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This Week in Games - Arms


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belvadeer





PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 12:02 pm Reply with quote
At this point, I don't think anyone would weep if Konami crashed and burned, unless they were tears of joy. What a deplorable company they've become.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 12:03 pm Reply with quote
The hesitance of crowdfunding seems to have overshadowed the actual successes borne out of it, like Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Freedom Planet, Shovel Knight, the extra content for Skullgirls, and the licensed content for The Pinball Arcade (the Star Trek name ain't cheap!).

The pattern I've noticed is that video game crowdfunding best benefits small companies founded by people who also started out small: Every game listed above is from a company that has never really become big, nor are they run by anyone who's ever worked for a big company. By contrast, the games that became critically panned, ran over budget, or some other problems tend to be led by someone who once worked for a major developer. That's the way I see it.

As for Rap Rabbit, it was mentioned in the other articles, but I think a variety of factors were behind its failure to meet its goal rather than it being a video game, or even a video game by a cult legend. I think it's due to the lack of platforms (and I'll mention again, if they could pull it off on mobile, the campaign would've been much closer to reaching its goal), the language-inaccessibility of its very nature, the fact that rhythm games with original music has not been popular in the west for some time, PaRappa having lost its mainstream recognition (as well as 90's-style rapping, which is why ToeJam & Earl is now very niche), the lack of clear and unambiguous gameplay footage so people know what to expect (ideally a demo would be available), and the lack of promoting the project outside of the campaign.

Everyone in crowdfunding communities has heard of Mighty No. 9. Barely anyone seems to have heard of Rap Rabbit.
---
As for ARMS, after a good launch day run, I started sucking like a black hole at it. It used to be that I was doing well enough to keep getting health penalties in Party Mode, but by Sunday, half of my opponents had pulled off Perfects against me. I take it it's Grand Prix mode, but at the same time, there's something that just isn't clicking with me about it. Everyone can effortlessly dodge everything I do, and everyone else's punches always seem to hit even when I try to dodge. Blocking means they instantly throw a grab that I either don't have time to react to or I somehow miss.

Kid Cobra with dual Slapamanders or Slamamanders is incredibly annoying though, and other people have said they have problems dealing with that.

3- and 4-player matches are problematic in that people will gang up on whoever has the lowest HP. This is bad not only because the person ganged up on will inevitably lose, but after that, the remaining players will have vastly uneven amounts of HP remaining because one of them will have escaped getting damaged the whole time (especially if they're using Master Mummy and heal while they're getting ignored) as the other one has been battered by the ganged-up-on player. From then on, the match is pretty much decided. People are incredibly desperate to inflict a knockout even though all that matters is that you're the last one standing.
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Snakebit1995



Joined: 25 Apr 2015
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 12:41 pm Reply with quote
belvadeer wrote:
At this point, I don't think anyone would weep if Konami crashed and burned, unless they were tears of joy. What a deplorable company they've become.


The only people I'd feel bad for in that situation would be innocent devs and animators who needed the job to feed their families and make a living. It's never nice to see someone lose their livelihood.

On the subject of Kickstarter, I've always been agaisnt crowfunding, for every success story there are dozens of failures and ripoffs where people lose money. If your gonna fund something that's not done yet stick to something in Early Access who's devs have a good track record, Klei is a great example of this, they've done multiple games through Early Access and all came out as promised in a timely manner with good gameplay (Don't Starve, Invisable Inc, currently they have Oxygen Not Included.)

The problem is now due to all the failures people have gotten super cynical, you can put out a 7+ out of ten game and people still complain because they're an investor. Yooka-Laylee is a good game but people still say it was a wasted effort.

Crowdfunding had boosted what is quickly becoming a problem for the Video Game Industy, HYPE. People are over Hypeing every game, to the point it becomes unrealistic what they want to be in the game, they end up incredibly disappointed and bitter taking out their anger of game devs for things that weren't meant to be. People get sucked in by advertising buzzwords just meant to let people know the general idea, they take things out of context and then get upset when it's not what they dream it could be.
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leafy sea dragon



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PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 1:11 pm Reply with quote
Snakebit1995 wrote:
On the subject of Kickstarter, I've always been agaisnt crowfunding, for every success story there are dozens of failures and ripoffs where people lose money.


It's the same with regular investment too. It's just that this is a fact that is not commonly known, so crowdfunding backers not accustomed to the high failure rate of new projects would get annoyed, whereas professional investors know about it and are used to it.

I still engage in a bunch of crowdfunding (and I intend to start up a campaign myself when I'm ready), and it's because I know the failure rate of roughly 90% is the same as it is in privately invested projects and startup companies, and actually higher than traditional small businesses (where the 90% failure rate is only for the first 12 months and is higher than that once you expand the timeframe).
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 2:35 pm Reply with quote
Snakebit1995 wrote:
The only people I'd feel bad for in that situation would be innocent devs and animators who needed the job to feed their families and make a living. It's never nice to see someone lose their livelihood.


Oh I certainly agree with you there, but I wonder. With all these former employees revealing their tales of abuse stories, it makes me question if any of the current staff there are suffering similar mistreatment. What do you think, Snakebit?
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Snakebit1995



Joined: 25 Apr 2015
Posts: 842
PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 2:42 pm Reply with quote
belvadeer wrote:
Snakebit1995 wrote:
The only people I'd feel bad for in that situation would be innocent devs and animators who needed the job to feed their families and make a living. It's never nice to see someone lose their livelihood.


Oh I certainly agree with you there, but I wonder. With all these former employees revealing their tales of abuse stories, it makes me question if any of the current staff there are suffering similar mistreatment. What do you think, Snakebit?


They most likely are being mistreated but are to afriad to say anything for various reasons, some may need the job, can't afford to get blacklisted or in some unfortunate cases just don't care.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 2:54 pm Reply with quote
Dustin wrote:
Some people woke up with spring-loaded arms one day

Simple though the concept is, it is still too eerie for my sensitivities. Hollow arms must be simply harrowing. Do those affected by this condition still possess fine motor skills in their hands? Do the inner sides of their coils have nerve receptors? Indeed, what of their bones?
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Stuart Smith



Joined: 13 Jan 2013
Posts: 1298
PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:15 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
The hesitance of crowdfunding seems to have overshadowed the actual successes borne out of it, like Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Freedom Planet, Shovel Knight, the extra content for Skullgirls, and the licensed content for The Pinball Arcade (the Star Trek name ain't cheap!).


The fails vastly outweigh the successes, and the degree of success is subjective depending how jaded, nostalgic, or investor's remorse one has. Pirates Curse was way better than Half Genie Hero, and it didn't need to be Kickstarted, which tells me maybe if something has to be Kickstarted, maybe it shouldn't exist. I loved PaRappa, but Rap Rabbit didn't interest me at all because it wouldn't have been the same.

-Stuart Smith
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:57 pm Reply with quote
I am definitely interested in Ever Oasis, which I literally just found about from E3 news (and it comes out tomorrow, hooray!), but I'm going to wait for reviews. It's giving me Fantasy Life vibes, and that is one of the best 3DS games out there, so that's kind of what I'm hoping for. But I want reviews first. Persona 5 was probably the last game I bought without any reviews, but that was such a safe bet (that and Pokemon games, basically, everything else, I want a review, I use multiple sources and realize that sometimes, critic and user reviews differ wildly. For example, I am really enjoying Yooka-Laylee, which was average from critics, but higher from users.)
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:59 pm Reply with quote
Zin5ki wrote:
Simple though the concept is, it is still too eerie for my sensitivities. Hollow arms must be simply harrowing. Do those affected by this condition still possess fine motor skills in their hands? Do the inner sides of their coils have nerve receptors? Indeed, what of their bones?


The official artwork shows that their arms, when coiled all the way back, take on the shape and function of normal arms. There is one such illustration of Ribbon Girl signing her autograph on Biff's shirt, for instance, so indeed, they still have fine motor skills.

The official ARMS Twitter also states that when they're not wearing those masks, their arms are functionally just normal arms too, though I don't know if they become biologically normal or are just incapable of extending.

Stuart Smith wrote:
The fails vastly outweigh the successes, and the degree of success is subjective depending how jaded, nostalgic, or investor's remorse one has. Pirates Curse was way better than Half Genie Hero, and it didn't need to be Kickstarted, which tells me maybe if something has to be Kickstarted, maybe it shouldn't exist. I loved PaRappa, but Rap Rabbit didn't interest me at all because it wouldn't have been the same.

-Stuart Smith


The thing is, MOST startups fail regardless of where they get their money from, whether it's crowdfunding, traditional investment, bank loans, or out of pocket. It's just now becoming a shock to crowdfunders who invest (and yes, I will use that word because this is essentially what crowdfunding is) because they don't realize just how low the success rate to unproven projects is in general, whereas professional investors and bankers know and are prepared to eat the losses if something they lend money to turns out to not be profitable.

Another hobby of mine has undergone an explosion in startups, with at least one funded by all four of the above, plus extremely expensive preorders that also pay for starting the company. Most of them have already flopped. Of the 25 or so of them, only two have successfully launched their first product, and of those, only one has been profitable. The one that flopped the hardest? An indie company founded by a veteran artist and engineer from the 90's who used his name recognition among the hobbyists to drum up support, then went vastly over-budget and far behind schedule, who then announced a second project to try to gather funds to pay for his first one that only got the former fans angry at him. (Keiji Inafune at least got to release his first project--this man never even got that far.)
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Wyvern



Joined: 01 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:50 pm Reply with quote
Stuart Smith wrote:


The fails vastly outweigh the successes


Well, of course they do. Failures ALWAYS outweigh successes, whether a game (or movie, or book, or TV show) is crowdfunded or not. That's not a strike against crowdfunding at all.

I think the problem isn't so much crowdfunding itself so much as basing the campaign on nostalgia. Mighty No. 9, Yooka Laylee, and Rap Rabbit all banked themselves on being spiritual successors to games from the past; in the end, the reality can't match the nostalgia.

The major success stories of Kickstarter have been games that offer unique new experiences: Undertale, Shovel Knight, Night in the Woods, and so forth. There's plenty of room for titles like that in the future. I think in the future, Kickstarted games will be a lot less "here's a fake sequel to a game from the 90's," and more "here's something you've never played before."
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 6:05 pm Reply with quote
Snakebit1995 wrote:
They most likely are being mistreated but are to afriad to say anything for various reasons, some may need the job, can't afford to get blacklisted or in some unfortunate cases just don't care.


It's sad, isn't it. It's like staying in an abusive relationship and learning to tolerate the pain that comes with it.
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CrownKlown



Joined: 05 May 2011
Posts: 1762
PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 11:35 pm Reply with quote
Wyvern wrote:
Stuart Smith wrote:


The fails vastly outweigh the successes


Well, of course they do. Failures ALWAYS outweigh successes, whether a game (or movie, or book, or TV show) is crowdfunded or not. That's not a strike against crowdfunding at all.

I think the problem isn't so much crowdfunding itself so much as basing the campaign on nostalgia. Mighty No. 9, Yooka Laylee, and Rap Rabbit all banked themselves on being spiritual successors to games from the past; in the end, the reality can't match the nostalgia.

The major success stories of Kickstarter have been games that offer unique new experiences: Undertale, Shovel Knight, Night in the Woods, and so forth. There's plenty of room for titles like that in the future. I think in the future, Kickstarted games will be a lot less "here's a fake sequel to a game from the 90's," and more "here's something you've never played before."


Whats unqiue about Undertale and Shovel Knight, both good games, but they are specifically banking on early nintendo or snes era nostalgia. You cant put out something unique on the budgets these kickstarters are going for. At best you can hope for solid story gameplay or some combination.
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leafy sea dragon



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PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 11:58 pm Reply with quote
CrownKlown wrote:
Whats unqiue about Undertale and Shovel Knight, both good games, but they are specifically banking on early nintendo or snes era nostalgia. You cant put out something unique on the budgets these kickstarters are going for. At best you can hope for solid story gameplay or some combination.


Both Undertale and Shovel Knight take an existing concept found in a game from an earlier generation and improve upon them, however, ironing out their flaws and adapting them to modern gaming tastes to the best extent they can within their budget. Freedom Planet too, though that game went more for a 5th-generation visual style and soundtrack than 3rd or 4th. Undertale, in particular, was able to become more popular (at least in the west) than EarthBound ever was, even with Ness's presence in the Smash Bros. games. (And then there's Skullgirls, a current-generation game and looks the part.)

Unique concepts, by themselves, cost nothing. How much they cost to implement depends on the concept. For instance, Undertale took the Mother series gameplay and changed the turn-based battling into something closer to a schmup, then integrated cross-save memory to affect the way the game plays based on your previous runs through the game, even after you've deleted the save file, and even after you've deleted the game. Neither of these are particularly expensive to make and were likely a planned part of the game right from the start. Games like Runbow and Duck Game likely had even lower budgets than your average crowdfunded game, and they have turned out pretty unique.

Also, Kickstarter is just one crowdfunding company. Calling all crowdfunding as "Kickstarters" is like calling all carbonated beverages as "Coke."
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Wyvern



Joined: 01 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 12:27 am Reply with quote
CrownKlown wrote:


Whats unqiue about Undertale and Shovel Knight, both good games, but they are specifically banking on early nintendo or snes era nostalgia. You cant put out something unique on the budgets these kickstarters are going for. At best you can hope for solid story gameplay or some combination.


I think both games use nostalgia as a springboard to create something different. Undertale, for instance, looks and feels like an old SNES RPG, but the Mercy mechanic, the ability to choose which major characters live and die, and the moral choices are all things no game of that era had. The game uses its look to give you certain expectations, then subverts them. Compare that to Yooka-Laylee, which promised nothing but the same gameplay as a 20 year old game, and delivered nothing more.
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