I honestly don't know, but I think this leads into a much bigger problem with the "six games" requirement: it artificially rules out any game series that uses a "continuous updates" model for one or a few games, whether that be through expansion packs or frequent content patches.
For example, Dota FIRMLY qualifies by the time rule (it's been around since the mid-2000's in some shape or form), and it's certainly received six games' worth of updates. However, there are only four games from it that really qualify, and of those two are GaidenGames (of which one has thoroughly crashed and burned). League of Legends is similar—it's been around since 2009 with at least eleven major gameplay overhauls (to say nothing of content patches), yet it only really "branched out" beyond the original MOBA in the last few years. MMOs such as Runescape (which has been around for 20+ years but isn't part of a larger series, Old School notwithstanding) also suffer from this.
I'd honestly be in favor of updating the standard to allow for individual games that have received active content updates for at least ten years as well.
Edited by Tortferngatr
Geek
Would Animal Crossing qualify? The franchise has run 19 years and spans 5 confirmed main titles, and three gaiden titles. The reason I'm hesitating is because of where Pocket Camp stands- Not sure if it should be counted as part of the main series (which would raise the number of main titles to six) or consider it a Gaiden Game title. For now I have it commented out.
Quick Question
I think God of War might qualify now, as it just recently had its tenth anniversary, but I wanted to clarify whether or not Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta count toward the minimum game count, as they are PSP titles. Just wanted to be absolutely sure.
Hey, just leaving a message here in case anyone stumbles upon it. I'm thinking about condensing the examples within each franchise under their own folders, in order to reduce the total length of the article. If no one objects, I will begin editing existing examples next week and try to add some guidelines for future tropers.
Only the franchises itself are Longrunners, NOT every single game in that franchise. I'll correct this as soon as possible (in a week or so...), but if anyone else wants to help, I don't mind.
How are expansion packs counted? I guess I was assuming that a full expansion pack is about half of a game, but the page itself never says how to quantify them.
Half-Life, for example, only has three games (discounting Portal and Portal 2) but five or six expansion packs (Opposing Force, Counter-Strike, Blue Shift, Decay, Episode One, and Episode Two).
Edited by AccursedFans Hide / Show Replies