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| Maou 2540th Post
  
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
    
    
    
    
    
|  "Inafune's ship adrift" , posted Sun 1 Sep 14:10:  
Interesting development. But man, for me it feels so very uncomfortably regressive, particularly that first photo of Rockman Mighty No. 9 obviously Rockman blasting the old hardhat guys and of course the Roll and Cutman clones. In the video, it's of course easy to hear Inafune's regret over being torn away from his old creations, almost like a loss of child custody. But I'd far rather see him do something that's a more obvious break, rather than makeshift almost-Rockman and friends.
I say this while simultaneously believing that people should follow creators or directors more than companies or sequels. The latest Final Fantasy's aren't true successors in any sense other than brand---one simple glance at the true follow-ups embodied in Sakaguchi's Mistwalker output exposes modern FF's for the shams that they are. That said, Sakaguchi's post-Square creations still seem more visionary and foward-looking than this project here: sure, they have the obvious name refernces, Last Story being just a shade too obvious, but my limited exposure to Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon didn't leave me with any sense of grasping fruitlessly at the past.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Sun 1 Sep 15:38] |
| GekigangerV 1846th Post
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| "Re(2):Mighty No 9 - How Keiji Got His Groove" , posted Sun 1 Sep 14:19:
I saw this and I am pretty sure I will be pitching in. I am just deciding on whether it will be for $60 or less. As of this post, the project is at $250,000. It is well on it's way of at least getting the whole Mighty 1-8 bosses and stages. It will probably also get the $2.5 million needed to get it onto consoles. However, the choice of PS3 and 360 for a release in APRIL 2015 is a bit strange. I wonder if they would get more backers if they aimed for PS4/Vita/XB1.
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3) Glad to see Inafune celebrating the strengths of Japanese game development while also keeping an eye on the future (instead of only focusing on negative things)
Funny you mention that as there is this little blurb at the bottom about learning from the west as well as focusing on Japan's independent scene.
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Isn’t Inafune always criticizing the Japanese game industry?
Mr. Inafune has never been one to be shy about his opinions, and as the Japanese game industry started shrinking (both in terms of international respect and in sales) over the last decade, he has continued to speak out on the reasons he sees behind the decline, and the ways he thought it might be fixed. The recurring themes of these remarks is to learn from and work with the West, embracing new ways of doing things in order to appeal to not just Japanese fans, but overseas gamers as well.
And that’s exactly what we are attempting to do here on Kickstarter; the time for talk is over—as Inafune himself was quoted saying, “Words are not enough, we must act and prove it.” It’s time to lead by example and inject some positivity into this topic. The hope of Mr. Inafune and all the creators and partners involved is that this project will be successful and not only allow us to make the great game we’re dreaming of making, but, with your help, we can also show other Japanese developers, and eventually maybe even the Japanese indie creator scene, that crowdfunding can be a viable option.
[this message was edited by GekigangerV on Sun 1 Sep 15:11] |
| karasu99 1199th Post
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Red Carpet Premium Member+
| "Re(1):Lost in the pixel woods" , posted Mon 2 Sep 03:05
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I agree with Maou, this project strikes me as depressing and sad. Working within your wheelhouse is perfectly fine but the aping Inafune is doing of his previous work is taking it far beyond that.
Also, how is he not going to get sued over this? Capcom went after Data East for far less. I support creators when it comes to work for hire corporate situations since far too many people have not been properly compensated for the success of their inventions. That, however, does not strike me as what Inafune is going for here and if it is this is the wrong way to fight that fight.
I'll agree as well. This will certainly generate a load of cash for the project based on Inafune's name only, but... I dunno, I would just like to see something a bit more ambitious from him. It may be beautiful and well made, but Kickstarter hosts no less that a million (my rough estimate) pixel art 2d platforming sidescrollers a week. I love to see him doing well and getting appreciated, but couldn't he have stretched himself a bit more?
Also, I'm sometimes puzzled by extremely famous peoples' use of Kickstarter for these kinds of things. I know there are issues with fair compensation for creatives in the Japanese game industry, but surely there are a dozen companies or venture capitalists who would kill to work with him.
I also agree about the blatant nature of the characters and setting. I think perhaps you or I could get away with such a project, but Inafune? He's about as high profile as you can get, and the Internet has been losing its shit over this for the past 24 hours. Surely Capcom is aware of it.
www.secret-arts.com
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| Baines 369th Post
Silver Customer
| "Re(2):Lost in the pixel woods" , posted Mon 2 Sep 04:48:
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I dunno, I would just like to see something a bit more ambitious from him. It may be beautiful and well made, but Kickstarter hosts no less that a million (my rough estimate) pixel art 2d platforming sidescrollers a week. I love to see him doing well and getting appreciated, but couldn't he have stretched himself a bit more?
I'd like to see what they can do with the formula. Despite all the obvious (and blatantly intentional) similarities, it sounds like they are trying to make something other than a carbon copy. Making a new game that is obviously very Mega Man derivative, but at the same time is a quality game that expands on the formula in new directions is probably pretty challenging. Just look at the heat Capcom gets for its own sequels.
At the same time, it might be a Mega Man game that Capcom wouldn't be willing to make, simply because it is different.
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I feel sad for the other people involved in the project, and embarrassed for people backing this up on Inafune's name alone.
To be fair, it isn't just Inafune's name alone. The dev team is advertised as consisting of several other people who have worked on Mega Man games over the years in various roles. Sure, the Kickstarter would raise a ton of money on Inafune's name alone, but it isn't trying to raise money on his name alone.
[this message was edited by Baines on Mon 2 Sep 04:49] |
| nobinobita 1212th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(3):Mighty No 9 - How Keiji Got His Groove" , posted Mon 2 Sep 05:08
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If Professor F was on board I would be much more enthused. Right now I'm just trying to wrap my head around the irony of him decrying the backwards state of Japanese games and Japanese game development and then making a throwback Japanese game whose singular Western innovation in his words is the use of Kickstarter.
Stupid simple as it sounds, this actually is innovative for a Japanese developer. Kickstarter isn't just for fundraising, it's a great sales and marketing tool and those are the areas where Japanese companies are weakest.
I often hear the various creative industries in Japan referred to as a "cottage industry" full of creative passionate people working for less than minimum wage cos they love what they do. This breaks my heart. The publishers make all the real money because they own the IPs and control distribution. If Kickstarter can help these actual content creators raise funds, raise awareness of their product, maintain rights to their creations and establish a more direct connection to their fanbase, I'm all for it whether you're a one man indie dev or an industry legend.
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He's just Rockman's creator because he claimed loud enough that he was, and after a while people started spreading it themselves.
I feel sad for the other people involved in the project, and embarrassed for people backing this up on Inafune's name alone. This whole thing is... not good for anybody.
Sad, but this is how the world works. It's not enough to make something incredible, you gotta be able to claim credit for it or someone else will. The world likes heroes and simple stories. That's why movie directors get all the credit for their movies. That's why Andy Serkis gets credit for cg acting performances that are really the result of hundreds of artists.
I see this a lot in the American games industry (I've seen a man win an award for an idea he stole from a coworker while she was on pregnancy leave!). Maybe Inafune has keener insight into our ways than I thought haha.
Is Inafune really that bad though? Are there other people involved with Mega Man more deserving of credit? I'm not trying to challenge you, I'm really curious, I don't know very much about Mega Man's history.
The Kickstarter project does seem to be spotlighting a lot of people in addition to Inafune though. It may be selling mostly on his name, but it looks like he's consciously trying to bring up other people around him.
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The staff of the game looks like a crew of... Mega Man legends. 
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxm1vvNLvQ1qd9g7oo1_500.png
www.art-eater.com
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| Mosquiton 1918th Post
Gold Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Re(5):Mighty No 9 - How Keiji Got His Groove" , posted Mon 2 Sep 08:41
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I can see why one might regard this whole Kickstarter as regressive and sad, but I think it just makes a lot of sense for a few reasons.
The world is hungry for a new Mega Man and Capcom is pretty much incapable of making it. No matter what Capcom does with Mega Man it will never be enough because there's so much baggage to it.
This is an excellent opportunity for Comcept to cash in on, both financially and creatively. With Mighty no 9, Inafune and crew have a chance to go back to their roots, but they can cherry pick what to keep and what to get rid of without 30 years of cannon breathing down their necks. Yeah the fans will still have their expectations, but I think they'll be a lot more forgiving and open minded (I hope so anyway).
I certainly have mixed feelings here, I can't deny that I felt a little bit embarrassed for them about the overt similarities, there is some feeling that this attachment and resentment comes from kind of a sad place, but I want to be optimistic. It looks like they have a capable group of people (and even if Inafune didn't create all of Mega Man canon with his bare hands I believe him to be at the very least a competent guy). I wish them success.
On the other hand I don't see myself kicking in. Legends 3 I would have put down cash for. Not that they'll need my money anyway, judging by how fast this thing is getting funded.
/ / /
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| Iggy 9645th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(8):Mighty No 9 - How Keiji Got His Groove" , posted Mon 2 Sep 18:36
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USG: It was great, in the video, watching you work on the illustrations and hold up the image of Beck. How heavily involved have you been with creating character concepts and even doing final illustrations?
KI: There's a specific character designer on the team, a guy named Kimoto, who is extremely talented. He understands my essence. He understands my art style very well. It's up to him to create the base character designs. However, I would say, much to his chagrin, that on this title – probably more than on any other title in recent years – I'm a lot more hands-on. I'm providing feedback and guidelines on the specifics of smaller details of the character, how parts should look, what should be added. But I feel very comfortable with the fact that I know what Kimoto-san… I know what his strengths are. I know how to maximize his strengths, while also being able to infuse what I consider my creative spirit, my art style, into his designs as well. We have a nice collaborative art design process that's going on.
*Breathes heavily*
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| HokutoAndy
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Rare Customer
| "Re(6): Inafune is still uncle Ruckus" , posted Tue 3 Sep 17:10:
http://www.gamespot.com/pax/inafune-says-japanese-industry-has-gotten-worse-6413936/
Ok, nevermind, he is still the uncle ruckus of videogames. Well his full words really aren't so bad, but it's really goddamn aggrivating that he continues to speak for the entire industry and say everyone else in Japan sucks*.
This kind of talk really doesn't solve anything. All it does is make western devs gloat, western journalists more hostile, and Japanese games look worse in the west. Like one of the mass effect dudes (the game that failed to outself the internet's most hated final fantasy) will go "FF games aren't REAL RPG's!"at some industry event where everyone's clapping... while his art director says in a small interview "There's some great stuff in Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, especially their glowing GUI screens; we used those a lot. I keep a folder of that stuff and I still actually tell the guys 'just go back and look at that. Change it like that!"
Let's use Kotaku as an example:
-Kotaku writes an article misusing Kamiya's tweet
-Hideki Kamiya tells Kotaku to eat shit
-Kotaku apologizes to Kamiya.
See? If you tell Kotaku to eat shit, they will apologize to you and treat you very nicely. That's how games journalism works.
*Or maybe this is just how Inafune says "Capcom sucks now", but he is too polite to specify Capcom so he just says "Japan".
**You know, Project Phoenix is exactly what Inafune says JP developers should do, except they did it before Inafune, and they did it without saying everyone else but them sucks.
[this message was edited by HokutoAndy on Tue 3 Sep 19:18] |
| Loona 720th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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Red Carpet Regular Member
| "Re(5):Mighty No 9 - How Keiji Got His Groove" , posted Tue 3 Sep 23:37
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Inafune publicly stated in 2007 at TGS that he was not the original designer of Rockman, and he even assigned X's design to another artist so that he could spend time designing Zero.
I remember this, and some bit about him making sure Zero got the best scenes, since that was the character he cared about - and who, BTW, made it quite faithfully to TvC, MvC3 and Project X Zone.
Considering that, I don't really care much about this Kickstarter beyond raising awareness of the possibility to other Japanese devs.
Still, it would be funny if he pulled a MGS2, and despite the current promotional material, the actually game then had you play as a Zero look-a-like, it would sort of be historically fitting.
"Beat the machine that works in your head!" - Guano Apes "Open Your Eyes"
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| Baines 369th Post
Silver Customer
| "Re(3):Re(10): Inafune is still uncle Ruckus" , posted Wed 4 Sep 13:10
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Would they be sympathetic to Inafune, or would they consider him a coward for not standing up to Capcom, or would they vilify Capcom for defending their IP? I hope I'm wrong, but I can see this kickstarter getting real ugly real fast.
It will depend on what Capcom does, and when Capcom does it.
If Capcom wanted to shut it down, the best time would have been "immediately."
The longer Capcom waits, the worse the response will be for them, and the more people might decide to side with Inafune. This isn't an under-the-radar project. If Capcom is going to take legal action, then they look increasingly incompetent the longer they wait without saying or doing anything. And if Capcom waits until right before or right after the Kickstarter closes, then some people might see it as downright vindictive.
Of course it also matters how Capcom reacts, if they choose to react. Some legal measures will be taken in a more negative light than others.
There are so many ways that this could go beyond the obvious, as well... What if Capcom set their lawyers on Inafune and also announced a new Mega Man game? How would fans react to that?
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| Baines 373th Post
Silver Customer
| "Re(5):Mighty No 9 - How Keiji Got His Groove" , posted Sat 7 Sep 13:27:
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The five minutes of research I decided to put into finding out what Inafune did for the first Rockman yielded these results...
When Inafune joined the project, the title Rockman had already been decided by his superiors and Inafune's unnamed mentor had done "a basic idea" of Rock himself.
In a Destructoid interview, Inafune says that the original pixel art version was done by someone else (which Destructoid says was Akira Kitamura), and Inafune had to come up with a design that fit the pixel art.
The quote:
"This is probably a little known fact... it's true that I did not design Mega Man, but what happened was there was a planner that whenever they made a Famicom character, they had to look at it on the screen and see how it popped, whether it was visible, whether you can play as it and it would pop off of the background. This planner put together a pixel character that really had good read against the Famicom backgrounds, then went to me and said, 'Okay, I want you to make a character that looks like Famicom graphic could have come from that character."
http://www.destructoid.com/keiji-inafune-dropped-mad-mega-man-secrets-on-me-261362.phtml
[this message was edited by Baines on Sat 7 Sep 13:28] |
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so little time...
"Re(7):Mighty No 9 - How Keiji Got His Groove" , posted Thu 12 Sep 02:41
