So, I recently made this poll on Twitter. The reason why I did is because, well, I don't know how many of you guys have noticed, but while there's been debates about Spyro's return in the form of a remaster, there's also been a some debate with Spyro's state, too. I'm going to come out and say this: I've been among those who have been against what Activision has doing, and would still complain that Activision has been purposefully screwing Spyro to keep his name alive. I'm basically still disgusted with how they handled him in Skylanders to do this, but you know how kids are; they always want something new that'd be immediately trending within their demographic, and they like fantastic ****. Considering the other kids' games at the time, I'm only now saying that what 'vision did here was a bit smarter than a freaking majority of OGs have said given them credit for.
But I will say this: toys sell, turns out, when combining with a game. The haters would consider that to be the only benefit of 'landers and say everything else about it is a sin, even with the publicity it got, and this behavior is primarily because of design choice that, news flash, they might've designed while knowing Spyro's current state with his own franchise. I'd say that it's been part of a long-term plan Acti has had ever since 2009 or even 2008, but one that they did a very damn good job hiding.
My basic bet is Acti noticed how much to **** Spyro was getting into, and TLoS wasn't attractive enough to kids to save him. They needed kid bait. They probably still liked peripheral gaming around the time, given how close of a gap between the last GH game was before it and all, so they were very comfortable with concepting the ideas for a Spyro toy game, but I've also heard that there was supposed to be some Crash toys-to-life game. Idk. Saw someone on Spyroforum mention it, but I can't find it, so I don't know if it was that, or Crash Landed.
Either way, I'm sure that Acti knew at the time that you can't have Spyro without Crash. However, the two's handling has shown you can have Crash without Spyro. They also must have noticed the popular belief that has been established that they themselves *need* to have games together, but had to figure out how to restore Spyro's reputation without making Crash's overshadowing Spyro's too much, hence the cancellation of whatever Crash game that was going to release at the time. The surface reason would reveal obvious franchise civil rivalry that could have erupted, but then Crash came back to be with Spyro in the last 'landers game. It's weird, but...
We all know that Sony's been teasing with Crash for years, only to deny qualms for returns until just recently. Crash and 'landers were used as a distraction to make us believe that there was nothing being done, but the way they did it scares me. In Crash's case, they hyped us up for a Crash that never came, but at a time audiences were lost, so there was probably the angry few at first, but word still got out about either the existence of the game or just his existence in general due to a withdrawal. They played on our withdrawal for years to come after that, so more people could experience the sensation of wanting Crash.
And then in 'landers' case, they pretty much kept 'landers existing to make the OGs hype its death, for a death that wouldn't have come until (sort of) now, in order for a new Spyro game to actually be hoped for. That's word coming out, too. The difference was that it had to be carefully curated so the OGs are aware enough to spread word of Spyro's existence, so they can clarify confusion over these radically two franchises Spyro participates in, sure, but have different universes and concepts within themselves. Suffice it to say, but it still had to take time; I still remember the day when a kid mentioned the wrong game when I showed OG Spyro them.
Yeah, this is actually unfortunately how the actually somewhat necessary flamewars have come to exist, and they were somewhat necessary to get the curious uninformed to learn about what Spyro is actually supposed to be. At the same time, they had to be controlled flamewars, and ones that wouldn't overwhelm 'landers. Hell, they generally needed to continue the series just to find subliminal ways to put as many OG elements into the game as possible, as if they wanted to say, "We wanted this to be Spyro. This is the Spyro that should have come from those who have tried to innovate the series." Still, people would always dismiss that and pay attention to "what they did to their poor Spyro bab." They would do that, put hate on Acti, make them infamous for essentially beating up what was once their best puppy that has been mutated into the ugliest pug.
Yet still, a solo Spyro game wouldn't have worked in 2009 or 2011, due to how they left off TLoS, a game that was trying too hard to mash up Devil May Cry and LotR, aka, not-Spyro. The internet was rising at a time that two forced-love dragons were becoming more prominent than the game that had Realms. Literally, one quote I got from a ThisCrispyKat deviation says:
Quote: from ThisCrispyKat's Sparkly Clouds
... Did we seriously just forget the realms? All this time the fandom could've been sending dragons to go fight, I don't know, Victorian steampunk cyborg-birds in the starry skies over London-esque streets or have their fanspawn explore the sprawling multicolored reefs of an underwater world, and fandom's been too busy rehashing the same stories over and over because we all forgot about the realms?
However, the fact is, they still successfully raised awareness. They are probably in the process of doing final preparations for returning Spyro to his form. Spyro has been F4F'd with an official endorsement, and I actually was told by a VV employee, to my face: "We are bringing Spyro back!" All of the business decisions to do this, has, in the end, made me decide to dismiss any Spyro game to come in the future nonetheless, but it's been a smart run for them. By the time Acti is ready to return Spyro to form, the majority audience should be old enough to distinguish Spyro's own games. They will know who he is. They will make Spyro the success he should have been (I hope).
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