Zombies: Have They Overstayed Their Welcome?

I'm a frequent reader of IGN.com. It's not uncommon to see an announcement about a new zombie game (or zombie mode in a non-zombie game) on their main page, or any other gaming website's. Don't misunderstand me, I love zombies (for reasons that I will touch on below), but this question needs to be asked and it's answer explored before the market becomes over saturated.

If there's one thing the entertainment industry is good at, it's beating a dead horse. Just over a decade ago it was RPGs. More specifically JRPGs. About the same time television networks went on a translation spree of Japanese cartoons. Everything from popular, long running series like Dragon Ball and Poke'mon to the more bizarre Hamtaro was treated with an English dub and aired multiple times a week.

After that it was extreme sports games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX. This is really when the dead horse beatings began, as Activision, the publisher for both of those franchises, learned the art of over saturation.

When this got old and worn out, Master Chief stepped in and made first person shooter versus matches a household event. Electronic Arts and Activision joined the party with Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. During this period, large scale and epically long war movies became popular, though Hollywood didn't drive it home like the video game industry has. During that same movement, rhythm games with goofy controllers became popular. Activision saturated that market so much that MTV Games parted ways with Guitar Hero creator and Rock Band developer Harmonix and Activision shut down it's own Guitar Hero franchise.

None of the above mentioned dead horses have ceased to take a beating, the beating has merely lessened, save for the first person shooter war game. Activision hasn't sucked all the milk of that tit yet. But they have taken the liberty of merging that dead horse with a new one, zombies.

Zombies have been around for a lot longer than Capcom's Dead Rising. In fact, Capcom's own Resident Evil debuted on the Sony PlayStation a full decade before Dead Rising's release. Dead Rising was even strongly influenced by another entry into the zombie media, George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, which was released in 1978.  But I'm going to have to give Dead Rising the credit for this sudden surge in zombie love.

According to Wikipedia, since Dead Rising's release in 2006, 27 zombie themed games have been released. That doesn't include games with zombie modes such as Call of Duty. In the 6 years before Dead Rising, half of that number were released.

Although the market is being flooded with zombie games, the theme hasn't hit the same rut that rhythm games and Call of Duty have hit. Every Guitar Hero game is the same as the last with a new track list and few extra features. The same can be said about Call of Duty, Madden, and the list goes on.

Capcom took the survival route with Resident Evil and a completely different campy, action game with RPG elements with Dead Rising. Valve took a first person shooter, cooperative multiplayer, and zombies and mashed them together to get Left 4 Dead and it's sequel. Rockstar Games added zombies to Red Dead Redemption with Undead Nightmare, a western sandbox game. Dead Nation takes the twitch shooting and the dual analog stick shooter and mashes them together. The not yet released Dead Island is said to be a first person melee game.

This is the most beautiful thing I've seen since the finale of LOST.

Although zombie games are available in abundance, each one takes a very different approach. This keeps the market from truly feeling over saturated, even though there are so many of them. But developers need to look at what happened to Guitar Hero and what is actively happening to Call of Duty. Too much of a good thing can hurt you. Keep it fresh. Don't needlessly flood the market.