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Yakuza Judgment series not on PC due to disagreement with Takuya Kimura's talent agency

B

Bulletbrain

Member
According to a Japanese weekly publication (as reported by Kotaku), Takuya Kimura's talent agency holds a tight leash over how their star asset's likeness is used and fears how that control might be diluted by a proper PC release. A further consequence is that Lost Judgment might be the end of the series since SEGA's strategy is now very PC centric.

kotaku.com

Report: Judgment Series Is Ending Over PC Version Disagreement

Takuya Kimura's talent agency has never seemed enthusiastic about computers.
kotaku.com kotaku.com

It's very frustrating to see this kind of PC phobia still persisting in 2021. Hopefully SEGA can collab with another Japanese star working for an agency with more common sense.
 
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B

Bulletbrain

Member
Deft Beck said:
This is why you shouldn't use celebrity likenesses at all if possible. I don't see how celebrity adds to the appeal of a game. I find it distracting.
Click to expand...
Tbh, the actors portraying Kuze, Awano etc really elevated the material in Yakuza 0. I don't know if the story would have reached the same intensity if some other dude played Kuze for example.
 
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nowhat

nowhat

Member
Deft Beck said:
This is why you shouldn't use celebrity likenesses at all if possible.
Click to expand...
There are other reasons too. Take something like Death Stranding - the models/mocap are exquisite, but it's hard to think "that's Sam Bridges!" instead of "that's Norman Reedus!". Or if the tech isn't quite there, like in Until Dawn, it's much more uncanny valley than it would have been with completely virtual/fictional character models.
 
xrnzaaas

xrnzaaas

Member
Talk about being ultra conservative, Yakuza opening up to PC & Xbox players has definitely helped it to become more popular and reach new customers who don't play on PS consoles.
 
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Osaka_Boss

Osaka_Boss

Member
Genshin Impact has stripped out a lot of famous mocaps illegally for the game, but they are in China so it is safe for them. This is the biggest problem in animation moving forward, not what a bunch of weirdos will do with your likeness in a SFM
 
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Mister Wolf

Mister Wolf

Member
Just can the series then or introduce a new protagonist. You also have Altus only making new games for Sony(13 Sentinels, etc) or Nintendo(SMTV). SEGA has to deal alot of fuckery. Someone in power over there needs to grow some balls and start putting their foot down. All of these games not being on PC is dumb as hell and leaving money on the table. Look at Namco, they figured out along time ago, fuck signing exclusive deals and have a PC port ready day one to capitalize on the hype.
 
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Karmic Raze

Karmic Raze

Member
This better not be the last Judgment game.I am having Shenmue deja vu again and it’s bothering the fuck out of me. I LOVED Judgment and I am infinitely looking forward to Lost Judgment. I hope they can work something out instead of just dropping Yagami, because I really liked him as a character. It’d would have to be one hell of a replacement for me to be on board.

I was gutted to hear this news. Please don’t let it end like this. Judgment and Yagami are too damn good just to be killed off so to speak.
 
Unknown?

Unknown?

Member
Mister Wolf said:
Just can the series then or introduce a new protagonist. You also have Altus only making new games for Sony(13 Sentinels, etc) or Nintendo(SMTV). SEGA has to deal alot of fuckery. Someone in power over there needs to grow some balls and start putting their foot down. All of these games not being on PC is dumb as hell and leaving money on the table. Look at Namco, they figured out along time ago, fuck signing exclusive deals and have a PC port ready day one to capitalize on the hype.
Click to expand...
Another PC gamer port begging console games. When is the "This game is perfect for PC" going to be a meme like with Switch?
 
Bryank75

Bryank75

Banned
Good, hopefully more Japanese personalities, developers and other important people think of how Nintendo and Sony built the gaming industry to what it is... they should only be supporting national gaming products platforms.

Nintendo and Sony should have dominion over games completely.

GIF by South Park
 
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Chukhopops

Chukhopops

Member
TheCockatrice said:
Dumbest take ever. Unlike other Yakuza protagonists hes the most human out of them all.
Click to expand...
Yagami is supposed to be the jaded and detached character but in reality he has two facial expressions and zero emotion.

It takes him 20 hours and the death of a key character to drop ONE testicle and become manly for one chapter. His side activities suck, he has zero banter and you could improve the game by switching him with any other Judgment character.
 
B

Bulletbrain

Member
Unknown? said:
Another PC gamer port begging console games. When is the "This game is perfect for PC" going to be a meme like with Switch?
Click to expand...
He is not wrong. The PC market has huge untapped potential. Developers know this as evidenced by SEGA actually willing to end the series if not allowed to put on PC (as well as the PC push from Microsoft and to a lesser extent, Sony). The ability to reach a wider audience can only benefit the industry, consumers and developers.
 
The Cockatrice

The Cockatrice

Gold Member
Chukhopops said:
Yagami is supposed to be the jaded and detached character but in reality he has two facial expressions and zero emotion.

It takes him 20 hours and the death of a key character to drop ONE testicle and become manly for one chapter. His side activities suck, he has zero banter and you could improve the game by switching him with any other Judgment character.
Click to expand...

Compared to whom? One faced Kiryu? I've seen more emotion in Yagami than 7 yakuza games. This is just his first game. Has a lot more time to improve. Hell, just replace Majima with Joker or any other crazy random japanese anime guy and no one would notice. I like all characters but saying the others are better is just plain idiotic. You're naturally inclined to like Yakuza protagonists because you've been them over what? 10-15 years? Yakuza 1 was not a good game and Kiryu was generic as hell. It took quite a lot of time and Yakuza 0 for people to actually find the characters interesting.
 
Mister Wolf

Mister Wolf

Member
Bulletbrain said:
He is not wrong. The PC market has huge untapped potential. Developers know this as evidenced by SEGA actually willing to end the series if not allowed to put on PC (as well as the PC push from Microsoft and to a lesser extent, Sony). The ability to reach a wider audience can only benefit the industry, consumers and developers.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. What kind of fool refuses to saturate their product in as many markets as possible. I can see if they own the rights to the tools needed to use their product, but they don't. Bethesda put Skyrim on everything they could. Rockstar put GTA5 on everything they could. Maximize your profits. SEGA never should have hired this guy if they were forced to give up this much control. Somebody over there signing bad contracts. Altus is a bad deal as well if they cant dictate to an employee that they pay what consoles their game will be released on.
 
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Blond

Blond

Banned
Bulletbrain said:
According to a Japanese weekly publication (as reported by Kotaku), Takuya Kimura's talent agency holds a tight leash over how their star asset's likeness is used and fears how that control might be diluted by a proper PC release. A further consequence is that Lost Judgment might be the end of the series since SEGA's strategy is now very PC centric.

kotaku.com

Report: Judgment Series Is Ending Over PC Version Disagreement

Takuya Kimura's talent agency has never seemed enthusiastic about computers.
kotaku.com kotaku.com

It's very frustrating to see this kind of PC phobia still persisting in 2021. Hopefully SEGA can collab with another Japanese star working for an agency with more common sense.
Click to expand...
People made nude mods for Dead or Alive hours after it was finally released on PC.
 
Saber

Saber

Gold Member
Bulletbrain said:
At least try to read the article. This just comes off as ignorant and childish.
Click to expand...

Keyword "Insider" and Kotaku, but ok.

Again whats wrong with not being on PC? Because an insider said this gonna be the doom of series? Even though Sega said nothing about it? You know what is childish? Drama and port begging.

You should read the article...or not. This is barelly an article(I mean, "because").
 
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Fbh

Fbh

Member
That's a shame, are they really that afraid of mods?
Hopefully this serves as a learning experience for Sega and future celebrity appearances are negotiated including PC from the start.

The Shepard said:
The article explains that it's the talent agency that's the problem, the actor is fully on board, a fan of games and wants it to continue.
Click to expand...

I'm going to guess the actor probably has some contract with the agency forcing all his roles to go through them and prohibiting him from making a deal directly with sega.
So even if he is on board, it's kinda irrelevant in this case.
 
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The Cockatrice

The Cockatrice

Gold Member
Saber Saber is right. Just because Judgment won't release on PC doesnt mean SEGA and RGG will stop making it on consoles. That's ridiculous. SEGA is so much bigger than any talent agency in Japan, bigger than the star himself and I doubt that agency will say no to a huge amount of income/deal. This is just Kotaku doing what kotaku does best, clickbait garbage. Stop believing or clicking everything they post.
 
J

JunkerWoland

Member
This is a tough situation for SEGA, assuming the tabloid report is true. On the one hand, SEGA wanting to harness a real celebrity like Kimura for Judgement's main role is understandable, given how much RGG Studio has developed its storytelling to match that of popular TV & film in Japan. On the other hand, the decision usually means comporting to the eccentricities of Japan's talent agencies, with Johnnys being notoriously difficult (if not the most difficult). That said, while SEGA potentially having to kill (or significantly alter) the Judgement series would be unfortunate, I'd prefer to see them continue handling these games in the manner of Ryu ga Gotoku, where the main character or characters' appearances aren't based on real people with real-life celebrities used in secondary or guest roles.
 
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Faithless83

Faithless83

Banned
Bulletbrain said:
According to a Japanese weekly publication (as reported by Kotaku), Takuya Kimura's talent agency holds a tight leash over how their star asset's likeness is used and fears how that control might be diluted by a proper PC release. A further consequence is that Lost Judgment might be the end of the series since SEGA's strategy is now very PC centric.

kotaku.com

Report: Judgment Series Is Ending Over PC Version Disagreement

Takuya Kimura's talent agency has never seemed enthusiastic about computers.
kotaku.com kotaku.com

It's very frustrating to see this kind of PC phobia still persisting in 2021. Hopefully SEGA can collab with another Japanese star working for an agency with more common sense.
Click to expand...

"A further consequence is that Lost Judgment might be the end of the series since SEGA's strategy is now very PC centric."

271.gif

Yeah, they will ditch the series because they can't release the game on PC. :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 
Gp1

Gp1

Member
That's why most games usually kills their characters based on celebrities.

30 minutes on Blender and the BOYZ at Nexusmods can save Sega some serious legal trouble... :)
 
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