Some people claim that World of Warcraft ruined the MMORPG industry. My take on that is that the fundamental problem is that nobody, not even Blizzard, understood what made World of Warcraft so successful. And that led to hundreds of millions of dollars wasted by several companies trying to make another successful game by simply doing everything the same as World of Warcraft. Monumental failure in both concept and result.
I watched the new Top Gear last night and realised that they have the same problem: They have no idea what made the old Top Gear so successful, and so they decided to do everything the same as before: The same running jokes now told by different people, the new moderators adding new lap record times on the board that still has the old times in Clarkson's handwriting on them, the same scripted stunt contests that would have been funny with Hammond and May, but just looked lame as a contest between the new moderators that lacked the chemistry. The whole show looked as if a bunch of new guys had gotten hold of the scripts while the old moderators had stepped out for a coffee.
While the chemistry is impossible to reproduce, for me it is clear that the old Top Gear worked because Clarkson, Hammond and May were true to themselves. They didn't play a role that was foreign to their nature. The new moderators don't allow their personalities to show that much, they emulate rather than create. And the result is disastrous. Everybody hated it.
And it isn't as they were all that pressed for time. They had months to come up with a new concept, throw out all the old decorations and jokes, redesign the track to make it new and different, and come up with new elements of the show that focus on the personalities of the new moderators. Trying to make the "Clarkson, Hammond and May Show without Clarkson, Hammond and May" simply doesn't work. Continuity is not a recipe for success, it is a curse.
I never liked Metzen. He just doesn't sound real and tries to blow everything out of proportion like it is an epic thing. You're making a freaking game, not solving world peace.
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