My column this week tries to sort out why we had this sudden rash of father-daughter games in 2013. I don’t know that I nailed it, but this is my take on a very odd little trend.
The other thing about this trend is that all of the father / daughter styled games were really well received. (If you’re reading this before the column then we’re talking about The Walking Dead, BioShock Infinite, and The Last of Us, with partial credit to Dishonored and Tomb Raider.) My concern is that these accolades will end up creating an awful bandwagon effect and two years from now we’ll get a bunch of vapid, half-assed, me-too games coming out with a father / daughter motif.
My hope is that we’ll get even more diverse setups. Different protagonists, different sidekicks, different group dynamics.
Let me put you in the game designer’s shoes. Let’s assume we’re dealing with a typical soulless publisher who doesn’t know anything about videogames except what sells, and they don’t know how to market anything except to imitate the behavior of Hollywood blockbusters. Their specs are thus:
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