be commercially viable.

Think about it. Whom are you going to reach with such a game? First and foremost the die-hard fans of the original, and maybe some players who for some reason didn't play the original, but would enjoy this kind of game anyways.

The ones who didn't like it back when it first came out are not going to buy it now either. And even some fans of the original might think that it's not worth the full price of a new game, since it is not essentially going to add anything new. Games are not exactly cheap after all.

So the bottomline is IMO, that remakes do not promise enough commercial succes to get the funding needed to produce them.
I might as well be wrong and maybe someone knows of a successful remke, that was done by a professional team with funding from a publishers (as opposed to a hobbyist project.)
I doubt that it happened, but in case it did, I would be interested in knowing about it :)

Couple of things. I'm not suggesting that the team doing the sequel work on a remake.
Read this thread to understand what I'm getting at. From your reply I think you may have not read this whole thread. It's not that long is it? (^:

Commercial remakes were mentioned in this thread, they've been done.

Actually I did read the thread. I must have overseen the part about commercial remakes however.
If I sounded in any way ignorant, I wish to apologise.

Maybe it's just me focusing too much on PC games, whereas you are specifically talking about PS2->PS3.
Maybe if it was considered worth it a publisher would even step in for that.
But I cannot imagine it happening for PC games, since the old versions will still work with the latest machine. So the only improvement would be on a technical level. Changing game mechanics or stroy elements would make it another game after all.

Tampering and remaking a game takes away it's percieved purity.
Sometimes it's just better to leave things as they are.