One of the most popular video games of the last year was Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a fighting game whose playable characters are iconic gaming characters owned by several different companies. The appeal of crossovers like this is obvious: people get to see their favorite characters across a variety of media franchises interact, and can be exposed to new media that they might enjoy. Therefore, it seems like crossovers are an obvious way for companies to expand their audience and to establish good relations with potential competitors. While many companies were once somewhat hesitant to develop crossovers out of fear of their brands being misrepresented compared to competitors, the concept has grown much more prevalent in recent years.
However, despite the surface-level appeal of crossovers, they can often have negative side effects on the consumers. For instance, one of the most prohibiting factors of crossovers is licensing fees. Because companies must receive compensation in exchange for allowing their brands to appear in a crossover, the developers of these crossovers must often raise the price of their product in order to make up the licensing fees they paid. One example of this is the aforementioned Super Smash Bros. While the base game contains a large roster of characters, other characters developed after the release of the game are sold for about $6 each as downloadable content (DLC). Nearly all of these DLC characters are owned by companies other than Nintendo (the game's developer), so the restrictive licensing cost may be part of the reason why consumers must buy the characters separately. Furthermore, the one Nintendo-owned character that was sold as DLC was $1 cheaper than all the other characters, and was even given out for free for a limited time. This comparison clearly shows that the cost of licensing fees for a crossover ultimately results in a higher price for the consumer. While this is only applicable in situations where the characters involved are owned by multiple companies, it is still an important aspect of the genre to consider.
Another, more alarming negative of crossovers is that they promote cultural stagnation. What this means is that innovation and change for the better is not occurring, and consumers are simply selecting the products they are most familiar with already. This is evident in Hollywood's recent focus on reboots and remakes rather than new content, as people are now more content with rewatching things they have already seen in new ways than with discovering innovative new storylines. However, crossovers also help promote this way of thinking because of their emphasis on preexisting media. A crossover serves purely to glorify brands that have already existed in the past, rather than serving to create new things. Rather than figuring out new stories to tell, companies are simply putting their preexisting ideas together to attempt to make something new. Ultimately, these crossovers force us to look at our media in terms of what we enjoyed in the past, rather than what we could enjoy in the future.
However, despite the surface-level appeal of crossovers, they can often have negative side effects on the consumers. For instance, one of the most prohibiting factors of crossovers is licensing fees. Because companies must receive compensation in exchange for allowing their brands to appear in a crossover, the developers of these crossovers must often raise the price of their product in order to make up the licensing fees they paid. One example of this is the aforementioned Super Smash Bros. While the base game contains a large roster of characters, other characters developed after the release of the game are sold for about $6 each as downloadable content (DLC). Nearly all of these DLC characters are owned by companies other than Nintendo (the game's developer), so the restrictive licensing cost may be part of the reason why consumers must buy the characters separately. Furthermore, the one Nintendo-owned character that was sold as DLC was $1 cheaper than all the other characters, and was even given out for free for a limited time. This comparison clearly shows that the cost of licensing fees for a crossover ultimately results in a higher price for the consumer. While this is only applicable in situations where the characters involved are owned by multiple companies, it is still an important aspect of the genre to consider.
Another, more alarming negative of crossovers is that they promote cultural stagnation. What this means is that innovation and change for the better is not occurring, and consumers are simply selecting the products they are most familiar with already. This is evident in Hollywood's recent focus on reboots and remakes rather than new content, as people are now more content with rewatching things they have already seen in new ways than with discovering innovative new storylines. However, crossovers also help promote this way of thinking because of their emphasis on preexisting media. A crossover serves purely to glorify brands that have already existed in the past, rather than serving to create new things. Rather than figuring out new stories to tell, companies are simply putting their preexisting ideas together to attempt to make something new. Ultimately, these crossovers force us to look at our media in terms of what we enjoyed in the past, rather than what we could enjoy in the future.
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