I'm curious regarding the standard of a game that some people seem to expect. Some people seem to say "But it's a Final Fantasy game, it should be better than this" for certain games in the series, for example. Yet, at the same time, some of those people also say "If it wasn't a Final Fantasy game then I'd probably actually think it was pretty good." This makes me wonder if all games should be treated equal, and if they are treated equal. Also, how that affects payment for games. If you set the standard higher, does that mean you are more willing to spend more money on that game? Think of a game you were content with. Not amazed, but contented. Would you pay a higher price than you did if it was then going to have it's standards increased to become more generally regarded as amazing?

Personally, the best similarity I can think of for me is the Pokémon series. I don't buy the games these days because I feel they don't justify the price tag with enough 'new' stuff to warrant the price of a full game. More often than not the amount of work that goes into a Pokémon game... well, it generally seems like "Get the previous generation, throw in a new thing or two, add a new generation of Pokémon. Oh, and if they want to actually catch them all instead of trading, then definitely make them buy the game twice just for good measure." I can't stand this line of thinking. If I'm paying full price, I expect to be provided with a completely freshly created experience (a la Final Fantasy), or a generally amazing amount of razzle dazzle on display (a la Uncharted). Pokémon is generally a series based on "more of the same". We tend to get more 'new things' every few months in the bigger patches for FFXIV than we get in a full game of Pokémon, and this really annoys me. I've bought Pokémon games but never full price. Just eBay stuff for old generations. Especially when individual people make up new Pokémon for mods for free on a regular basis that are just as good as the official stuff.

Then you look at the VII Remake. When they said they're making it episodic because the cost of a single game won't cover the cost of making all the content they want to make, I was pretty happy. I would much prefer paying more than the price of a single game if it means that I'm going to get that much more effort put into the game. I'm just happy that kind of effort will be going into it.

So, what about you? What's your general viewpoint on this kinda stuff? Any good examples?