There's a rarely discussed phenomenon in the gaming community that I'm going to call Sequel Induced Nostalgia (SIN). The main symptom being a strong urge to re-play an old game, the cause... sequels.
I recently watched the trailer for InFamous 2 and was suitably impressed but as I peered at the new (poster boy) Cole, grinding along power cables, I felt a twang of impulse that demanded I dig out my copy of InFamous and finish the second play through I left hanging for some reason all those months ago. Well a good few hours later here I am 1 trophy away from platinum, almost completely satisfied and all because of one 3 minute trailer.
We all get a feeling of nostalgia when we're reminded of things in our past that we deemed to have been good experiences, for example looking at holiday photos. These feelings create an urge to re-live said past events (the reason for this being beyond my knowledge of Psychology); however with gaming it seems to me that it is the most followed-through of all the nostalgia induced whims I can think of. My first thought drove me to reason that this is only because games are very accessible but the more I though the more I wondered if it was down to something more.
I came to the (probably biased) conclusion that gamer’s sheer passion for games makes them more susceptible to SIN. I do hear/read the odd person saying/tweeting that they were reminded of a movie and now have an urge to watch it but I don't believe many of these people actually go out of their way to appease their impulse as a gamer might.
Whatever the psychological reasoning it's clear that the gaming community is largely effected by SIN. I would go as far as to say sales of SIN impulse games probably rise dramatically shortly after the revealing of a sequel/tie-in. What do you think of SIN and have you ever replayed an old game because of an upcoming sequel?
Thanks for reading my first N4G blog.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
Very true imo. While people get excited for a sequel they want something to satisfy them in the meantime, an obvious choice is to play the last game in the series.
The other day i remember seeing 2 people on my friends list playing inFamous. I personally went and played killzone 2 again after watching the first kz3 trailer and as the build up to Reach gets underway i'm tempted to give halo 3 another go.
Oh indeed. I think it's totally natural for a gamer to do this. It's nostalgia at it's best. Sometimes you forget things that defined the game and the experience it delivered. Then you can go in the sequel with an open mind and see how the sequel has improved the formula.