Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is remembered for many reasons, but perhaps best of all for its Nemesis system, an incredible mechanic for generating memorable Orc encounters. According to a former executive, the Nemesis system came about from trying to solve a different problem: secondhand sales.
In a new video, Laura Fryer — former vice president of WB Games who oversaw the publisher’s Seattle studios at the time — talked about her time with Monolith. While discussing the way trend-chasing affects the industry, Fryer mentioned that chasing trends is what “literally led to the Nemesis system.”
This sounds to me like the right way to combat secondhand sales. Rather than making the game shitty and/or locking features behind online-only, unlock-keyed connections, they added a content mechanic that was actually fun.
I mean, this is basically the entire premise behind roguelike games, just applied to an action RPG instead (in a small way).