Forum - View topicNEWS: Keiji Inafune's comcept Game Company Announces Dissolution
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Nionel
 Posts: 632 Location: Nebraska |
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I know they developed a couple of games afterward, but the stain of Mighty No. 9 really haunted this series. Inafune promising the moon on it, Kaio: King of Pirates, and Red Ash didn't help matters, especially since the games never really materialized.
It's such a shame that a company that started with such promise ended up wasting millions on big ideas and ultimately closed its doors without delivering much of anything. |
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TheRealMaria
 Posts: 123 |
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One of the biggest disasters in modern gaming. Shame.
Can't believe it's coming up on 10 years of that infamous Masterclass trailer. |
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YagamiBlackstone255
Posts: 470 |
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Oh no... Anyway.
Serious mode: I am sad Kickstarter hasn't been the industry changer people thought it would be. |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1774 |
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Yeah, I feel like it was an eternity ago when there was a "golden age" for projects funded on Kickstarter, not just for video games, I do remember some anime related ones, mainly for some dubs or licensing. But when it comes to video game Kickstarters I feel like most people bring up the failures/disappointments/controversies/etc. which titles such as Mighty No. 9, the Ouya console, Yooka-Laylee and Shenmue 3, just to name a few, however, there were some positive successes, like Bloodstained. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 3005 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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For the anime-related Kickstarters I think the biggest thing that held it back was the simple fact that no one ever attempted the most obvious concept: Releasing an anime that had never been previously released in English before, due to it being deemed "too risky/forgotten/obscure/etc.". While there were a small handful of first-time licenses done via KS, most notably Mai Mai Miracle, the vast majority of localization-focused anime KS were simply re-releasing something that was either successful in the past or at least had an already-existing fanbase to rely on. The closest one that truly lived up to the "too risky/forgotten/obscure/etc." concept would arguably be Skip Beat!, but even that had previously been available in English due to it being one of Crunchyroll's very first simulcasts, and the only reason it had to be attempted twice by Pied Piper was because the licensor mandated that an English dub be produced, or else it wouldn't be allowed to be licensed in the first place. Robert Woodhead did state once that he'd be up for using Kickstarter to produce a first-time English release for an older anime, but in the end even he never gave it a try. And, to be fair, it's more than likely that no Japanese licensor was willing to let a company attempt a first-time release with an old catalog title via KS, simply due to the fact that it could fail & wind up being a pointless endeavor. However, by never attempting it I think the concept of the anime KS (for localization) never truly was allowed to fulfill its potential, so both companies & fans kind of grew tired of using KS for anime releases, for the most part. |
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AsleepBySunset
Posts: 315 |
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I never get the "might no 9 scandal". They didn't con anyone, they just released a game to bad reviews. And it has a very small fanbase. Also I never hear anyone mention Yooka Laylee in a bad light whenever it's name comes up. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 3005 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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For Mighty No. 9 it was really a case of promising way too much, so much so that certain ports (namely for the Vita & 3DS) wound up never happening, and apparently neither Comcept nor Deep Silver (the publisher) ever actually confirmed the cancellation of those ports, even when asked by actual publications. It's also a bit disingenuous to cite a "very small fanbase" when it earned over $4 million in funding ~67,000+ backers, making it one of the most successful video game crowdfunding campaigns of all time (at least in the Top 10), so clearly people were interested in it. Then there was also absolutely terrible marketing & promotion for the game itself, where it either insulted the very kind of people who had supported them ("Like an anime fan on prom night"), simply didn't look all that great in the footage shown (explosions looking like pepperoni pizza), & the infamous "It's better than nothing" line (which didn't come from Inafune himself but was erroneously attributed to him, since he was there). As for Yooka Laylee the game simply wound up being a notable disappointment for a number of players, once the initial appeal wore off. It's why Playtonic literally just remade the game wholesale with Yooka Re-Playlee, which looks to be much better received, even by those who weren't big on the OG game. |
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NJ_
 Posts: 3410 Location: Wallington, NJ |
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IIRC, that was by Ben Judd who was his translator at the time. |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1774 |
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There's a lot of videos explaining what happened with Mighty No. 9, I think some of the best ones detailing what happened are the ones made by Stop Skeletons from Fighting and Matt McMuscles, but it boils down to the fact that Inafune and his team seemed to treat Mighty No. 9 more as a potential multimedia IP before actually releasing the game, they even made a trailer for a potential TV show, then there were new stetch goals for things like voice acting. another Kickstarted for another game called Red Ash which seemed like a spiritual sequel to Mega Man Legends, and who could forget all of the delays. The thing is that it is quite interesting/sad to see how people reacted when Mighty No. 9 was first announced.
As for Yooka-Laylee, then there was the Jon Tron controversy, he was meant to voice a character in the game, but he got into some hot water after some comments he made and his lines were removed from the final game. While I'm not from the U.S. and I have only some passing knowledge about Jon Tron, most of his fans were not happy he got removed from the game. In regards to Shenmue III, that had a lot more to do with the game's design, which most people mentioned it felt oudated and tedious, or the fact that it again ended on a cliffhanger. |
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Zased
 Posts: 147 |
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Did they ever release the 3DS version? Or the cartoon? They were asking for funding for a lot of things that just never seemed to appear. I'd say that's somewhat of a 'scam' although technically not since nothing on Kickstarter is technically promised and it's a 'donate at your own risk' thing but it's easy to see why people felt burned despite the game eventually coming out if they didn't get anything else promised. I do think people hyped up Kickstarter as an industry replacement to help fund games a bit too fast though and it clearly isn't. At least not in the way people hoped. Bloodstained was a succeed although I ended up enjoying the stretch goal prequel 8bit game Curse of the Moon a lot more than the main game. Then Curse of the Moon got a sequel all on it's own that was even more in-depth and better due to it's success.
JonTron was the biggest promoters for the game and Banjo Kazooie enthusiasts at the time so it left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths they threw him under the bus. But I guess he dodged a bullet in the end given the end result. Ironically Mario Odyssey would end up being released shortly after and basically do the whole 'collectathon' revival Yooka-Laylee promised to do which was also pretty bad timing and made it irrelevant. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 3005 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Right, and that's why the line was initially attributed to Inafune, since people thought that Judd was translating something Inafune had said. However, it was simply Judd speaking his own opinion, and Infaune didn't bother to try to course correct into something more positive, as I imagine Inafune knew what "It's better than nothing" meant. |
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AiddonValentine
 Posts: 2965 |
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Huh, thought it was officially folded after Level-5 bought the company. But anyway, good riddance, the whole thing was a mess and a testament to Inafune's overinflated ego and complete misreading of the market.
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 7216 |
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The game also looked terrible visually. |
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1792 |
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My prom night went pretty well, all things considered. |
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Allison Addams
 Posts: 132 |
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Nah, screw JonTron. He deserved what happened to him and brought it upon himself. For nearly 2 hours he spouted a bunch of racist nonsense and defended white nationalist talking points. No one in their right mind would wanna be associated with you after that. The only people who thought it was wrong that PlayTonic cut ties with him were right winged chuds who agreed with him and/or don't care. Jon is a crappy person with awful, racist beliefs. He shouldn't even be still making Youtube videos like nothing happened but that's just how this world is apparently. |
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