Devs vs. IPs

[Hakudamashi]

Game Developers, versus Intellectual Propeties, which to do you follow more strongly? The surface character and world that a game supposedly holds? Or the teams that make them?

This idea came into my head all the way back when Naughty Dog stopped doing the Crash Bandicoot games. Naive little me thought, "Oh well, we're still getting Crash games, so all is well right? It doesn't matter who's working at it, as long as they understand what makes Crash awesome and keep doing it." But the thing is about people, is that they're different. They all got their different opinions, different takes, different visions. Naughty Dog may have wanted Crash to be a linear focused platformer, but some people may have thought "Y'know, Crash should have the power to take over mutant minds, but that's just me"
Thinking about it, if someone made a piece of art in one style, then someone else was told to replicate it cause the original artist moved on to something else, wouldn't it be a miracle if he/she actually did replicate it as it was?

Everyone has their own styles, their own visions, their own ways of doing things, you'd be better off counting on that same person to keep his style and values consistent wherever he goes, but that's also a stretcht. Like, do you think the same way about Sailor Moon now how you did before? It's even likely that if you asked your parents, you probably even eat your soup differently now than you did before.
But however, a person's change in style and thinking through the times in and of itself is consistent and in most cases understandable, so it's easy to follow people whose style you've come to love either from the beginning, or overtime.

Hollywood and modern video games have shown me that IPs really don't mean much of anything. IPs can't stay consistently good or bad if the teams behind them keep changing, too many cooks spoil the broth... or something.
Like Devil May Cry. 1, 2, 3 and 4 were all consistent with their backtracking and their fixed camera angles, and their combat systems, with small "improvements" with each iteration, because that's what the dev team found valuable, that's how they envisioned their game evolving. But when Ninja Theory took the helm, it looked nothing like the Devil May Cry games prior, despite sharing the name, but the game does however look and feel like an evolution of their previous work like Heavenly Sword and Enslaved:Odyssey to the West.
And what happens when you just throw an IP on some dev team who, for all we know, may not even like it in the first place? Do you honestly expect them to give their all in a project they don't like? It doesn't matter how talented they are, it's difficult to put your everything into a project you couldn't care less about.

And look at what's happening right now, people were all soo hyped about that new Killer Instinct game, but once word got out that Double Helix would no longer be working on it, all that enthusiasm turned into nervous worry...

So I'm here to propose something that I should've been doing all along, follow the creators, not the creations.
The Game Developers, not the IPs they work on, the Movie Directors, not the movies, the Mangakas, not the mangas, etc.

But ofc, I titled this topic "Devs vs. IPs" for a reason, this is simply my take on this, I wanna know what your thoughts are.

[Elija2]

I follow both.

[Hakudamashi]

Just want yo to know you're the third person to say that.

[Elija2]

Just want yo to know you're the third person to say that.

Must be a popular opinion.

[Hakudamashi]

My opinion's always the unpopular one =U

[Elija2]

Why wouldn't you follow both? Follow the IP because it's one that you like (until the devs start making bad games) and follow the devs because you know they can make a game that you like (until they don't).

[Hakudamashi]

Because my brain can only remember so many names.

[shadowDOESrock]

Yeah, seriously, why wouldn't you?


Like, e.g: I like Halo. I'm not gonna kick it off a cliff simply because someone else is doing it.
Even if it isnt "as good", I hope for the next one to improve... because, well, I like Halo.

[Hakudamashi]

But what if the new guy doing is also a veteran at FPS like respawn?
Sure their style is different, but you like their style anyway, so whatever.

[shadowDOESrock]

But what if the new guy doing is also a veteran at FPS like respawn?
Sure their style is different, but you like their style anyway, so whatever.

I dont know what you mean with this one

[Hakudamashi]

It's not inherently a big deal on the announcement that the dev team is changing, but I think the background of the new dev team should be something to take into consideration.