Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis System Created to Combat the Used Games Market

I remember trying to trade in my copy of Shadow of War only to he told it wasn't worth anything.

I don't know if that's related to this, I just wanted to mention it.

Can’t believe I never played the sequel to one of my favorite games of last generation.

I understand the devs don’t get the money from second hand sales.

But it contributes to the economy, creates jobs, lets people play things they may never have afforded before.

People keep it in library just because it's rarity. It is the only game in the world that has disclaimer in the middle of game.

@themightyant exactly same. But I must admit, I kept the game a little longer after completing it than usual. Just to mess around with the Nemesis system further. So maybe it slightly worked.

Closing the studio that made this game is certainly a novel way to fight the used game market.

I'm literally playing Shadow of War for the first time now. Beat Mordor last week.

If I played these at release, I would've kept them. It's game design like this that reminds me of why I became a gamer in the first place.

@djlard I don’t remember that, what are you referring to?

I've never held on to any game. I play it, complete it, and move on with life. The only games I keep a little longer are multiplayer games, but that too until I've had my fill.

I mean, it’s a cool feature but hardly one that would make me hold onto a game if my mentality is already one where I recycle games to afford new ones. It would be cool if the feature was developed further to where interactions actually affected the story in meaningful ways, not just one-liners and buffs. The novelty of some rando orc remembering me and saying something kind of wears off quickly.

Gotta hand it to the developer, making a game so good that people actually want to hold onto it is a far healthier design philosophy than not caring about people’s regret as it rots in their digital libraries because the developer already has their money. Bravo!

I recommend checking out the full interview. They've got a really interesting perspective. They talked about how dangerous it is to work directly on tie-in games (because the film directors/producers can and do kill the projects if it doesn't fit their taste).

They mention how clueless execs can be (a WB exec asked for some bullet points explaining the plot of Lord of the Rings - even though LotR was one of WBs most successful properties owned).

And they talked about how important it is to keep teams together and how hard that is. She says she actually stepped down when WB asked her to make a second round of redundancies because she wasn't prepared to do it again. And they used the distraction of her stepping down to delay the redundancies until WB got out of the tight spot and didn't need to make them.

I traded my game in but picked it up again at a later date. The orcs were all like, "trade me in did ya?"

Love the Nemesis system.

I think I'm on an island alone here but I put maybe 10 hours into Shadow of Mordor and did not like it at all. It felt so incredibly aimless and goalless... Maybe I was playing it wrong.

I'm very sad the studio closed, though. They had the balls to make a completely original game in the Lord of the Rings world without mentioning Lord of the Rings. And they were obviously talented.

This system is so overhyped. It’s basically an enemy scaling system (which I hate) with a few overly repeated quips and cosmetic flourishes.

As to the cynical attempt to kill the trade in market, what’s new? Seasons, DLC that only releases digitally, one time use codes..it’s all disgusting.

Customers would buy their physical games, play them, and then trade them in at retailers

Just like everyone with a brain still does today (not trade in, just selling)

@Johnnycide After few minutes of gameplay when you first open menu there is full screen disclaimer this game uses Nemesis system which is patented by WB and you have no right to use it elsewhere without permission. It was so embarrassing, hilarious and dense at once so it stuck in mind of lots of gamers. And fact Nemesis system was never used again by any developer, even WB, makes this disclaimer more legendary. It is something like BSOD while revealing first USB port.

Funny enough I bought shadow of Mordor from cex recently £4. This is the exact reason I don’t want a fully download only system. You get absolutely ripped off by online stores as they don’t have true supply and demand economics.

@djlard oh right! I don’t remember that happening. Every days a school day!

The nemesis system really should have been adopted and treated as a mainstay of modern gaming. I wish i couldve seen what it wouldve looked like if passionate developers had been allowed to evolve it over the years. Instead, Warner Bros greedy hands have it captive forever 😑

The "boo-hoo for us" narrative from publishers around the secondhand market has always been nonsense.

The vast majority of people selling on their games have little intention of returning to them (so they'd be gathering dust on a shelf), and they use the funds to buy more games. The ability to sell on games quite literally drove the new game market.

I'd love to see someone make a game with a nemesis system again just to test how far WB would push this patent. Imagine if it was brought before a court and they had to explain how a defeated foe coming back for revenge was some new concept they invented before anyone else.

I understand why studios don't like the second-hand market - but if they succeed in killing it off, I'm not so sure they'll like the results. The people who wait to buy a game second-hand for less will still wait for sales, while some of the people willing to buy day 1 will be less willing to do so when they can't resell their game when they're done. It could end up with lower total sales overall, depending on the sizes of the various groups.

The book industry isn't exactly going gangbusters, but it's faced a used book market for far longer, and manages to survive. It's not really the used market that's the problem, for books OR for games.

@MrPeanutbutterz Yeah but people would buy those used games and then enjoy a publisher's/developer's work with no money going to them. Would the people who bought used have paid full price or waited for a discount if that was their only choice? Impossible to know.

It's likely correspondingly impossible for anyone to ever truly get a reckoning of how much secondhand sales hurt vs helped the market.

I worked at a Gamestop as my part time job in college during the heyday of the PS2 era and we definitely had a lot of games being traded in and sold used during what I would consider their new release window.

Obviously fairly moot at this point since a majority of the market now buys digital. Publishers just needed to wait for the proliferation of high speed internet and a global pandemic to solve the problem for them

@Johnnycide I cannot find screenshot. Maybe it was added to the game later when WB successfully filed patent, I don't know. I played my pre-owned copy few years back, so disclaimer could be implemented few years after release. Maybe it pop-ups again when I'll delete my save. The fact is I had long WTF moment and couldn't believe my own eyes why it has it's very own disclaimer in-game. It was the most weird thing that happened to me in my gaming life.

And yet they patented it and have never used it again since the 2nd game

There are so many potential games that could benefit from that system.

Imagine it in an Arkham game! It seems tailor-made for Batman. It was rumoured to show up again in that cancelled Wonder Woman game of all places.

WB should never have been allowed to restrict use of a great feature like that. They've done nothing with it.

Never heard of the nemesis system before 🤷🏻‍♂️ I bet capcom wouldn’t like them using the name 😂.

I personally didn't like the Middle East games because they were brutally hard and the AI was way too smart. When I played these games I found that when every you got even close to one of the enemies it seems to automatically detect you and the base enemies were much stronger than your starting character. Once you died the game got more difficult. I am sure lots of people enjoyed it, but I was just not interested.