As the rumors swirl around the upcoming release of a GTA IV remaster, people online have reignited the debate surrounding the place of remasters in gaming. This generation of consoles has seen its fair share of remasters. From the surprise release of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion to the re-rerelease of titles like The Last of Us and Grand Theft Auto V, remasters are common in the annual release calendar for major publishers. GTA V continues to be one of the most popular games, and the remaster of Oblivion sold in the millions, yet gamers often complain about the lack of original titles in the marketplace. It seems that people’s actions—purchasing and playing remasters—do not match the common sentiment online that remasters are bad for gaming. I partake in this very contradiction, frequently returning to old remasters to replay games that I love while simultaneously complaining about them.

The Spectrum of Remaster Effort: From Oblivion to GTA

The amount of effort put into modern remasters tends to vary widely. Oblivion, for example, was graphically rebuilt from the ground up on an entirely new engine. To date, it is the best-looking game Bethesda has ever released. Despite the graphical overhaul, Bethesda smartly retained the original logic of the game, preserving the oddities and awkward interactions that gave the game its charm. The game still features the same NPCs that led to the integration of the term “NPC” in the modern lexicon.

On the other end of the effort spectrum is Grand Theft Auto. Don’t get me wrong, GTA V was above and beyond everything else at the time of its release. The original Xbox 360 version still holds up. But for the last two generations of consoles, GTA V has been rereleased with only incremental graphical and quality-of-life upgrades. The most recent edition of GTA V looks like how you remember the original looking (despite the upgrades); Oblivion looks like an entirely new game. The amount of effort put into remasters, as well as the level to which the game can be improved, varies greatly.

Remasters Solve a Problem – but Create Another

On the surface, remastered games make sense for the consumer. Remastering a game that’s fifteen years old gives people a practical way to replay something they love. I no longer own an Xbox 360, so it is not possible for me to play the original Gears of War or Oblivion. Remastered games allow me to play old titles without scalping an Xbox 360 on eBay or jumping through the hoops of an emulator. However, it always stings to repurchase something I bought in the past. It’s a shame that I’ve purchased Oblivion twice now; I’m being sold the same product just so I can continue to play something I paid for 20 years ago. Remastering ensures that the classics will live on for eternity. But it also can be viewed as a calculated tactic to increase revenue without providing anything new for the consumer.

Are Remasters Really That Different From Hollywood Remakes?

Remasters and remakes are not new to the entertainment industry. Hollywood has been remaking the same movies and rebooting the same franchises for decades. Remasters in the video game sphere are a newer phenomenon simply because video games are a much younger medium. Video game remasters were inevitable; it just took the advancement of technology and the development of an older generation of gamers to make remasters viable. But Hollywood remakes are distinct from remastered video games. Remakes require an entirely new film to be created. While each new Spiderman film tells the story of the same character in the same world fighting the same villains, each new entry of Spiderman features new stars, new directors, new takes. We may be watching essentially the same story as the previous 15 Spiderman movies, but each movie is in some way different from the last. Further, there is no technological barrier to watching the previous iterations of Spiderman. I don’t need to go out and buy a new TV just to watch Sam Raimi’s original Spiderman.

Unlike remakes in Hollywood, video game remasters are the exact same game as the original, only with some graphical and UI updates. There are no alterations to the formula, no major changes to the plot, and no fundamental differences in the core gameplay. And, as mentioned above, we are often forced to play the remaster because of the technological barrier to entry. That’s not to say that the gaming industry does not have its equivalent of a Hollywood remake. Games like Call of Duty and Madden release new versions of what is essentially the same game every year. These are debatably worse than outright remasters because we are told we are receiving something new when, really, we get the same game with updated team rosters or minor variations to the formula. But, like Hollywood, there is at least some variation every year. The game may only be 5% different than the previous iteration, but over time that 5% change begins to add up.

A Case for the “Living Game” Model

One game that stands out to me while writing this is Fortnite. While its revenue model is entirely different than a single-player game like Oblivion, it has persisted in its “original” version since the time of its release. The game has been gradually improving its graphics and UI since its release. It is a living game, constantly evolving and improving its engine thanks to all the V-Buck revenue. This “living” approach makes sense in the modern video game landscape. As more people buy digital versions of games and updates become increasingly common, it is viable to gradually improve a game rather than let it stagnate. Perhaps this is the future. Rather than release a full remaster, publishers can gradually improve their games through updates to keep it feeling modern. This would likely involve in-game purchases, but these are commonplace anyway. Games these days offer a healthy dose of microtransactions while still carrying a $70 purchase price. I think I’d be much more willing to accept these microtransactions if I knew my game would be playable for decades to come.

Profit Over Preservation

The video game industry is stuck between two eras. Most games are still released for an up-front fee that offers access to the entire game (at least in theory). Yet, the free-to-play model has shown that a game can evolve and improve over time. At the end of the day, it all comes down to profit. Keeping an old game alive is possible, but it’s much more profitable to rerelease the game every five years. It’s unfortunate, but so long as the industry is for-profit, this will be the reality.