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I love it when I’m right.

On Area5’s first CO-OP episode, I saw the parade of ex-EGM/1UP employees marching up the stairs and thought, “Hey, James Mielke isn’t there. They must really hate the bastard.” After all, he was the last EIC at EGM, the one that was supposed to lead the magazine back to the promised land.

And you know what? Well, let’s just say I told ya so.

Being an outsider, and by that I mean someone outside of the games journalism circles, I can very specifically define the type of person James Mielke is. He craves attention, most likely stemming from personal issues regarding him being adopted as a young child. He was abandoned once, by the people who should have loved him most, and even though he was found by a seemingly wonderful family, he’ll always seek acceptance by anyone and everyone or risk being abandoned once more. Everything he did at 1UP wasn’t about how much he loved videogames, it was about how cool James Mielke was. Every interview was to show the world not that he was a fantastic journalist, it was to show off who he knew on a personal level. He didn’t DJ because he loved the music, it was so people would accept him for the music to which he listened.

His personal blog posts are an ego trip spewing details of his synergistic relationship with New York City, brushing aside the tens of millions of people who have called The Big Apple home. Coming from someone who did, I can certainly say no New Yorker would profess their love for the city by saying they love it more than the next guy. True New Yorkers brandish their time in the city like a tattoo – beneath layers of clothing, to show only when asked, and to keep the true story to themselves – yet it permeates their soul, defines their character. They don’t have to tell people, “Hey! I’m from New York!” because they are from New York. James does the complete opposite, and every self-respecting New Yorker wouldn’t give him the time of day because of it.

And I think that’s exactly what happened during the 1UP aftermath. 1UP folks banded together to create new business ventures, or to reflect on the past. But James was not found in any of it. He was cast out of the fraternity by its own brethren. Whether he was invited to that Area5 video or not, he wasn’t there. He previously worked for Gamespot, but when the Giant Bomb guys wanted to bring in someone to talk about the sale, it wasn’t him. And I’m sure if you ask anyone close to him, of the people whom he calls his friends, the feeling isn’t nearly as mutual.

Now he’s back at 1UP/UGO, but it wasn’t purely because he needed, or wanted, the job; nor was it because his relationship with Sam Kennedy. It was so that he could once again be in the spotlight, to stand on the world’s stage that is the Internet and speak to all who will listen.

Welcome one and all to the first Page Flippin’ of 2009. Only one more year to go until the spaceship Alexei Leonov reaches Saturn, but I digress…

I received the February 2009 issue of Game Informer yesterday. GI continues to impress me with its editorial decisions. Not one page in this magazine feels like filler. And for all the credit the EGM and 1UP staff gets got for its memorable personalities, GI trumps them all with their Gamercard-like bios on the “GI Staff” page (p. 2) and the “GI Spy” regular column, showing just a bunch of regular Minnesota folk working their asses off on one heck of a magazine. No attitudes, no fraternity. GI is all about gamers who love games. Period. Here are some more highlights from the issue:

• “Afterwords” with Clint Hocking, Creative Director for Far Cry 2. The readers came up with the tough questions, but kudos to GI for actually letting them through. Questions like, “Why did you decide on such a wonky mission structure?” and, “Why did neither faction care that I was helping the other?” allow Clint to defend and explain such decisions, and gives great insight on the design process. Information like this is commonplace to Game Developer and Gamasutra, but seldom seen in a mass-market magazine.
• The “Where Have You Been” feature focuses on announced titles which have been quiet for too long. Conspicuously absent: Alan Wake, and pretty much all of Microsoft’s and Sony’s 2009 lineup. Either they are all embargoed or 2009 is in for tough times (as expected).
• “Loose Talk” says GTA V is expected in 2009; recent Internet buzz says otherwise. Who to believe?
• “The Top 50 Games of 2008″ is a welcomed departure from the Game of the Year and top 10 lists everyone else publishes. GI has been doing this for years, and it’s a fair and balanced look at the past year, in order of release. The staff provides their top 10 lists at the end of the end of the article, but it’s nice to see such a wide range of mentionable games all on one stage. Some interesting statistics: November released the most games on the list at nine; would you expect to see February with five games? What are they? Read the article…
• For all the credit 1UP and EGM get for their Japanese coverage, I haven’t seen them do anything as cool as the Actraiser feature in this month’s “Classic GI”, complete with an interview with Square Enix’s Shinji Futami on the story behind Actraiser 1 and 2. Sidebars include profiles on both games for newbies, and where to find the soundrack (hint: iTunes). This type of article is what made pre-Ziff Davis EGM so memorable, so it’s nice to see GI carry on the torch.
• Honorable mention goes to the “Sound Check” and “Impulse” regular columns, but the “MMO Report” is conspicuously absent here. Hey Andy, where are all those new features for 2009 you were talking about?

The February 2009 issue checks in at 96 pages, a testament to the difficulties of finding adverising in this economy. Still, the editorial content rages on. Great job, boys!

I might sound a little selfish here, but is anyone as annoyed as I am at the alarming trend of ex-1UPpers panhandling their audiences lately? Sure, they just lost their jobs. I need to stay sympathetic, I keep telling myself.

So the folks at RebelFM get a free pass, because it was an immediate reaction from the community who wanted those guys to land on their feet. $12,000 though? Well, they got it, so more power to ‘em. Then TalkingOrange, or Area5 as they are known now (free link boys, and good job!), have enough donations to have PayPal question them. And now, those who voluntarily quit their jobs are looking for community bailout funds. That’s where I draw the line.

Dan “Shoe” Hsu posted on his Sore Thumbs blog that he has this great new idea for a website. It’s so great that he’s asking for money from his audience to fund his new venture. Not for a stake in it mind you, just some good old-fashioned free money. Forget videogames, he should go into a more profitable career in the banking or automotive industries. I think they really need his moxie right now!

The problem I have with these donations is in most cases these kids who would follow any former 1UP staffer blindly, are coughing up their hard earned cash without realizing that it’s pretty much like throwing their money away. They aren’t getting any software or services for it, they are only funding someone else’s project from which they will never see any reward other than being able to read a few blog posts a week about something that was probably not only written about on countless other websites, but aggregated to death across the Web. All for free. These are the same kids who probably got their EGM subscriptions over the past few years for free, too, by the way.

And the sick thing about all of this? These kids are pissing away not only their money, but their parents’ as well. And that money, especially in this economy, could go to things like food, education, mortgage. Oh, but Dan Hsu wants to build a website, let’s give him money. Did John Davison, after he voluntarily quit his job, ask his readers for donations so he could start What They Play? No, he created a business plan, peddled it to venture capitalists and investors – you know, the people with money who in return purchase a stake in a business venture. What would have happened if he couldn’t find someone to help back his business? He’d either have to dip into his own pockets or give up the dream.

What Hsu is doing here is reprehensible. He’s not selling a subscription, he’s stealing money from kids.

Magazines are not dead, contrary to popular belief.

People think this because EGM died a tragic, horrible, unexpected death, but that’s just not the case. In fact, it was a sick old publication that had seen better days and suffered for years before the official, certified date from the coroner. It’s no secret I was never a fan of what Ziff Davis, or more like 1UP, did to the once great gaming rag, and indeed they ran it into the ground. Literally. Six feet under.

For all those NeoGAFers crying foul and marching downtown to UGO’s offices with torches in hand, just wait a second. 1UP might have had some entertaining podcasts and video shows, but do you really think the failure of our beloved EGM had any less to do with the people in San Francisco running it?

Over two years ago, when downloads of demos and game add-ons were first made available through Xbox Live, I suggested how Official Xbox Magazine could change their strategy to move away from providing said content to readers for a premium, and instead produce original video content in DVD format, much like the Japanese magazine Famitsu Wave.

Saying all of that, it seems like the OXM disc has become obsolete, but I have an idea of how it can be relevant again. Future needs to hire a production team to create exclusive programming and content for the disc, much in the same way Enterbrain does for Famitsu Wave. Start providing more making-of, documentary-style content and entertaining segments with OXM personalities – borrowing a bit from Ziff Davis’ own 1UP Show. And make it more enticing for Xbox owners to have the disc, aside from a couple of inconsequential gamer pictures. Avoid Xbox 360 content at all costs – Microsoft wants it all to themselves so they can sell on the Marketplace. Instead, make it DVD-based so they can watch not just on their Xbox, but on any DVD player they choose. This might even sway non-Xbox owners to pick up an interesting-looking issue to sample for themselves, and even push them toward buying an Xbox.

See anything interesting there? 1UP attracted a devoted fan base because of their original video and audio programming. They were on to something, and yet never capitalized on the popularity of their shows to benefit the ailing magazine. EGM needed a fresh new business plan, something along the lines of what I suggested for OXM. And they had all the parts, too – a video department cranking out weekly 30 minute episodes of The 1UP Show, along with all the side video projects like Not The 1UP Show; and a growing schedule of weekly podcasts covering a range of topics. The problem was they desperately needed a reboot, and management sat by idle and let the train wreck happen.

It probably didn’t help there was such turmoil going on in those offices for so long. The EGM staff were tasked to put out a monthly magazine with a revolving skeleton crew that was increasingly lacking in experience to do so, and obviously quality took a beatdown by the sinking morale that was infecting the eighth floor offices at 101 2nd Street. After enduring such a prolonged and public exodus, management just didn’t have any passion left. They just wanted the pain to end.

As tough as those last couple of years were for the magazine, nothing can erase the indelible mark it left on all of us gamers today. We grew up with the fond memories of EGM’s supersized, 300 page behemoth issues, the secrecy of Quarterman and Sushi-X, and all that awesome Japanese game coverage in an era where the web simply didn’t exist. It wasn’t a magazine, it was a toy; just as much as the game cartridges that frequently lay upon it on the coffee table. Some could argue it never successfully made the transition to the pivotal 32-bit era of gaming, which incidentally happened during the handover from Sendai to Ziff Davis, and only regained footing once Next Generation folded.

But I digress. This wasn’t meant to be a eulogy – that’s been done to death already. Rather, this is a painful example of how poor management and a lack of proper planning caused a gaming icon to disappear. The current economic climate is a tough one, but it alone is not to blame. With that said, not only to I expect to see my favorite magazines continue to exist for years to come, but I look forward to the day EGM rises from the ashes of its own doing and returns to the glory as we all remember it.

You know the section in Gamer Informer where they have a developer and reader list their top five games of all time? I’m always interested in reading not the games they select, but rather the range (or lack thereof) of eras in their selections. The January selection from reader Joshua Lopez was especial heavy on recent titles from the PS2 and Xbox 360 era. Here’s his top five:

1. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - PS2
2. Max Payne - PS2
3. Grand Theft Auto IV - Xbox 360
4. God of War - PS2
5. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men - Xbox 360

Now, this is one person’s opinion, and everyone’s entitled to one so I won’t argue its validity, but rather I’ll merely acknowledge its existence. There are several personal factors which might have influenced his selection, such as age, financial status, or other means which would prevent or hinder him from access to any given game. I’ll also say the games on his list are no slouch, either. But I ask the question, do they have what it takes to stand the test of time and be heralded among the best the industry has to offer – past, present and future?

I look to my own experiment of listing my favorite games, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. What I found was a list which largely consisted of games in the 10 to 15 year age range. In my analysis, I asked the question, “will there ever be a modern classic?” And what I’ve found is by looking at the GI list above, the answer is, “maybe”.

It seems I informally enforced my own criteria in selecting my all time favs. On top of the said personal influences, I looked to see which games have indeed stood the test of time for ten years or greater. In addition this time period covers videogame past generations of two or more, the most recent game being from the Dreamcast gen.

So then as I dive deeper into what makes a game “the greatest of all time”, why don’t we all implement such selection criteria? Let me give some examples:

• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says an artist is eligible 25 years after the release of their first album.
• The Pro Football and Major League Baseball Hall of Fames requires a candidate to be retired at least five years before eligibility

The Computer Gaming World folks maintained their own Hall of Fame for years. Although the exact selection criteria used is unknown, the most recent game on their list was Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn from 2001, which more or less also gave it a five year waiting period before eligibility. Gamespot ceased their selection of The Greatest Games of All Time back in 2007, when the last inductee was Grand Theft Auto III, released in 2001. So it appears as if the gaming press implemented their own criteria individually, but never has there been a universal, official standard process.

That’s where I invite everyone reading my blog and Twitter posts to help define this. Let’s come together and standardize the selection process for the greatest games ever made. We might all have different games on our individual lists, but at least we’ll all be picking from the same pool.

Comment with your ideas for selection critieria to this post, or send me a Twitter, and I’ll compile the results and ideas into a later post on the blog.

For those who say, “print is dead,” I reply:

“…really?”

Just because Ziff-Davis is shuttering its remaining publications like CGW and PC Magazine, and the once-great Electronic Gaming Monthly, or EGM to you young-ins, is anemic to the point of flatlining, doesn’t mean it’s all doom-and-gloom for the rest. Page Flippin’ is going to be a somewhat-regular column of all that is good in the gaming mags.

In recent months, new EGM EIC James Meilke has taken the magazine in a direction we all wished it went ten years ago – a decidedly Japan-centric, fanboy slant – and proved that was the wrong idea for its general audience. The coverage, although it has been more niche-focused, seems only skin deep and lacks the depth the material requires. Perhaps its because of the never-ending bloodletting of the 1UP staff – almost every major article was penned by Meilke himself, a tall order for someone whose full-time job is to actually run the magazine.

But where EGM is failing, others are succeeding. Take for instance the awesome Rare profile OXM did a couple of issues back. Or Game Informer’s clever preview of Left 4 Dead, weaved within a multi-page, comprehensive overview of Valve Studios. These are two examples of excellent and creative writing which satisfies both the “hardcore” and general audiences. It’s also evidence that these magazines and, to an extent their publishers, respect and encourage traditional and fundamental journalism.

So how do these magazines follow up such standout features, and more important, can they?

Let’s start with the January 2009 issue of Game Informer, of which EIC Andy McNamara introduces MMO Report, the first of many new regular features for the magazine. Where EGM has unsuccessfully tried to shove PC gaming coverage into a page or two, GI has consistently covered PC and console gaming for years. The MMO Report shows their continued dedication to covering all aspects of gaming. Here are some other standouts from the issue:

• Afterwords with Lionhead Studios Design Director Dene Carter fields tough questions from the magazine’s readers about the critically and commercially acclaimed Fable II, like “Was there ever a point in development that the game had a more comprehensive property management system?” or “Why did you add co-op functionality on the game if we could not bring our characters into the other player’s game?”
• Achievement Dos and Don’ts, like “[do] chart the player’s progress toward unlocking achievements”, or “[don't] make multiplayer achievements if multiplayer is an afterthought”. What would normally be a page-filler in any other magazine is a thorough critique on the implementation of achievements in Xbox Live games.
• Continued exclusive reveals, such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Guitar Hero: Metallica. Among the wealth of news, some inadvertent (or maybe not) disclosure why Lars Ulrich is such a dick: “at my house, we didn’t have any video games allowed…so when Guitar hero III came out I broke my own rule and I asked our friends at Activision if it was possible to get one of these since there was a Metallica song on there.”

Now on to the January 2009 issue of OXM:

• Independents Day covers the top XNA Community Games, thankfully profiling the creators of the games themselves and not the totally annoying community manager (and ex-1UP alumni, go figure) Kathleen Sanders. And if you still haven’t played Weapon of Choice, you now have no excuse.
• Dead On Live,  a rundown of some older XBL titles and what you would find if you tried to play online. It was interesting to see Shadowrun still had a dedicated audience, while GTA IV was “flatlined”, although this clearly was written before the recent uptick in XBL stats.
• Based on how all other outlets were holding onto their Riddick news, it’s clear OXM had the exclusive on the Assault on Dark Athena information. Too bad the embargo was broken before this hit newsstands, but embargoes are bad anyway.
• The whole identity theft issue with Xbox Live has been covered to death over the past year, but Get Your Hands off My Gamertag! seems to recap the information in one concise and complete package, while updating with current trends and providing valuable tips on how users can protect themselves. It’s reminiscent of the DRM article Dan Americh put up a few issues back, where he guided readers through the process by doing it himself and documenting his findings. I applaud OXM by continually putting themselves in the readers’ shoes in order to provide the most accurate information.

So there you have it. Those of you brave enough to step away from your RSS readers and head to the newsstands will be awarded, or at least surprised, at what you’ll find.

In no particular order:

How I Met Your Mother
Ghost Adventures
Kyle Orton
Electronic Arts
The Blur Reunion
Netflix on the NXE
Hellboy II, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, The Dark Knight – all the great comic book movies this year (in ascending order)
Giant Bomb
Cheap Ass Gamer
Nintendo DS
DRM Free MP3s at Amazon.com
Joss Whedon
Buffy, Firefly, Angel, Army of Darkness - awesome comics based on film/television franchises
Return of The X-Files
Diners, Drive-ins and Dives
Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern

But most of all:

My Kids

Shawn Elliott posted to his brand-spankin’ new blog a discussion with other members of the gaming press on the subject of reviews:

Prior to departing 1UP.com, I prepared two sections for a symposium that never got off the ground. Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal, WhatTheyPlay.com’s John Davison, and I agreed to generate questions for eight episodes.

I see what he’s doing here and at the same time praise and damn his (overcomplicated) study of the reviews process. Essentially what he’s doing here is not related to reviews at all, but analysis of the reasons why human beings are subjective by nature. See, that is why we have favorite reviewers for all types of media. That is why I trust a Roger Ebert film review more so than a Peter Travers one, or a Jim DeRogatis review more than, um, some other person at some other outlet…sorry, my music tastes have lapsed AC (after children). Hell, it’s why we had a friggin’ opinion about Ebert’s replacement on At the Movies (Michael Phillips was my choice, by the way). It’s because of the flavor each individual adds to their writing; otherwise it’s just a series of gramatically-correct, probably-way-too-advanced-for-my-understanding words on a page or website. There’s writing, there’s creative writing, and then there’s creative writing in the world according to [insert critic here].

“How much is on our minds before we begin playing any given game for review purposes? Will we imagine a range of probable scores that a heavily marketed, highly budgeted, and hugely anticipated game will get?” What do I do when I find a wallet on the sidewalk? Do I hold the door for the person behind me? Do these questions define what makes a better review or just a better person? And most important, are these answers even important?

I grew up in Chicago, and therefore on Siskel and Ebert. Ebert was always my favorite because, well, the Sun-Times is in tabloid format and easier to carry. Seriously, I always found Ebert to be a better writer. Although Ebert is the one with the Pulitzer, he always dismissed that argument by saying the Tribune’s format didn’t give Siskel’s abilities the room they deserved (Ebert’s reviews were always represented in essay format; Siskel’s in digest). But most importantly, I read Ebert because I felt he agreed with my sensibilities. From pre-teen to post-college, I rarely knew Ebert the Person, yet I still thought this. Why? Because of what I gathered from his writings and reviews. When he liked or disliked something, he said why. He gave examples. He gave anecdotes. From those, and over the course of 20+ years, I learned to trust Roger Ebert as much as I did my own parents. Maybe even more so.

Reviewers are so wrapped up in the formula they get lost in it, and I think that’s the real problem. Everything else is what it is, and as what it should be.

Source: Unrealized reviews symposium

Leigh Alexander of Sexy Videogameland had a couple of choice nuggets to chew on:

When a title attempts to explore uncharted areas, it risks stumbling into areas that have been neglected for a good reason — because they don’t work as well. But when we fault them for trying, without recognizing that the game might have done a few new things well, or when we treat creativity or an attempt at inventiveness as a design flaw, we’re sending the industry some problematic mixed messages. We demand innovation and invention, and then we crucify any attempts in that direction.

The above comment was in response to Silent Hill: Homecoming, but rekindled from the spark Mirror’s Edge seems to have caused throughout the industry. So then, should Alone in the Dark for the Xbox 360 have warranted a 58 score on metacritic? Or the “improved” PS3 release, which received an average of 67? Maybe 1UP’s Nick Suttner was right, saying it was one of the overlooked gems of 2008? I’ll just say that’s why I bought it when it was released, although it’s still sealed on my shelf.

I tend to agree with this way of thinking. A game should be respected by trying something new and interesting. Now, let’s be clear, this is different than how Japanese developers like to reinvent things such as online play and controls for no good reason. There’s no way Dirge of Cerberus gets a recommendation in my book…

Leigh’s other point is one I’ve often thought of myself (”The Four Month Bell Curve”):

Here’s how it works — starting at about six months prior to release, the hype machine builds, reaching a fever pitch during the magical week. And in the week that follows, said highly-anticipated title is the greatest thing since sliced bread; reviewers use hyperbolic superlative adjectives, the top five Digg stories pertain to said game, it makes mainstream media headlines in spots like the New York Times or Slate (Newsweek doesn’t count, because we cheat by having N’Gai).

Fast forward a month later, and the backlash begins with a strongly worded post from the blog community, perhaps one single acerbic writer who doesn’t get what the fuss is all about. This, too, draws massive internet traffic, as seas of enamored fans flock to the dispute. And then, well, wait, wait, says someone else, Dissenter Zero might have a point — and then before you know it, we’re not talking “most breathtaking open-world experience EVER,” but we’re talking more like “ludonarrative dissonance,” and things like that (these are not actual quotes about GTA IV, as far as I’m aware, but might as well be — “ludonarrative dissonance” refers to BioShock, actually).

This has been going on for years. I placed it back to the first Prince of Persia: Sands of Time game. What was a game of the year contender when it was first released, it was singled out for it’s many flaws by the time the sequel was being previewed. Same with Jade Empire. Same with Halo 2. Same with BioShock.

Game reviews fall into this trap because they are packaged as buyers guides rather than genuine criticism. They are meant to hit the web by the time the game is on store shelves. Since most games sell the majority of their total sales during the first few weeks in stores, that means there are droves of potential buyers swarming the review sites to see if it is worth their hard-earned $60. See where this is a problem? Reviewers are forced to plow through a game within a set timeframe, write down their opinions in haste and paste it on the front page of a website to grab valuable traffic. They aren’t allowed to let their experience age, to reflect upon it for days or even weeks afterward.

Now, one can argue that film and music could also fall in this trap, since they are day-and-date driven by retail sales. The difference here is that those types of media benefit from manageable time commitments and lend themselves to repeat viewings or listenings, to help flesh out that initial love-or-hate fest. I used to review music for my university’s newspaper, and I’d listen to a CD over and over again throughout a weekend before I put my first word on paper.  I was able to dig deeper into a song, discover its true meaning, or at least what it meant to me. I could hear the conflict between the upbeat melody and the underlying melancholy lyrics that might get a pass if I only heard it once. That in turn resulted in some pretty good personal insight in my reviews, some that I’d be damned proud to reprint here if I still had my scrapbook of writings…

So why do videogames suffer from a short honeymoon? It’s because a 10+ hour game isn’t easy to playthrough a second or third time before a review deadline is met. What we’re ever seeing is the reviewer’s initial impressions based on a single playthrough. And the nature of game criticism is, that’s pretty much gospel.

Turns out all these holiday releases do more than give us all sore thumbs, they’ve inspired a slew of bloggers to critique the people who are critiquing all those AAA titles, especially when so many are falling in the love-it-or-hate-it bin. I’ve been on this bandwagon before, and I’m also at it again, but let’s see what some other folks have to say on the subject:

From The Guardian UK’s Games Blog, Keith Stuart wrote:

I found the IGN review particularly depressing. Not only does the writer suggest that the combat system could have done with an extra button (wha? Why?! Why add extra layers of complexity? Since when was that an artful response to anything?), but he ends with:

The ideas are there for a very cool experience, and I truly hope that a sequel is spawned, but this first attempt falls just a bit short.

Can you imagine, for a second, critics emerging from the press screening of Apocalypse Now, or The Magnificent Ambersons, or Bladerunner and proclaiming, ‘yeah, it had some good ideas, but it wasn’t perfect – I’ll look forward to the sequel’. I suppose there’s an argument that, as films are only ninety minutes long, we’ll accept a more flawed experience, but are notions of quality really so tightly governed by longevity? I hope not.

I think most critics have the right idea but wrong execution for this argument. I’m in software development, and we thrive on iterative development and design. There’s iteration on a project level, but also iteration on a portfolio level as well (with portfolio, think franchises for gaming). A perfect case study would be the Crash Bandicoot franchise. The first one was Sony’s entry into the mascot race on the original Playstation. I think everyone at the time thought it was pretty mediocre with some underlying potential. Naughty Dog was able to iterate on that original game with the feedback they received from the community, and good golly miss molly if Crash 2 wasn’t an improvement if not defining moment in the 32-bit sweeps.

Taking the argument to film, as did Keith, look at The Transporter or Austin Powers. Both weren’t huge successes at the box office, but they found enough of an audience in the secondary market to convince the studios to fund two sequels each. So in this case, yes, people do actually say, “I like what I see, now give me more of it and better!”

Therefore, I agree with IGN’s statement in concept. Just to add, John Waters once said there should be more remakes of bad movies than good ones; the “sequelitis” to which Keith referred is really just this opportunity for developers to iterate on a good concept which might have been buried in bad execution. And hey, he should be happy videogames have this opportunity; the film industry is still busy remaking classics like “Miracle on 34th Street” and “Psycho”.