Does it seem too early?
If season three (New Frontier) had made a comeback by surpassing season two and being nearly on par with season one . Do you think season four would still have been the final season? Could it be possible that they are just throwing in the towel due to constant fan frustration or is it more so due to running out of new ideas? I felt many issues with New Frontier might of been avoided if they only had open conferences with fans who've played season 2 and experienced dissatisfaction unless the majority in fact did enjoy season two immensely.
It is also highly likely that Fear The Walking Dead might get renewed for season five and that would mean that even the AMC spin off will have made more seasons than the video game series.
Are video games that much tougher to write good for than the TV shows and comics that are still going on? Thoughts?
Comments
I don't know a whole lot about video game development, but I'd imagine it'd be a much longer process to write for than the tv series. You've got story's to plan, voice actors to use, choices to map out, locations and graphics to create, coding to write for, etc.
TWD tv show also likely has the benefit of a much larger budget, and probably more of a focus due to the pressure of still being one of the most viewed shows on right now, so it might be easier for them to crank out new content on a weekly basis.
That being said, while it might seem better in some sense for a game to be drawn out longer to develop it further and fix any of the glaring flaws, they can also fall into the trap of leaving its fans more disappointed than a tv show's fans if the final product doesn't live up to their expectations. It'd kind of feel like the whole thing was a waste of time, whereas with the show, if there's a bad episode, you can kind of just forget about it and wait for the following one next week. Instant gratification, I guess.
As for whether it would've been the final season, honestly I'm not too sure. It's hard to tell when you're not in the head writing room, y'know? There's not really any way of knowing what their long term goals were with the series unless we ask someone from telltale, but hell, with all the staff changes they had, it's possible that they themselves wouldn't have much of an idea.
It might not be throwing in the towel so much as wanting to end this series with a little bit of dignity at this point. Giving us Clem as the main character again and (hopefully) going back to what people loved about the older seasons might let them go out on a high note this time around, and to be frank, I'd rather have them do that than to watch them drag this series through the dirt for another 2 or 3 years.
Honestly, I don't think this would be the final season if ANF were better received. We'd have probably continued rotating protagonists and their monster of the week stories in each entry, as they knew fans wanted to see more Clementine but didn't seem to have any idea where they were going with it as far as keeping her involved. As much as the forums bitch about the season 2, its reception on steam among people who are actually registered customers who purchased it from the site is nearly as good as season 1s. ANF, not so much. By the time episode 5 rolled around it really felt like the attitude was "let's wrap this up and reassure fans about the next entry."
As far as compared to TV, there's probably a litany of issues by comparison. Production, as leaf said, is probably one of them. The games very likely have a much smaller budget, and when you do a rewrite or reshoot for a game you not only have to bring the actors back, but the scenes have to be completely reanimated, reworked, and retested. You don't have to worry about any animation or programming glitches in a live action recording. There's also generally not a lot of changes in who's working on the shows. TV shows can hand off episodes to people to tell their stories while staying in line with the overall arc, because there's a good deal more time and episodes available to do so in. Telltales mistake has been trying to emulate that while having considerably less time, and treating each episode as a new game rather than part of a complete package. Most games don't have 20+ writers trying to make a 6-10 hour story, and they're much more focused for that.