What Happened To All The Creativity In The World?

Is it just me or does it seem like there is more and more recycled TV Shows and Movies these days?

I would say that Covid made the world a little more stupid, but I feel like this has been happening for a while now.

Where did all the creativity in the world go?

I have thought that for a long while Warrior13, there seems to be a lack of original ideas in recent years. The number of remakes Hollywood is churning out is ridiculous.

Classic movies I remember from thirty plus years ago seem to get remade all the time, none of them are as good as the original. In fact it annoys me, some of my favourite movies rumoured to be remade are Dirty Harry, The Warriors, and First Blood. I can tell you now all three will fail miserably, the reason being they only work in the 70s.

Books and comics are the same, nothing new, just the sane basic plots with different characters. Even video games with classics being remastered.

It may be because we are older now and seen more than someone who was born in the new millennium.

The increased cost of everything creative, really. Salaries are way up, budgets are way up, CGI costs are through the roof. Movie studios are afraid to make creative things, because instead of costing $5M to make it costs $50M. Same for game development, costs are higher and require 10x the staff of the old days and also take 4x as long to make.

To give a game series example, the God of war series released released 7 games in a 10 year span between 2005 and 2015. They've released 1 game since 2015, in 2018, with another due for release in 2022. That'll be 2 games in 7 years. That's going from 2015 - 2021 with one coming out, only one new revenue stream. So game studios need to ensure their games are broadly appealing which in turn makes them suffer creatively. They try and please everyone and appeal to the lowest common denominator, because their game took 3 years, 250 people, and hundreds of millions of dollars to make. They need to sell 6M copies at full price just to break even. Back in the day dev teams were much smaller and the games were less ambitious graphically. Nowadays players expect huge open worlds and hundreds of hours of content. That all takes time.

The exact same concept applies to movies and TV shows. This is why we're seeing two dozen formulaic marvel movies with the same exact dialogue and characters and story beats. Everyone is afraid to take risks because one flop can bankrupt them instead of just being a minor bump in the road. They can just look at what was successful in the past and copy it. It brings in a built-in audience of fans of the old version. That's not even getting into the recent trend of "old thing, but we made the main character black/gay/a woman" that has literally never been good. Remember that gender swapped Ghostbusters movie?

It really sucks. There is still good stuff being made but you gotta dig deep for it. All the mainstream stuff that gets advertised is going to be safe and boring.

« Last edited by steelersrock01 on Dec 1st 2021 »

Dennis: They better not remake Warriors. It's a cult classic that should not be touched.

Mike: I would rather have respect for a person or team going big with something original and producing a dud than the world being fed more and more recycled crap. It's even at a point were so many people would rather have the same-old same-old s*** after having nothing but such that it causes anything creative to be cancelled. It's horrible.

Yeah I'm with ya but I understand why they are so risk averse. If you're working on a game for 3 years with 100 employees making 50k each (and that's probably the low end of what they'd actually make), that's 15M just in salary. Plus benefits and equipment can easily double it to 30M. Then you've got the advertising budget, office rent, utilities, all that. Pretty soon you've spent $60M to get your game out, and you need to sell 1M copies at full $60 price just to generate $60M in revenue. That isn't even counting taxes, which are significant, and the cut that retailers and digital storefronts take (around 30%). The average big budget game needs to sell probably 3M copies just to break even, which means making a game 3 million people want to play. And now they've figured out the formula (open world, multiplayer with battle pass, cosmetics, etc) so everyone is doing that now. Movies need even more eyes on screen because the average movie ticket is like $11-15. Movies have figured it out too. Big action scenes, quirky characters, "witty" one-liners that let the audience feel like they're smart for getting it. That kind of movie is such a large slice of the pie now that more creative stuff is getting pushed to the side. There is still some good stuff if you go into the award nominations but now you have an issue where people make "Oscar bait" which is almost just as bad.

I really don't like it. You really have to dig into smaller stuff that guys are making in really small teams and in their bedrooms to find the good stuff. Once a team goes corporate it's pretty much over, whether that be games or movies or TV. Especially nowadays where every company wants to make sure they are on the right side of the "culture war" because they are afraid of being canceled so they make creative sacrifices to satisfy very vocal parts of fandoms.

« Last edited by steelersrock01 on Dec 1st 2021 »

Warrior13, I'm with you with The Warriors, one of my favourite movies of all time, it blew me away as a 14 year old kid watching that in 1983 for the first time. The movie was made in 1979 I believe and funny enough stars Dexter's Dad as Ajax. It would be impossible to do that movie now, the gang would just get out their mobiles and call a couple of Uber cabs back to Coney Island.

The other two movies I mentioned, First Bood and Dirty Harry (also a couple of my favorites) could be done but wouldn't have the same impact. All I know about those movies so far is Dwight Johnson has been approached to play Harry Callahan and Sylvester Stallone has been approached to play Colonel Trautman. Those two things alone tell me both movies will be disasters if it happens.

« Last edited by Sanzano on Dec 2nd 2021 »

Dennis: I saw Dexter before Warriors, and by doing so, the Legend of the actor only grew for me. ;)

Mike: You seem to know far more about it than me. lol I would have never thought video games would cost tens upon tens of millions to make.

I didn't know video games cost millions to make either, I see now why developers go bankrupt every other week, the market is saturated with games. From what I see it is the free apps that are making the money. The $70 console games are struggling unless they are an established series and exceptional. That wasn't the case about 15 years ago before smart phones. I also see tons of games that never make it to the shelves, I know why now. They ran out of money.

I don't know if this is normal, my 13 year old son has a PlayStation 4 Pro and about twenty different games, a lot of them were expensive. But the ONLY game he plays is Fortnite. I am forever being hounded for VBucks to purchase skins, which he has over 120. Why is he so hooked on that game, the kids in his class and his cousins are exactly the same. I thought it would be a week wonder, but they are all still playing the game three years later. I just don't get it...

steelersrock01 is bang on with what he says about films using the same plot because they are scared if they try something different, the film will flop. This is exactly what happened when Disney purchased the rights for Star Wars for a colossal amount of money. The first movie Disney made was the same exact story as Star Wars IV: A New Hope. Talking about Star War, I'm looking forward to seeing the series The Book of Fett.

Yeah a lot of games have gone to that free to play with a battle pass and skins monetization scheme. I don't really care about cosmetics in games but a lot of people, especially kids, do. If he's got a group of friends that play and they all get the new $10 skin he's gonna feel left out if he doesn't get it. That kind of thing makes for longer-term revenue too. Instead of buying the game for $60 once and that's it, he's playing the game for free and then probably spending upwards of $100 every single year on skins. And now you've spent $300 for a single game.

Even worse are the games that cost $60 and then have these same skin mechanics.

« Last edited by steelersrock01 on Dec 2nd 2021 »

I feel screwed just by having to fork out $60 for a video game these days. I can't imagine spending money like that. lol

Same here. I hardly ever buy games at full price anymore. Most of my friends don't really play games these days so I don't get caught up in the hype anymore. It's a lot easier to wait a few months and get a deal nowadays compared to when I was a teenager and needed to buy games on release day to keep in with the group.

The only games I seem to buy now are Pokemon, and I always do so on the release date. Its the only thing I have left when it comes to video games it seems. I used to play all the Maddens, but they are more for Xbox and Playstation these days. When the Gamecube was still around, I played Madden or Street or NCAAF whenever I was not doing schoolwork or chores. lol

I've always been a Playstation kid at heart. I actually managed to get a PS5 on release day last year for normal retail price and they are still impossible to get to this day. There are no games for it so I'm still playing ps4 games though. I've got a Switch but it is really just a Nintendo machine for me. Every third party game runs so much better on the PS5 or PC.

Nintendo fans really do get screwed when it comes to the sports games.

I have always been a Nintedo guy myself. I blame the Nintendo 64, still remember waking up WAY EARLY on the weekends to play when I was young. Yoshi Story, Mario 64, Stadium, Snap - those were the good ol days.

« Last edited by Warrior13 on Dec 3rd 2021 »

We never had a N64. My brother and I shared a ps1, then we got a PS2, then I got my own Gamecube cause my brother had no interest in it, then PS2s were dirt cheap so I bought myself one of the slims to have my own. Then years later we got a ps3 to share for Christmas and the year after that I begged for a wii, lol. Since then I've been old enough to buy my own crap so there's no more sharing involved lol.

My brother and I never played many games together besides sports, but for several years I had a cousin that lived next door that's my age and he would come over every day to play games. Melee, Brawl, Mario Kart, Pokemon main games and Colosseum/XD, Animal Crossing, Mario Sunshine. We played some PS2 games too like Kingdom Hearts but Nintendo was always #1 for us for all the co-op. On my own it's always been Sony for single player stuff. It's been almost 15 years since then and I hardly see the guy anymore but I still have really vivid memories of gaming. It's been so long but Smash Bros Melee and Brawl are probably still my most played games ever. My original Gamecube controllers still work perfectly, too. I actually bought the adapter to use them with some Switch games. Feels really good to have controllers from 2002 or 2003 still in perfect shape.

I wish these companies would go back to using Nintendium to make stuff. The Joycons are junk, my Switch Pro Controller analog stick is drifting and I've barely used it, and my PS5 controller is starting to give me issues and I've barely had it a year. And I treat my stuff like gold.

« Last edited by steelersrock01 on Dec 3rd 2021 »

I had four siblings, three were within two or three years from me. Weekends in the mid to late 90s were the bomb. I remember playing for hours with those three.

When Gamecube came, my younger brother was old enough to play. All of us played together still, Pacman Fever was the tops. My dad had no idea how to play, but he would always play Madden with me, always legacy teams. My brother loved street just as much as me, we would play for hours playing pickup games of nothing but fat guys. lol

I miss the gamecube remote. Perfect spacing and easy to remember which button is where.

I wish my parents had played games with us. My mom nowadays plays word games and stuff on her phone, but my dads has never played any of it. The only game my mom ever played with me was the PS1 version of Space Invaders. And very rarely if we broke out the old NES she would do a couple runs of original Super Mario. My brother is like 3-4 years older than me so he very quickly aged out of playing with me by the time he hit high school and I was 10, and my cousin didn't like sports so I was playing those Street games and Madden franchise mode by myself.

I think my dad felt bad for me. Three sisters, so it's not like they would play Madden. And Street was a much simpler concept for my brother who is six years my junior. My dad always lost, but it was fun.

I feel really old, I started off with a Binotone in 1978 which is the equivalent if having a PlayStation 5 now. From there it was a ZX Spectrum in 1981, followed by Sega Megadrive in 1988 to what I have now which is my son's PlayStation Pro.My Dad had 0% interest in video games.

« Last edited by Sanzano on Dec 4th 2021 »

Hsha, yeah your parents are close to my grandparents age and I could never see them playing a game. My parents had no interest in games, but at some point they had gotten an NES, then nothing till the PS1. We did have a PC when I was really young, it was either running Windows 95 or 98. Then for the longest time we shared a desktop with Windows XP and I played a ton of Rollercoaster Tycoon, MapleStory, and browser flash games. We had dial up for the longest time, it wasn't until the middle of 2007 that we got broadband internet. I made my first couple thousand posts and a few hundred submissions on SuperCheats using dial-up lol. Complete agony, waiting a full minute for pages to load.