Stop Talking About Trilogies

There's a trend that's been bothering me lately.

This is the trend of the early trilogy announcement. It's not that it's an early announcement. I'd describe it more as a pre-emptive, even presumptuous marketing technique that is fast becoming a tiresome bullet point of any press release or developer interview.

Publishers and developers are equally guilty of this annoying habit. It is getting a bit out of hand. Yes, it's understandable that in the franchise-driven games industry that sequels to reasonably successful games are a given. This year alone has seen the birth of many notable new IP. Injections of new blood is always an exciting prospect, sometimes more so than reinventing a reliable but dusty franchise. The game creators are likely even more excited, eager to promote their new property and generate the necessary buzz to be noticed in a crowded, competitive market.

I have no issue with the trilogy as a concept. My main beef with the trilogy is that the term itself is being overused to the point where it is losing much of its intended meaning. I also sense that the term being exploited to provide a smokescreen for imperfections or broken promises, and this sort of abuse is taking place for old and new IP alike. First, I'd like to cast a disparaging glance onto new intellectual property.

A number of new intellectual property creators have touted their new games as being the first of a planned trilogy of titles. This could be stated very plainly, as was the case with Too Human, or hinted at slyly such as it was with Mirror's Edge and Dead Space. Okay, the first sin of announcing a trilogy too early is hubris. A brand new IP is in no position to even imagine a trilogy until some sales figures have returned some two, three, or four months down the road. These games need to prove themselves first. With the games industry so fickle and sequel-driven, upstarts that have just blown onto the scene with much hype and glitz are especially vulnerable to being blown right back to whence they came.

The tepid sales for both Too Human and Mirror's Edge are testament to this grim reality. Why count your eggs before they've hatched? Focus on putting out the best game that you can, make the fans happy and maybe you'll get your chance at expanding your universe for sequels, spin-offs and merchandising. Even if your game isn't a critical darling or a champ at retail, you might still have garnered a large enough following to warrant that comeback sequel.

Harping on trilogies makes my hairs bristle because it also provides an advance firewall against criticisms of any new IP. Whether it's stories that trail off with unsatisfying conclusions or eagerly awaited features that get cut before ship date, just the mere utterance of "trilogy" implies rewards, withheld and reserved for the future, even if the present product leaves so much to be desired. Too Human drew gamers' ire when they downsized their co-op offerings from 4 players to 2 in addition to telling a mess of a story that possessed neither a beginning or an end, leaving much of the narrative heavy-lifting to be done in later installments. In that sense, it's a real boon for publisher and developers to turn "trilogy" into such a meaningless buzzword. Far from meaningless, it serves as a rather versatile marketing tool. How many times have we heard unrepentant drivel like this:

"Well, we've always envisioned this game to be the first in a grand trilogy. Even if we left out features X, Y and Z, we're committed to developing this world and growing our franchise. This is just a small taste of the great things still to come!"

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To be fair, it's not just the developers of new IP who are jumping the gun with their trilogy hype. Established franchises are getting in on the action and they're not just content to stoke the fires of their loyal fan base. In the case of Blizzard and Starcraft 2, they seem hell bent on incinerating wholesale the hard-earned goodwill they've accumulated over the years.

Back in October, they made the unfortunate announcement that they would be releasing the Starcraft 2 as a trilogy. Instead of a single boxed product containing the traditional full single-player campaign and mutliplayer modes, the single player campaigns would be released in a piecemeal fashion -- three in total, one for each race -- with full multiplayer support beginning with the first installment. Clearly, there were no sane minds present in the Activision/Blizzard boardroom to point out how preposterous this all sounds. Leave it to a billion-dollar company to redefine the very meaning of what a trilogy is.

Is a bloated, episodic sequel -- a sequel that is also a trilogy unto itself -- really what the Starcraft series needs right now? Now I don't doubt for a second Blizzard's ability to deliver a first-rate product of any magnitude. I only question the company's wisdom of sullying all the positive hype for one of their most beloved properties with a bizarre and unappealing marketing scheme. As one might expect, the fallout from this announcement has been rather lukewarm, with even staunch Blizzard supporters adopting a conservative "wait and see" stance on the matter. Meanwhile everyone else is grumbling, with accusations of "franchise milking" flying fast and furious over message boards and blogs. And I don't blame them their grievances one bit.

Blizzard has really put a gigantic foot inside their collective mouths. Instead of building positive hype for their hotly anticipated sequel, they've carelessly mired themselves in PR back peddling and a battle of semantics. Blizzard has earned itself the luxury to take however long they need to release not only Starcraft 2, but anything at all. Very few game companies have that luxury. It beggars comprehension to think that Starcraft 2 is such an epic undertaking that, even for Blizzard's generous development timetable, the game will have to be released in measured, protracted spurts if the game is to come out in a timely manner at all.

It's this unhealthy obsession with trilogies that is increasingly getting game companies into trouble. Maybe there was a time when a trilogy was cause for excitement and anticipation. Now, in this sober climate of company closures and layoffs, I'm not so sure gamers are so easily titillated. Now, in an era when there's still heated contention (and confusion) on what constitutes a sequel, a standalone, an expansion, a DLC, a micro-transaction and an episodic content, the last thing any company wants to do is to use the word "trilogy" lightly.

Let's simmer down on trilogies for a while, shall we? Let's continue putting out good games, pushing out the new IP and let's wait for the fans, your consumers, to vote with their wallets before you go hastily announcing two sequels, plush animal toys and five movie tie-ins. Oh wait, we're not talking trilogies in this situation any more.

No, my dear: that's synergy.