We seem to be heading for a cycle where publishers are releasing ports of beloved games for a high retail price while doing the the bare minimum, or even no work on them.
Starting in 2021 we got the much rumoured and massively anticipated remasters of the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy, GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas. Fans had waited years for HD remasters of these games and in November 2021 that dream was shattered when Grand Theft Auto The Trilogy The Definitive Edition launched.
Calling these games buggy would be an understatement. Unplayable would be more accurate. All three games shipped with game breaking issues ranging from falling through the scenery, progression issues and crashes.
It did t take long for the community to discover these were the mobile ports of the PlayStation 2 games ported to the PS4 with almost not improvements made during development.
And what did Rockstar see fit to charge us for this mess of a game collection? £54.99.
What stung even more what just a month prior the Crysis Remastered Trilogy had launched to high praise from reviewers and gamers alike. Saber Interactive even managed to pull off Ray Tracing in Crysis 1 on the PS4 Pro showing how a remaster should be done and for £10 less than the GTA Trilogy.
Fast forward to August 2023 and Rockstar are up to the same old tricks.
Porting Red Dead Redemption to PlayStation 4. This is another title that fans have wanted for almost a decade and they put absolutely no effort in apart from a resolution bump to 4K and no 60fps mode and asking for £39.99 for a straight port of a 13 year old game.
Now we have Konami pulling the same tricks with Metal Gear Solid The Master Collection Volume 1.
For £49.99 you get the PS1 original running at PS1 resolutions and frame rates with absolutely zero upgrades. You also get Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3 running at 720p on a PlayStation 5 because again, absolutely zero work has been done to justify charging premium prices.
We are being taken for suckers when we’re asked to pay premium prices for sub-par products that the publishers know will still sell because of the title on the box.
It needs to stop but to make that happen we need to start voting with our wallets.
If you must play these games and don’t have the original hardware the games launched on then at least buy them pre-owned so the publishers don’t see this as a win.
Or zero effort, high priced ports will be all we get.
I worry that the rampent blind hate for straight ports is going to kill cultural preservation of old games. These rockstar ports are way too expensive for what they are, but people complain about straight ports regardless of price.
That’s just it. If this was £15-£20 I don’t think anyone would complain as it’s around £10-£15 for a used Red Dead Redemption Game of the Year Edition on PS3 which is essentially what this is.
Nobody minded the Cryisis Trilogy’s £39.99 price because actual effort was made. They even managed rudimentary ray tracing on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X.
It’s the fact they’ve done almost no work on RDR but they want us to pay almost new game prices. That’s what stings.
Straight ports are fine as long as they’re priced to reflect the effort that has gone into it.
My point is actually that people would complain, as they have done before. The price here in this situation is obviously too high, but people want everything to become new again and will complain if it’s just a straight port for any price.