How Old Games Are Sold To Us? Classification Of Reissues

There is a trend in the gaming industry to republish old games — it's easy money out of thin air. There are several ways to implement your plan — a port, a remaster, or a remake. They differ in the cost of development, volume, approach to changes, and price. We decided to look into the classification of reissues.

The types of reissues are divided into difficulty levels. They show how expensive this approach is in creating a product for developers and publishers, as well as their perception by players — what is expected of them, whether they will be easily amazed by the result, and what claims there may be. 

Ports — the "Light" level

The game port is the simplest way to revive an old project. The game is being re-released on modern systems without changes - the game code is almost not rewritten but only optimized for new equipment. On average, ports cost $ 10-20, their development is cheap and usually given to other teams, and the payback is frantic.

We can recall the recent re-release of the first Red Dead Redemption from Double Eleven Studios. This is both a good example because it has no problems with the technical side and a bad one — the price tag of $ 50 for a 2010 game without changes, even with DLC, spoils everything. Although this did not prevent Rockstar from being on the horse — the Red Dead Redemption port, after being released on PlayStation 4, became the most popular PS Store release.

Remasters — the "Normal" level

Remasters follow. Their feature is full or partial updating of graphics and perception of the product – resolution, textures, frame rate, and controls. They often make minor adjustments, correct mistakes, and add convenience to players without changing the basic game design — for example, they add auto-saves at key points of tasks. The gold price of remasters is 30-40 dollars. If we are talking about a collection of several games, then a price of 50-60 dollars is allowed. Development is more expensive than ports, but still not too expensive.

When developing remasters, developers not only work with the game code but also improve the project technically — replace models and videos and rewrite configuration files. 

The reference can be called Diablo 2: Resurrected. The developers have modernized the appearance of the game, made the network components more convenient (although they worked so-so at the start), added the transfer of progress between platforms, and improved the mechanics of automatic gold selection and console control. This splendor cost adequate money – $ 40.

Remakes — the "Heavy" level

Remakes are, in fact, the creation of a new game. When working on them, the developers use the original project only as a basis. All aspects are being rethought and developed from scratch — game design, storytelling, graphic level design, and the structure of the game world. The changes can be both minor and large–scale - the final project may differ radically from the original. An adequate price for such work is from 40 to 70 dollars. It depends on the vision of the developers and their pricing policy. Remake budgets are usually equal to the development of a full-fledged game.

Capcom is good at reissuing its own classics – they have found the perfect formula. In the remake of Resident Evil 2, they recreated the game from scratch without changing the essence of the project – the heroes make their way through a police station clogged with infected people. But the key elements have changed – the camera over the shoulder and the aiming mode from the original Resident Evil 4 have changed the perception of what is happening on the screen. And new mechanics – the ability to independently create ammunition, barricade windows, and counterattack – have deepened and modernized the gameplay. 

There were more details, and a cinematic production appeared. However, the level design, overall story, and characters remained the same. This has changed the atmosphere of the project, but it still feels like the second "Resident." More recently, Capcom successfully repeated this trick with the reissue of the fourth part of the same series — this is one of the best projects of 2023, judging by press estimates and player reviews!