I think the underlying issue is the culture of "claiming" translation goals, with this somehow meaning no one else can or should work on one. Which is, to put it simply: complete *****. If you want to work on a fan translation, then work on it. If you want to be done first and get to claim credit for such, then finish it first. If you can't or won't, then someone else deserves to finish it first.
I think its scarcely even a spoiler to go "Trevor and Sypha's kid". The trailer does everything but put up a neon flashing sign saying "This is their daughter". What might be up for debate is her name, I suspect. Someone might have assumed she'd be called Sonia, because of the prior character usage, when this wasn't actually a confirmed fact.
I think the underlying issue was that, fundamentally? Sega was a hardware company, that happened to make software so as to better show off and sell their fancy hardware. As opposed to Nintendo who was ( and still is ) fundamentally a software company, where the hardware exists to serve the needs of the software.
In retrospect, as much as some developers might have complained about manufacturing costs? The SNES model of "enhancement chips" was absolutely the correct framework.
That first issue is debatable ( assuming Embracer actually is setting up a museum themselves ), but the second? Yeah, that isn't just unprofessional, its criminal. Fake or not, those games are still someone else's property, until and unless you buy them. No purchase, then they still belong to the seller.
I hadn't given it consideration, but. . . does Dracula X Chronicles run at least part of its stuff in emulation? If so, that would mean you'd be running an emulator inside another emulator. . .
I think there are two influences distorting the discussion. On one end, you had changes in the way games were coded that, starting in the mid 2000s, made games at least theoretically easier to port ( ie, you actually could "simply" port them, as opposed to rebuilding them ). Which created a largely-false impression that porting was a matter of pushing a button. On the other end, you have games like the FF7 "Remake", which apply the term 'remake' to games which essentially share nothing with the thing they are theoretically-remaking beyond the pitch bible and concept art.
Between the two, you thus get a disdain for ports as "lazy", and unrealistic expectations for remakes. Hence why developers largely like to name things "remaster", because its a vague term that doesn't trigger as many issues.
It feels a little weird to have a collection where the "FPS issues" are that it is too high. It makes sense in context, though, and begs the question: why? Like, would it really have been too hard to set a FPS cap in the emulator?
Sure. Its just, I get annoyed when the real issues with lazy use of machine upscaling get overwhelmed by a wave of ill-conceived "AI Bad!" Especially since I'm pretty sure developers were using machine learning tools for upscaling, both well and poorly, long before "generative AI" became a buzzword and a boogeyman.
While this is true, its also not entirely some sinister conspiracy. Given how expensive magnetic storage was, "cost engineering" was less a matter of eeking out more profits, and more a genuine way to reduce the cost of goods. The same changes that resulted in 'recent' magnetic disks having less of a lifespan, are also why the cost of a disk in 2000 was pocket change compared to what you'd pay in 1980.
Silly question: Aside from either "redrawing everything from scratch" or "haul out original high res art assets and use them without compression", exactly what would one expect to do to 'remaster' visuals that wouldn't involve some form of machine assistance?
Intellectual Property Law is, or at least is supposed to be, a two-way street. The public provides the creator with a legally-enforced monopoly for a limited time; the creator in turn provides the public with a creative work. Until such time as there is real meaningful reform in IP law ( ex: "use it or lose it" requirements on copyright, compulsory archiving towards public domain ), some degree of piracy is the least-bad solution to the problem. Because, to put it bluntly, IP being a one-way street, where creators benefit from the effort of the public in granting and enforcing rights, but do not actually provide their work to the public? Not acceptable.
( And this remains true, even though probably the majority of people loudly espousing "preservation!" are hypocrites using it as camouflage and rationalization. )
The thing is, "simulation" is itself a video game genre term. . . and it refers to very different types of games than "immersive sim". Microsoft Flight Sim and Deus Ex are not anywhere near each other in genrespace, to put it mildly. Don't fall into the trap of trying to interpret genre labels by looking for the meaning of individual words composing said labels.
The real problem with "immersive sim" is that it overlaps with a lot of other genre labels, moreso than average. This doesn't make it useless as a label, but it does mean that you need to pay a lot more attention to the other genre descriptors. Thief and Deus Ex may both rightfully be part of the "immersive sim" region, but are otherwise very different games.
Also, its much more healthy to produce a diverse library than only a single thing. . . and to invest your budget into said diverse library rather than throwing it all onto a single stack on the misguided idea that adding 10% more budget to a game will produce 10% more sales.
Sure, you prioritize the more successful projects. . . but too many publishers believe that if ( ex ) Call of Duty is their most profitable series, the best way to gain a return on investment is to put your entire budget into Call of Duty. When in reality doubling the budget of an already "fully funded" game almost certainly won't double its sales, because spending money does not magically produce more interested customers. It likely has no real impact at all past a certain point.
Related to this, in my experience virtually all "friendly local game stores" don't just have retail shelves to sell RPGs and cards and miniatures- they have table space and event boards, with which they encourage events and a sense of community. This has allowed establishments to survive and prosper when other small stores didn't, because their community supported them even through tough times.
I suspect that video game stores, even corporate ones like Gamestop, could have leveraged a similar philosophy. Have some table space, maybe a rotating selection of hardware and games to try out ( verging on a mini arcade ), encourage holding small events like local tournaments and contests. Make Gamestop a place people wanted to be, not just a store to pass through. It would have even helped if they had to transition towards more merch and less used games. Its just. . . this would require actually sacrificing quarterly profits in the name of long term health, and most corporate execs have zero interest in the long term.
( Which is why I think the best reforms would be ones which tied top executives more thoroughly to their company, so as to force them to consider the long term, because if the company goes down, they go down with the ship. Fewer golden parachutes, more golden anchors. )
I've long felt there is a demographic within the hobby that is resentful of games being a form of storytelling, in the first place. Its like their ideal is an abstract plotless boardgame, chess with less plot. Or at least that they suffer from media illiteracy and don't realize all the ways storytelling can manifest in a video game ( and and that some of those ways they actively like, they just don't call them storytelling ).
1. Avoiding a list of deadly mistakes, in particular "not having enough funds to allow for ramp up time". Less things you do, and more things you need to not do.
2. Luck. Even a business that makes no mistakes still needs to catch an audience, gain attention, and inspire repeat business. And that is heavily influenced by factors out of your control.
I would say the key issue isn't achievements, per se, its public-facing achievement systems. Lots of games have lists of tasks and goals, of varying quality and varying contribution to the experience of the game itself. When consoles make mandatory public systems, however? It immediately pushes the experience towards being what is effectively a competitive high score chase, only with scores even more disconnected from the actual game experience than normal. This encourages all kinds of bad habits in both designers and players.
Basically, Nintendo has it right: "You can put whatever goals you want in a game, but we aren't going to mandate it and we aren't going to broadcast it. People should play games, to play games. Not to make a public number go up."
Yeah. There is value to photorealism, but probably 90% of the time, game developers/publishers simply use photorealism as an easy and reliable substitute for "actual good art design".
( Note that I said "easy and reliable", not cheap. Photorealism is very expensive, but you can be fairly certain that if you plug in X million dollars worth of man-hours of labor, you will get Y amount of photorealistic visuals. They might be boring or ugly, but they will be photorealistic! Whereas stylized graphics and actual art direction may be far cheaper, but are dependent on the actual quality of your art team and their creative vision. Execs hate "we don't know whether the result will be good, or whether people will want it even if it is good". )
While Falcom did ultimately buy a couple Geofront translations ( with NISA kind of hiring their key workers ), that's a really rare move. And for a reason: most fan translation projects, even big professional grade ones, don't have clean and simple IP ownership. Their isn't some singular person a company could go to and say "We want to buy your work", because its not the work of one person.
More importantly, at least on a ruthless pragmatism level: generative AI may be able to create "something", but it can't create the things those execs actually need to make in order to offer their product for sale. At least for the executives of studios which aren't already shovelware houses, that already deal in "doesn't need to be good". If you aren't aspiring to be a business that views Kemco and Compile Heart as high end competitors? AI is at best an overhyped tool with marginal uses, not a magic "free instant content" button.
Probably because Valve, amongst others, have realized that policies for handling AI can't operate on protest placard-board logic. They need actual rigorous definition about what activity they are trying to examine and regulate. And if they want these policies to matter, they need to be reasonable, and not "if honestly applied everyone will be violating them".
Yeah. In most cases I'd attribute this kind of "shutter a profitable operation" as a misunderstanding of opportunity cost. An exec imagines that budget funneled into a different project would bring in much greater profit, thus they should kill one project to reshuffle the funds. Which can be valid, but depends on an honest and accurate evaluation of whether that would actually happen. Too many publishers think that if ( say ) Call of Duty makes the highest percent profit, than dumping All The Money into COD will produce the highest return. . . . when in actuality, adding more money to an operation does not necessarily increase revenue linearly, or at all. Doubly the budget of Call of Duty doesn't double the number of people interested in buying it, etc.
In this case, though? Sure, the magazine was currently turning a profit, but I bet they predicted that this would change, likely within a single month. That 22nd issue was probably already approved largely as a generousity.
They aren't really even remakes. They are ground up new games, that just happen to share part of a story bible/premise sheet. Just like how Super Castlevania 4 isn't a "remake" of Castlevania 1.
Note, this is not intrinsically a bad thing. You can do some really worthwhile and interesting things by going back to the pitch sheet and starting over from scratch ( see: various Falcom games like Oath in Felghana or Trails in the Sky 1st ). However, I kind of hate the way the FF7 "Remake" especially has distorted the conversation about remakes, where any game which isn't trying to be completely different than the original is somehow lesser.
I would actually agree that the PSP was a failure. However, it wasn't a failure by any intrinsic quality on its own part, including its sales. Its a failure because Sony decided it was a failure, due to some combination of "We aren't interested in anything other than Immediate Final Victory over Nintendo" and "We don't actually want to succeed in the handheld space if it means having to actually make and support handheld gaming".
If the PSP were made by a more pragmatic company, it would have been a huge success. "For the first time ever, someone actually challenged Nintendo's handheld monopoly! And with a distinct sales premise that leverages your own established catalog!" But even the best product concept can't succeed in the face of indifference and hostility by the very company trying to sell it.
. . . sequels should be cheaper than the original, all else being equal. Because you've already done a huge amount of the work, building a codebase and set of creative assets. The entire "we should throw everything out and start from scratch every time" mindset is a big part of what is generally screwing over the medium.
My own theory is that its not actually about "middle vs working" for the most part. After all, lots of high paying jobs that absolutely put you in the middle class, like all the skilled trades, also have not traditionally gotten much respect. I think it has more to do with certain jobs being viewed as "sacrosanct": working in artistic fields viewed as elevated and praised and important, even when the pay is utter crap. Consider the glorified icon of the Starving Artist. Generative AI is thus "bad", not because its taking away jobs, or even taking away higher paying jobs that are "supposed to be" safe. Its "bad", because it cracks the mystique that participating in "art" automatically makes you a superior person, a secular priest participating in a holy calling.
I put a lot of the blame on the fact that the tech market largely exists in an ecosystem that is entirely artificial and created. That's allowed a whole lot of theoretically-smart people to think they had way more understanding and control of the world than they do. . . because they had been operating the entire time in a system that was the equivalent of "a spherical cow on a frictionless plane". Hence why "techbros" tend to run into all kinds of problems when they try to move beyond that entirely artificial environment, and solve problems that exist in the larger world that isn't designed by humans, and isn't obliged to be simple or intuitive for humans to understand.
Hey now, they also occasionally allow arcade titles to escape. Its just their non-Genesis console titles that they seem to actively hate and want to vanish into the memory hole.
My suspicion? its less the "taking jobs" part that angers them, so much as the "immigrants" part. Jobs being lost is fine by them, as long as its not leading to money and social status going to the "wrong" ( read: non-white ) people.
single person in the back row tries and fails to clap enthusiastically
I mean, I love FF9. Its debatably my favorite FF game. Doesn't change that a music album is pretty close to the lowest effort "Hey we are doing something!" action S-E could take. Better than a gacha collab, but only just.
I think I'd expand upon that: the big problem is people trying to apply AI to challenges that are poorly suited for being solved by AI, because the things that AI actually can do well and efficiently aren't profitable or "sexy" enough to entice the gigantic capital investment. Art AI could certainly generate near infinite amounts of placeholder/alpha quality visual assets, for instance. However, since no one is going to make a fortune with a quicker, better source for placeholder art? They instead promote it as being totally able to produce AAA final release grade art "any day now". And thus that gets the investor dollars, even though it is at best only true with so many asterisks attached as to be moot. Presumably the salespeople are hoping to disappear with the cash before everyone finally admits that they spent billions on a tech that only slightly reduces the total man-hour-dollars needed to produce something.
While this almost certainly was nothing more than water cooler spitballing at absolute most. . . I kind of could see it working. After all, Capcom made puzzle games out of their fighters, and IIRC so did SNK. The precedent is there. The big issue, I suspect, is whether the western fanbase ( or developers ) would be willing to accept the intrinsic parody this would involve; versus being outraged at their definitely-serious games being mocked.
My theory: the inevitable copyright takedowns are not a tragic outcome, they are part of the plan. Its an intended part of the theater, whether for the personal ego-boost of being "oppressed by the man" or else as a cynical marketing move that earns them far more headlines and eyeballs.
Yeah, I'm more cynical. My own suspicion is that the "multiple projects" are more like a t-shirt line and a six week collab with a gacha game. Any actual substantial rerelease would be a nice surprise. . . provided, of course, the coin landed "heads" and it was actually a good rerelease.
The optimistic theory: They realized how abusive Roblox is and decided they didn't really want to get involved in something that was likely to draw bad PR and regulation eventually.
The cynical theory: They hate the idea of even theoretically having to share money with content creators, versus a GAAS where they get all the money themselves.
The most likely theory: The idea simply didn't occur to them, not at a relevant time. They just aren't that creative or insightful.
Depends. In terms of "ceasing to be major ongoing franchises", I'd say its mostly a matter of shifting trends + only wanting to invest in the biggest moneymakers. AAA publishers especially seem to have a bad habit of undervaluing diversity of library. Why spend money on Ridge Racer if racing games aren't doing so well, while fighting games are selling tons- just make Tekken and Soul Calibur. "Great" idea, until you've overinvested in one genre or series, needing ridiculously high sales to pay it back, and the tastes shift again.
In terms of keeping classic games in circulation? I think that's mostly a matter of organizational culture, along with "Are you bad at actually saving your work?" Bandai Namco does seem to be unusually bad about this. You'd think at the very least they'd do some cheap and easy Tekken and Soul Calibur collections for easy money off their marquis franchises, but its like they hate the idea of people buying their old games.
Steam Deck and other handhelds. . . that cost considerably more than a Switch 2. To the degree that, aside from the Steam Deck, none of them are market relevant in the slightest ( remember, even the Steam Deck, by far the most successful handheld PC, has sold such few units that it does not even register in the console market ).
Or, no. No matter whether one random person on an internet comments thread might be willing to spend $600+ on a folding screen Switch 2, the audience in general for such isn't there.
Could it be a case of "We're testing the waters and so picked characters that seemed less likely to immediate trigger CADs from S-E"? Capcom being a much more known factor, in terms of what they will tolerate in fan projects.
It should be very easy to see why Nintendo didn't go this route: cost. People already grumble about the price of the Switch 2. Nintendo wasn't going to add a cutting edge new screen tech that would have added another couple hundred to the retail price.
This does make me wonder: what is the most technically impressive "homebrew" game developed for each console? Which, admittedly, would first require what "counts" and is allowable. For instance, would the Roadblaster "port" to SNES be legal, or would it be disqualified due to using an "expansion chip" that never existed to run CD-ROM data that the SNES could never read?
I think the key that too many people overlook is that older simpler games. . . yes, they may be older and simpler. But that is exactly what makes them work better as learning tools for modern developers. Its not that single screen arcade games are "better". Its that single screen arcade games, or the like, have fewer components and thus bring greater clarity to the game design. You can more readily learn about dynamic difficulty, and how to generate difficulty from mechanics, via something like Space Invaders than from RE4, for example.
The problem with the "just release it and find out" plan is that you only need a certain lesser degree of certainty about ownership to get a giant ruinous lawsuit going. Its possible one of the maybe-owners wouldn't even need to prove that they owned it, simply to prove to a judge that the party releasing it knew that they didn't.
"Better" is a very dicey word, is the thing. It wouldn't reference specific keystone titles, but whether that's actually a merit in real life is highly debatable. Especially since, while referencing games like Metroid and SOTN might not be "elegant", its also a lot less ambiguous. Whereas "Adventure-Platformer" uses one of the most broad and vague genre labels ( Adventure ), and manages to say absolutely nothing about the navigational focus of actual metroidvanias.
And, regardless of all the theoreticals? Any suggested alternative term has to overcome the fact that 'metroidvania' is jargon we already have and already use. It takes a lot more benefit to justify the greater effort of replacing an existing term, versus creating an entirely new term.
Comments 112
Re: "What A Terrible Waste Of Time All Of It Was" - Princess Crown's Original Translation Is Dead
I think the underlying issue is the culture of "claiming" translation goals, with this somehow meaning no one else can or should work on one. Which is, to put it simply: complete *****. If you want to work on a fan translation, then work on it. If you want to be done first and get to claim credit for such, then finish it first. If you can't or won't, then someone else deserves to finish it first.
Re: Sony Confirms Exactly Who You'll Be Controlling In Castlevania: Belmont's Curse
I think its scarcely even a spoiler to go "Trevor and Sypha's kid". The trailer does everything but put up a neon flashing sign saying "This is their daughter". What might be up for debate is her name, I suspect. Someone might have assumed she'd be called Sonia, because of the prior character usage, when this wasn't actually a confirmed fact.
Re: The "Last And Greatest Mystery" Of The Sega Saturn Has Been Revealed
@sanmansan
I think the underlying issue was that, fundamentally? Sega was a hardware company, that happened to make software so as to better show off and sell their fancy hardware. As opposed to Nintendo who was ( and still is ) fundamentally a software company, where the hardware exists to serve the needs of the software.
Re: The "Last And Greatest Mystery" Of The Sega Saturn Has Been Revealed
@Zenszulu
In retrospect, as much as some developers might have complained about manufacturing costs? The SNES model of "enhancement chips" was absolutely the correct framework.
Re: The National Videogame Museum Has Acquired A "Mythical" Nintendo PlayStation
@Sketcz
That first issue is debatable ( assuming Embracer actually is setting up a museum themselves ), but the second? Yeah, that isn't just unprofessional, its criminal. Fake or not, those games are still someone else's property, until and unless you buy them. No purchase, then they still belong to the seller.
Re: Tokimeki Memorial, FIFA And Dragon Quest Could Make It Into The World Video Game Hall Of Fame
My own picks would be Dragon Quest, Mega Man, and Silent Hill
Re: Everyone's Favourite PSP Emulator Just Got Even Better
@h3s
I hadn't given it consideration, but. . . does Dracula X Chronicles run at least part of its stuff in emulation? If so, that would mean you'd be running an emulator inside another emulator. . .
Re: "I Call It 'Remaster' To Poke Fun At The PS3 Version" - ICO Gets An Unofficial Upgrade On PS2
I think there are two influences distorting the discussion. On one end, you had changes in the way games were coded that, starting in the mid 2000s, made games at least theoretically easier to port ( ie, you actually could "simply" port them, as opposed to rebuilding them ). Which created a largely-false impression that porting was a matter of pushing a button. On the other end, you have games like the FF7 "Remake", which apply the term 'remake' to games which essentially share nothing with the thing they are theoretically-remaking beyond the pitch bible and concept art.
Between the two, you thus get a disdain for ports as "lazy", and unrealistic expectations for remakes. Hence why developers largely like to name things "remaster", because its a vague term that doesn't trigger as many issues.
Re: Raiden Fighters Remix Collection Branded "Absolutely Unacceptable" By Disgruntled Fans
It feels a little weird to have a collection where the "FPS issues" are that it is too high. It makes sense in context, though, and begs the question: why? Like, would it really have been too hard to set a FPS cap in the emulator?
Re: Japanese PlayStation Exclusive '70's Robot Anime Geppy-X' Is Coming To Modern Systems
@smoreon
Sure. Its just, I get annoyed when the real issues with lazy use of machine upscaling get overwhelmed by a wave of ill-conceived "AI Bad!" Especially since I'm pretty sure developers were using machine learning tools for upscaling, both well and poorly, long before "generative AI" became a buzzword and a boogeyman.
Re: Hyper Sentinel Fusion Ships On A "Floppy Disk" And Is Now Live On Kickstarter
@axelhander
While this is true, its also not entirely some sinister conspiracy. Given how expensive magnetic storage was, "cost engineering" was less a matter of eeking out more profits, and more a genuine way to reduce the cost of goods. The same changes that resulted in 'recent' magnetic disks having less of a lifespan, are also why the cost of a disk in 2000 was pocket change compared to what you'd pay in 1980.
Re: Japanese PlayStation Exclusive '70's Robot Anime Geppy-X' Is Coming To Modern Systems
Silly question: Aside from either "redrawing everything from scratch" or "haul out original high res art assets and use them without compression", exactly what would one expect to do to 'remaster' visuals that wouldn't involve some form of machine assistance?
Re: "This Is What AI And Greed Does" - Video Game 'Preservation Service' Myrient Is Shutting Down
Intellectual Property Law is, or at least is supposed to be, a two-way street. The public provides the creator with a legally-enforced monopoly for a limited time; the creator in turn provides the public with a creative work. Until such time as there is real meaningful reform in IP law ( ex: "use it or lose it" requirements on copyright, compulsory archiving towards public domain ), some degree of piracy is the least-bad solution to the problem. Because, to put it bluntly, IP being a one-way street, where creators benefit from the effort of the public in granting and enforcing rights, but do not actually provide their work to the public? Not acceptable.
( And this remains true, even though probably the majority of people loudly espousing "preservation!" are hypocrites using it as camouflage and rationalization. )
Re: Deus Ex Designers Still Disagree On This Unique Solution To "An Immersive-Sim Problem"
@sbeng135
The thing is, "simulation" is itself a video game genre term. . . and it refers to very different types of games than "immersive sim". Microsoft Flight Sim and Deus Ex are not anywhere near each other in genrespace, to put it mildly. Don't fall into the trap of trying to interpret genre labels by looking for the meaning of individual words composing said labels.
The real problem with "immersive sim" is that it overlaps with a lot of other genre labels, moreso than average. This doesn't make it useless as a label, but it does mean that you need to pay a lot more attention to the other genre descriptors. Thief and Deus Ex may both rightfully be part of the "immersive sim" region, but are otherwise very different games.
Re: The Making Of: Omega Boost - "Layzner's Movement Was Burned Into My Imagination" - How Yuji Yasuhara Created A PS1 Mecha Classic
@Vyse_the_Legend
Also, its much more healthy to produce a diverse library than only a single thing. . . and to invest your budget into said diverse library rather than throwing it all onto a single stack on the misguided idea that adding 10% more budget to a game will produce 10% more sales.
Sure, you prioritize the more successful projects. . . but too many publishers believe that if ( ex ) Call of Duty is their most profitable series, the best way to gain a return on investment is to put your entire budget into Call of Duty. When in reality doubling the budget of an already "fully funded" game almost certainly won't double its sales, because spending money does not magically produce more interested customers. It likely has no real impact at all past a certain point.
Re: They Buried My Beloved CeX
@Count_of_Monte_Fisto
Related to this, in my experience virtually all "friendly local game stores" don't just have retail shelves to sell RPGs and cards and miniatures- they have table space and event boards, with which they encourage events and a sense of community. This has allowed establishments to survive and prosper when other small stores didn't, because their community supported them even through tough times.
I suspect that video game stores, even corporate ones like Gamestop, could have leveraged a similar philosophy. Have some table space, maybe a rotating selection of hardware and games to try out ( verging on a mini arcade ), encourage holding small events like local tournaments and contests. Make Gamestop a place people wanted to be, not just a store to pass through. It would have even helped if they had to transition towards more merch and less used games. Its just. . . this would require actually sacrificing quarterly profits in the name of long term health, and most corporate execs have zero interest in the long term.
( Which is why I think the best reforms would be ones which tied top executives more thoroughly to their company, so as to force them to consider the long term, because if the company goes down, they go down with the ship. Fewer golden parachutes, more golden anchors. )
Re: "A Woefully Underrated N64 Underdog" - Treasure's Bangai-O Gets Not One But Two New English Translations
@Sketcz
I've long felt there is a demographic within the hobby that is resentful of games being a form of storytelling, in the first place. Its like their ideal is an abstract plotless boardgame, chess with less plot. Or at least that they suffer from media illiteracy and don't realize all the ways storytelling can manifest in a video game ( and and that some of those ways they actively like, they just don't call them storytelling ).
Re: "One Of The Best-Run Arcades I've Ever Seen" - Take A Look Inside Prince Arcades
@Peteykins
I suspect its a mix of two things:
1. Avoiding a list of deadly mistakes, in particular "not having enough funds to allow for ramp up time". Less things you do, and more things you need to not do.
2. Luck. Even a business that makes no mistakes still needs to catch an audience, gain attention, and inspire repeat business. And that is heavily influenced by factors out of your control.
Re: Achievement Unlocked - This Free Service Has Changed The Way I Play Retro Games In 2026
@Martin_H
I would say the key issue isn't achievements, per se, its public-facing achievement systems. Lots of games have lists of tasks and goals, of varying quality and varying contribution to the experience of the game itself. When consoles make mandatory public systems, however? It immediately pushes the experience towards being what is effectively a competitive high score chase, only with scores even more disconnected from the actual game experience than normal. This encourages all kinds of bad habits in both designers and players.
Basically, Nintendo has it right: "You can put whatever goals you want in a game, but we aren't going to mandate it and we aren't going to broadcast it. People should play games, to play games. Not to make a public number go up."
Re: Random: Fan-Made 'Star Fox CD' Adds The Hornet From Daytona USA, Because Why Not
@Blast16
Yeah. There is value to photorealism, but probably 90% of the time, game developers/publishers simply use photorealism as an easy and reliable substitute for "actual good art design".
( Note that I said "easy and reliable", not cheap. Photorealism is very expensive, but you can be fairly certain that if you plug in X million dollars worth of man-hours of labor, you will get Y amount of photorealistic visuals. They might be boring or ugly, but they will be photorealistic! Whereas stylized graphics and actual art direction may be far cheaper, but are dependent on the actual quality of your art team and their creative vision. Execs hate "we don't know whether the result will be good, or whether people will want it even if it is good". )
Re: Japanese Fans Are Getting A Ganbare Goemon Collection, And We've Never Been More Jealous
@Sketcz
While Falcom did ultimately buy a couple Geofront translations ( with NISA kind of hiring their key workers ), that's a really rare move. And for a reason: most fan translation projects, even big professional grade ones, don't have clean and simple IP ownership. Their isn't some singular person a company could go to and say "We want to buy your work", because its not the work of one person.
Re: "Built On Theft And Plagiarism" - A Growing Number Of Game Developers Are Sick To Death Of Generative AI
@Scollurio
More importantly, at least on a ruthless pragmatism level: generative AI may be able to create "something", but it can't create the things those execs actually need to make in order to offer their product for sale. At least for the executives of studios which aren't already shovelware houses, that already deal in "doesn't need to be good". If you aren't aspiring to be a business that views Kemco and Compile Heart as high end competitors? AI is at best an overhyped tool with marginal uses, not a magic "free instant content" button.
Re: "Built On Theft And Plagiarism" - A Growing Number Of Game Developers Are Sick To Death Of Generative AI
@gingerbeardman
Probably because Valve, amongst others, have realized that policies for handling AI can't operate on protest placard-board logic. They need actual rigorous definition about what activity they are trying to examine and regulate. And if they want these policies to matter, they need to be reasonable, and not "if honestly applied everyone will be violating them".
Re: Here's Why Official Dreamcast Magazine Never Got A Proper Final Issue
@smoreon @Sketcz
Yeah. In most cases I'd attribute this kind of "shutter a profitable operation" as a misunderstanding of opportunity cost. An exec imagines that budget funneled into a different project would bring in much greater profit, thus they should kill one project to reshuffle the funds. Which can be valid, but depends on an honest and accurate evaluation of whether that would actually happen. Too many publishers think that if ( say ) Call of Duty makes the highest percent profit, than dumping All The Money into COD will produce the highest return. . . . when in actuality, adding more money to an operation does not necessarily increase revenue linearly, or at all. Doubly the budget of Call of Duty doesn't double the number of people interested in buying it, etc.
In this case, though? Sure, the magazine was currently turning a profit, but I bet they predicted that this would change, likely within a single month. That 22nd issue was probably already approved largely as a generousity.
Re: Final Fantasy VII Is Getting A New Steam Version "To Provide An Improved Gameplay Experience"
@heligo
They aren't really even remakes. They are ground up new games, that just happen to share part of a story bible/premise sheet. Just like how Super Castlevania 4 isn't a "remake" of Castlevania 1.
Note, this is not intrinsically a bad thing. You can do some really worthwhile and interesting things by going back to the pitch sheet and starting over from scratch ( see: various Falcom games like Oath in Felghana or Trails in the Sky 1st ). However, I kind of hate the way the FF7 "Remake" especially has distorted the conversation about remakes, where any game which isn't trying to be completely different than the original is somehow lesser.
Re: Apparently, The PSP Counts As A Failure To Some People Now
I would actually agree that the PSP was a failure. However, it wasn't a failure by any intrinsic quality on its own part, including its sales. Its a failure because Sony decided it was a failure, due to some combination of "We aren't interested in anything other than Immediate Final Victory over Nintendo" and "We don't actually want to succeed in the handheld space if it means having to actually make and support handheld gaming".
If the PSP were made by a more pragmatic company, it would have been a huge success. "For the first time ever, someone actually challenged Nintendo's handheld monopoly! And with a distinct sales premise that leverages your own established catalog!" But even the best product concept can't succeed in the face of indifference and hostility by the very company trying to sell it.
Re: "Part Of Me Looked Down On America" - Sakura Wars Creator On Japanese Gaming's Rise And Fall
. . . sequels should be cheaper than the original, all else being equal. Because you've already done a huge amount of the work, building a codebase and set of creative assets. The entire "we should throw everything out and start from scratch every time" mindset is a big part of what is generally screwing over the medium.
Re: "The Fine Arts Were Always A Massive Grift" - Controversial Earthworm Jim Creator Goes All-In On Generative AI
@h3s
My own theory is that its not actually about "middle vs working" for the most part. After all, lots of high paying jobs that absolutely put you in the middle class, like all the skilled trades, also have not traditionally gotten much respect. I think it has more to do with certain jobs being viewed as "sacrosanct": working in artistic fields viewed as elevated and praised and important, even when the pay is utter crap. Consider the glorified icon of the Starving Artist. Generative AI is thus "bad", not because its taking away jobs, or even taking away higher paying jobs that are "supposed to be" safe. Its "bad", because it cracks the mystique that participating in "art" automatically makes you a superior person, a secular priest participating in a holy calling.
Re: "I Was Always Very Against AI..." - Cyberpunk Saturn JRPG 'Cyber Doll' Is Getting A Fan Translation, But There's A Catch
@Bakamoichigei
I put a lot of the blame on the fact that the tech market largely exists in an ecosystem that is entirely artificial and created. That's allowed a whole lot of theoretically-smart people to think they had way more understanding and control of the world than they do. . . because they had been operating the entire time in a system that was the equivalent of "a spherical cow on a frictionless plane". Hence why "techbros" tend to run into all kinds of problems when they try to move beyond that entirely artificial environment, and solve problems that exist in the larger world that isn't designed by humans, and isn't obliged to be simple or intuitive for humans to understand.
Re: Treasure's Sublime Guardian Heroes Turns 30 Today, Which Makes Us Sad We Never Got A Proper Sequel
@gojiguy
Hey now, they also occasionally allow arcade titles to escape. Its just their non-Genesis console titles that they seem to actively hate and want to vanish into the memory hole.
Re: "The Fine Arts Were Always A Massive Grift" - Controversial Earthworm Jim Creator Goes All-In On Generative AI
@Razieluigi
My suspicion? its less the "taking jobs" part that angers them, so much as the "immigrants" part. Jobs being lost is fine by them, as long as its not leading to money and social status going to the "wrong" ( read: non-white ) people.
Re: Square Enix's Next Final Fantasy IX Project Is A "Deep House" Album, Inspired By The Game's Iconic Soundtrack
single person in the back row tries and fails to clap enthusiastically
I mean, I love FF9. Its debatably my favorite FF game. Doesn't change that a music album is pretty close to the lowest effort "Hey we are doing something!" action S-E could take. Better than a gacha collab, but only just.
Re: "I Was Always Very Against AI..." - Cyberpunk Saturn JRPG 'Cyber Doll' Is Getting A Fan Translation, But There's A Catch
@Bakamoichigei
I think I'd expand upon that: the big problem is people trying to apply AI to challenges that are poorly suited for being solved by AI, because the things that AI actually can do well and efficiently aren't profitable or "sexy" enough to entice the gigantic capital investment. Art AI could certainly generate near infinite amounts of placeholder/alpha quality visual assets, for instance. However, since no one is going to make a fortune with a quicker, better source for placeholder art? They instead promote it as being totally able to produce AAA final release grade art "any day now". And thus that gets the investor dollars, even though it is at best only true with so many asterisks attached as to be moot. Presumably the salespeople are hoping to disappear with the cash before everyone finally admits that they spent billions on a tech that only slightly reduces the total man-hour-dollars needed to produce something.
Re: Flagship Chuck's Arcade Kansas City Location Closes Without Warning
@mouthwash
The issue is less that it closed, or even that it closed unexpectedly. Its that it closed, without any official notice or statement.
Re: "I Can Safely Say It's B**locks" - Ex-Rare Devs Debunk Killer Instinct 'Panel De Pon' Rumour
While this almost certainly was nothing more than water cooler spitballing at absolute most. . . I kind of could see it working. After all, Capcom made puzzle games out of their fighters, and IIRC so did SNK. The precedent is there. The big issue, I suspect, is whether the western fanbase ( or developers ) would be willing to accept the intrinsic parody this would involve; versus being outraged at their definitely-serious games being mocked.
Re: The Making Of: Dungeon Master, A Truly Trailblazing First-Person RPG
Silly question: does anyone know why Dungeon Master is not currently available for sale, even on GOG?
Re: "This Was Not Something We Wanted" - Bully's Fanmade Online Mod Has Been Shut Down, After Just One Month
My theory: the inevitable copyright takedowns are not a tragic outcome, they are part of the plan. Its an intended part of the theater, whether for the personal ego-boost of being "oppressed by the man" or else as a cynical marketing move that earns them far more headlines and eyeballs.
Re: A New Orchestral Album Celebrating The 30th Anniversary Of Chrono Trigger Has Just Been Released
@JackGYarwood
Yeah, I'm more cynical. My own suspicion is that the "multiple projects" are more like a t-shirt line and a six week collab with a gacha game. Any actual substantial rerelease would be a nice surprise. . . provided, of course, the coin landed "heads" and it was actually a good rerelease.
Re: Tired Of Waiting For Bandai Namco, Someone Has Finally Given Us 'Ridge Racer HD' - But It's Only In Dreams
@ItsAlwaysSunnyyy
The optimistic theory: They realized how abusive Roblox is and decided they didn't really want to get involved in something that was likely to draw bad PR and regulation eventually.
The cynical theory: They hate the idea of even theoretically having to share money with content creators, versus a GAAS where they get all the money themselves.
The most likely theory: The idea simply didn't occur to them, not at a relevant time. They just aren't that creative or insightful.
Re: Tired Of Waiting For Bandai Namco, Someone Has Finally Given Us 'Ridge Racer HD' - But It's Only In Dreams
@MARl0
Depends. In terms of "ceasing to be major ongoing franchises", I'd say its mostly a matter of shifting trends + only wanting to invest in the biggest moneymakers. AAA publishers especially seem to have a bad habit of undervaluing diversity of library. Why spend money on Ridge Racer if racing games aren't doing so well, while fighting games are selling tons- just make Tekken and Soul Calibur. "Great" idea, until you've overinvested in one genre or series, needing ridiculously high sales to pay it back, and the tastes shift again.
In terms of keeping classic games in circulation? I think that's mostly a matter of organizational culture, along with "Are you bad at actually saving your work?" Bandai Namco does seem to be unusually bad about this. You'd think at the very least they'd do some cheap and easy Tekken and Soul Calibur collections for easy money off their marquis franchises, but its like they hate the idea of people buying their old games.
Re: We're Now Entering The Era Of Folding-Screen Gaming Handhelds
@Axelay71
Steam Deck and other handhelds. . . that cost considerably more than a Switch 2. To the degree that, aside from the Steam Deck, none of them are market relevant in the slightest ( remember, even the Steam Deck, by far the most successful handheld PC, has sold such few units that it does not even register in the console market ).
Or, no. No matter whether one random person on an internet comments thread might be willing to spend $600+ on a folding screen Switch 2, the audience in general for such isn't there.
Re: Industry Giants Capcom And Square Collide In This New Fan-Made Fighter
Could it be a case of "We're testing the waters and so picked characters that seemed less likely to immediate trigger CADs from S-E"? Capcom being a much more known factor, in terms of what they will tolerate in fan projects.
Re: Best Of 2025: The Making Of Fight Club, The Game David Fincher Didn't Want You To Play
I wonder how many people watched Fight Club, going into the theater expecting either an action movie or possibly a ( combat ) sports movie?
Re: We're Now Entering The Era Of Folding-Screen Gaming Handhelds
@Axelay71 @Axelay71
It should be very easy to see why Nintendo didn't go this route: cost. People already grumble about the price of the Switch 2. Nintendo wasn't going to add a cutting edge new screen tech that would have added another couple hundred to the retail price.
Re: Roguecraft DX Is Coming To The Amiga, Mega65, And Game Boy Color
This does make me wonder: what is the most technically impressive "homebrew" game developed for each console? Which, admittedly, would first require what "counts" and is allowable. For instance, would the Roadblaster "port" to SNES be legal, or would it be disqualified due to using an "expansion chip" that never existed to run CD-ROM data that the SNES could never read?
Re: Best Of 2025: Tomohiro Nishikado On Making 'Space Invaders' And What Makes Games Fun
I think the key that too many people overlook is that older simpler games. . . yes, they may be older and simpler. But that is exactly what makes them work better as learning tools for modern developers. Its not that single screen arcade games are "better". Its that single screen arcade games, or the like, have fewer components and thus bring greater clarity to the game design. You can more readily learn about dynamic difficulty, and how to generate difficulty from mechanics, via something like Space Invaders than from RE4, for example.
Re: Best Of 2025: The Making Of The Operative - No One Lives Forever, Monolith's Classic Spy-Themed FPS Trapped In Licensing Hell
The problem with the "just release it and find out" plan is that you only need a certain lesser degree of certainty about ownership to get a giant ruinous lawsuit going. Its possible one of the maybe-owners wouldn't even need to prove that they owned it, simply to prove to a judge that the party releasing it knew that they didn't.
Re: Who Created The Term "Metroidvania"? Gaming Historian Critical Kate Tries To Find Out
@Fallingshadow
"Better" is a very dicey word, is the thing. It wouldn't reference specific keystone titles, but whether that's actually a merit in real life is highly debatable. Especially since, while referencing games like Metroid and SOTN might not be "elegant", its also a lot less ambiguous. Whereas "Adventure-Platformer" uses one of the most broad and vague genre labels ( Adventure ), and manages to say absolutely nothing about the navigational focus of actual metroidvanias.
And, regardless of all the theoreticals? Any suggested alternative term has to overcome the fact that 'metroidvania' is jargon we already have and already use. It takes a lot more benefit to justify the greater effort of replacing an existing term, versus creating an entirely new term.
Re: More Old Capcom Mobile Games Have Been Saved From Digital Oblivion, Including A Breath Of Fire IV Card Game
I wonder how many of those Capcom actually still has in their possession, or whether they lost/discarded them, too.
Re: Hitoshi Sakimoto's 40-Year Career In Video Game Music Is Being Celebrated With A New Concert
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim has some of the best music to be found in the entire medium.