Was thinking about this a bit today and how it effects my future gaming purchases. I've always had favorite developers/publishers who garner premium mindshare, but this past generation I've seen the rise of many new favorites and decline to several others. The highlights:
Down
Square (applies to them, not Enix). Where to begin? I thought Square was poised for a golden age after the diverse quality they produced on the Playstation. Instead they're leaving this generation with only two bankable franchises to their credit (FF and KH), one of which is the company staple. The rest of their IPs are in disarray. They're trying to revive Mana, but how long ago was Mana a legitimate series? In turn they've given us "hits" like The Bouncer and Drakenguard. To make matters worse this generation as seen the departure of many talented staffers, forming studios like Monolith, Aruze, and biggest of all, Sakaguchi's Mistwalker. It looks as though Yasumi Matsuno will be moving on as wel. The huge turnover of staff in previous generations never reached the top development and design crew, but this generation it not only reached them, it decimated their senior staff.
For me this is the single worst case of a developer causing me to "lose the faith". I was a lock "sales+1" for pretty much any Square game that hit stateside. Going into the next generation though I'm not sure if they'll sell me anything other than the core series Final Fantasies.
Rare. Never been a huge Rare fan to begin with, but they could reliably sell me a handful of games a generation. Now I have pretty much no interest in what they're doing. Star Fox was a huge underdeliver, and their Xbox content was mostly various shades of mediocrity. I haven't played their X360 efforts yet so I won't judge too harshly, but then I hear those didn't exactly impress either.
Long ways down from Goldeneye, the first PD, Jet Force Gemini, Killer Instinct, et al.
Neversoft. I genuinely enjoyed Tony Hawk for about two installements. I also thought their Spiderman game was pretty tight. Now they're just the house of Hawk sequels. Waste of talent in my opinion, I'd actually be interested if they'd ever do something new.
Up
Capcom. I don't think I can stress this enough. Last gen I'd buy their games for the occasional Street Fighter or Resident Evil fix, outside of that I didn't give them much support. Now I think they're the dominant developer in my software library. RE4, Okami, DMC1&3, Breath of Fire V, Maximo, and many other titles they've produced have not only been great games, but great games that add something to their respective genre. At this point I feel like a borderline Capcom fanboy. ;P
SCE. Sony has really done some marvelous things with their first and second party development. Its been talked about quite a bit around here so I won't get too into it, but sufice to say that I'm buying a PS3 at some point for Sony's content alone, who thought any sane person would ever say that just five years ago?
Bethesda. I'm a big PC RPG fan from way back but never played any of the Elder Scrolls games. Morrowind was like a time sink revelation for me. I spent a whole summer playing that game while healing from an injury, probably put a good 300 hours into it. I have mixed feelings about them making a new Fallout, but I'll definately buy it, and anything else they release for that matter.
So yeah, those are my major shifts in developer loyalty, figured it'd be a fun thread for everyone to list and discuss theirs as well.
Down
Square (applies to them, not Enix). Where to begin? I thought Square was poised for a golden age after the diverse quality they produced on the Playstation. Instead they're leaving this generation with only two bankable franchises to their credit (FF and KH), one of which is the company staple. The rest of their IPs are in disarray. They're trying to revive Mana, but how long ago was Mana a legitimate series? In turn they've given us "hits" like The Bouncer and Drakenguard. To make matters worse this generation as seen the departure of many talented staffers, forming studios like Monolith, Aruze, and biggest of all, Sakaguchi's Mistwalker. It looks as though Yasumi Matsuno will be moving on as wel. The huge turnover of staff in previous generations never reached the top development and design crew, but this generation it not only reached them, it decimated their senior staff.
For me this is the single worst case of a developer causing me to "lose the faith". I was a lock "sales+1" for pretty much any Square game that hit stateside. Going into the next generation though I'm not sure if they'll sell me anything other than the core series Final Fantasies.
Rare. Never been a huge Rare fan to begin with, but they could reliably sell me a handful of games a generation. Now I have pretty much no interest in what they're doing. Star Fox was a huge underdeliver, and their Xbox content was mostly various shades of mediocrity. I haven't played their X360 efforts yet so I won't judge too harshly, but then I hear those didn't exactly impress either.
Long ways down from Goldeneye, the first PD, Jet Force Gemini, Killer Instinct, et al.
Neversoft. I genuinely enjoyed Tony Hawk for about two installements. I also thought their Spiderman game was pretty tight. Now they're just the house of Hawk sequels. Waste of talent in my opinion, I'd actually be interested if they'd ever do something new.
Up
Capcom. I don't think I can stress this enough. Last gen I'd buy their games for the occasional Street Fighter or Resident Evil fix, outside of that I didn't give them much support. Now I think they're the dominant developer in my software library. RE4, Okami, DMC1&3, Breath of Fire V, Maximo, and many other titles they've produced have not only been great games, but great games that add something to their respective genre. At this point I feel like a borderline Capcom fanboy. ;P
SCE. Sony has really done some marvelous things with their first and second party development. Its been talked about quite a bit around here so I won't get too into it, but sufice to say that I'm buying a PS3 at some point for Sony's content alone, who thought any sane person would ever say that just five years ago?
Bethesda. I'm a big PC RPG fan from way back but never played any of the Elder Scrolls games. Morrowind was like a time sink revelation for me. I spent a whole summer playing that game while healing from an injury, probably put a good 300 hours into it. I have mixed feelings about them making a new Fallout, but I'll definately buy it, and anything else they release for that matter.
So yeah, those are my major shifts in developer loyalty, figured it'd be a fun thread for everyone to list and discuss theirs as well.
