Gone ... and soon forgotten?
When it comes to bleeding a franchise dry, no sector of the entertainment industry is as efficient and mercenary as the video game industry. The moment a game enjoys even a modicum of success, it is guaranteed to spawn endless sequels, delivered annually if possible, until the interest of the last possible buyer has been exhausted.
Except classic western RPGs.
We can count on new Mario, Tomb Raider, and Call of Duty games. These and other games will continue to receive sequels far into the future. Meanwhile, most of the classic RPG series of the past have vanished, remembered only by gamers old enough to have played them on an Apple IIc or a 386.
There was a day when the shelves of my local Egghead Software proudly displayed big, colorful boxes, heavy with thick manuals and cloth maps. The titles on these boxes – Wizardry, Ultima, Might & Magic – marked these games as new installments in storied RPG series that many (or at least, I) believed would continue for as long as gamers played RPGs on computers.
Obviously, I was wrong.
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