Remastered HD versions. Ethical remakes?

why a company should give stuff for free?
it's their work. even if they wanted to set a $1000 price tag on them, no one can stop them.

in any case people paying for remakes are the problem.
no customers = no sale = no more remakes.

same applies to neverending franchises that everyone hates.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but

Serious Sam Classics one had to buy fresh all over again

I'm almost positive that the classic Serious Sam games were added to Steam after the HD remakes were. As DRM Steam tracks licenses, it wouldn't be easy for Croteam to offer free upgrades when it was such an old game that was sold physically....so while you aren't wrong, I also don't think it's fair to hold that against them

and Gold pack.

SS3 came out after the HD remakes.

Meh don't like this kind of poll it makes a question that yes/no is not a decent answer to. It depends first if you can even actually give/discount the new one for owners, for many old games that simply isn't possible to do.

Second if it is actually either not devs just making what should be an update or expansion separate for whatever reason.

Third it depends on the remaster or remake(which for the record are different things) there are those who are more work than plenty games around so yes having them cost as the full game makes sense, others clearly required some work so original owners should merely get an high discount and there is the ones that were trivial to do thus should be free. Not to mention the myriad in-betweens.

In short I see anything but judging case by case as pointless.

A proper remaster costs money to do. Some publishers/developers see it as a chance to build good will, by giving existing customers the old game, but they don't have to do it.

Seems this is now a new trend.

Not really. More like an old trend given new life. Remasters were quite common in the early 90's

I'd rather have old games being updated to work on modern systems than remasters or remakes. It irks me that publishers think old games absolutely need to be remade according to current taste to be enjoyed by younger audiences. It's the same stupid "our times are always better than older times" mentality that lead to colorizing black & white movies -_-

Anyway, like a lot of people have said already, those remasters and remake have costs for publishers (albeit usually lesser costs than making new games), so I think it's normal they want to charge for it.

Who the fuck cares about ethics. If you want something, you buy it. If you don't want it, you don't buy it. The seller is never the fool.

In my personal opinion, I think that if one owns the original game and all the DLC, they should get the remaster for free (not remakes though). If I already own the game and all they have done was fix a ton of bugs and made a graphical overhaul to bring it to more modern standards, then I what incentive do I have to buy the game again when mods do the exact same thing if not better most of the time?

Remakes on the other hand are a different story. The main difference, for those who don't know, is that a remaster is bringing a game's looks and sounds up to more modern standards, and fixing issues that were never addressed before. A remake is a complete overhaul of the game, so basically everything from the visuals, audio, to even how the game works and plays!

To give an example of the difference, imagine this. If the original Metroid game was given shinier visuals and audio and fixed any bugs it had, then it would be a remaster. If the original Metroid game was turned into a 3D FPS with wallrunning, and other shiz that was never in the original game, it would be a remake.

Remakes should be paid for as you are getting a completely new experience. Remasters are just touching up what was already there.

It depends, sometimes they only fix some issues and slightly enhance the graphics while other times they pretty much remake the whole thing almost from scratch. I don't think that putting all of those cases in the same bag is fair.
But yeah, I understand you, it's getting quite ridiculous with all of these re-something lately.

and seriously, when Super Mario Allstars remade Super Mario Bros, they took away World -1

Depends on the game really. Something like the Uncharted games made sense since you couldn't get the full scope of the newest one without playing the previous games on the older consoles (which many peeps no longer have). Even if you did, the games (while still fun) are very dated mechanic wise and nostalgia googles tend to blur out all the bullshit within them that got addressed in the remaster.

Something like Ori and the Blind Forest is more iffy. The difference between the release date of the original to the DE is a little over a year and it feels like this would have been better suited for a patch than a full 'remake'. That being said, there is no magic number that makes a remake appropriate. The Binding of Isaac was remade 3 years after launch (2 if you start counting from Wrath of the Lamb) but was completely redone and it is a lot better for it.

All in all, it depends on the amount of work, both perceived and actual, that went into the game. If it's free, we shouldn't exactly complain and if not, we can always play the original if it's crap :P.

Just so you know: It's "Elder Scrolls" :). Elderly Scrols sound really cute, though... as if those scrolls moved into a nursing home ;D.

Remaster for the sake of making money? Not so much.
But remasters to make the game more accessible to modern players = Definitely YES!

I'm perfectly okay, and happy to pay for remasters of good old classic games. Like the Final Fantasy X and X-2 Remasters. Enjoyed them a lot.

Remakes? No.
Remasters, Hell, yeah!

No, you bought specific game for specific platform.

Even if it looks like, and feels like same product (only remastered) it usually requires to write from ground up ergo should not be free even for owners of old versions imo.

Its similar to owning game on one platform and expecting you will be able to play it on every other platform because "you already bought it once"

Still waiting for Gothic 1/2 remastered... And Unreal (+return to napali) remastered.

You're paying for the additional work done, like retexturing it. You can't just batch process textures to make them better, you can't just make models "HD". If the remake is shitty, don't get it, but I don't see you being entitled to it.

i want fallout 1 and 2 HD versions :/