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[Kenka]

SE wasn't being incompetent. They simply wanted out of the deal and did a whole bunch of douchey things in order to get that company of breach the contract or quit in order to not have to pay them. It was probably the legal department's idea to do the fax trolling, but they should have complied anyway. It was the breach of contract or resignation from the project that kept them from being paid. The situation involving the use of actual FF artwork should have been the tip-off.

Unfortunate, but companies use shady tactics to get people to fire themselves all the time.

That plus the rest. Seriously. What have I just read.

SE is not a well-managed company. They will eventually die with the clowns that are at their top. If you wanna do SE something good, gather the shareholders and make them face the obvious : the corporate heads are stupid and should be fired. And be replaced by competent people in project management. I know I've said that several times but it is a matter of time before they go the street route. And that would be stupid.

 

[Shiggy]

That happens when a non-gaming company (Disney, yeah they make games too, but not primarily) clashes with the gaming industry. The game company doesn't know why the hell they should use common sense.

You mean SquareEnix, right? Look at the sales of Epic Mickey, Kingdom Hearts on Wii would've made much sense during 07/08.
Instead, they chose to make a PSP game which pretty much failed outside of Japan when compared to KH1&2. (Not to say that the DS game did extraordinary well but that was outsourced)

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Hey, Chocobo's mysterious dungeon was awesome.

Seriously play this game.

One of the most awesome soundtracks ever.

Youtube - Quick medley of some of the tracks from the game.

Tracklist:

01 - Labyrinth of Forgotten Time
02 - Opening
03 - Treasure Hunter's Theme (from FFIX "Hunter's Chance")
04 - Stella Ranch (from FFVII "Farm Boy")
05 - Ranch at Night (from FFIV "Rydia")
06 - Town of Forgotten Time (from FFXI "Tarutaru Male")
07 - Town at Night (from FFVI "Epitaph")
08 - Shirma's Theme (from FFI "Town")
09 - A Memory Returned (from FFXI "Prelude")
10 - Dungeon Hero X's Theme (from FFVIII "The Man with the Machine Gun")
11 - Airship Theme (from FFIV "Airship")
12 - Memories of a Bygone Day (from FFV "My Home, Sweet Home")
13 - Memories of the World (from FFVI "The Fierce Battle")
14 - Together Forever (from FFV "The Day Will Come")
15 - Mog House X (from FFIII "Theme of the Four Old Men")
16 - Fragment of Memory (from FFIX "Over That Hill")
17 - Nostalgia (from FFI "Chaos' Temple")
18 - Guardian of Flame 1 (from FFV "Sealed Away")
19 - Guardian of Water 2 (from FFV "Dungeon (Fate in Haze)")
20 - Guardian of Light 1 (from FFX "Thunder Plains")
21 - Guardian of Darkness 2 (from FFXI "Awakening")
22 - Duel Room (from FFVIII "Force Your Way")
23 - Phoenix Battle (from FFIII "Battle 2")
24 - Leviathan Battle (from FFIV "Battle with the Four Fiends (The Dreadful Battle)")
25 - Alexander Battle (from FFX "Summoned Beast Battle")
26 - Croma Battle (from FFVIII "Only a Plank Between One and Perdition")
27 - Raffaello Battle (from FFV "Clash on the Big Bridge")
28 - Last Battle (from FFV "The Decisive Battle")
29 - Ending (from Chocobo Racing "The World's Tomorrow")
30 - Pop-up Duel (from FFII "Battle Scene 1")
31 - Door Crawl (Theme Song)
Total Time:
76'01"

 

[sublimit]

Did SE bothered to answer at these accusations yet?

 

[From The Dust]

Did SE bothered to answer at these accusations yet?

who ever does?

 

[Dead Man]

"So, to test the waters at Square a bit, and to see if it was even paying attention, GRIN sent it some concept art from taken straight from Final Fantasy XII .

The Anderssons were told: “It does not look like Final Fantasy.”

Man.

Indeed.

 

[rar]

bionic commando multiplayer was so much fun

too bad no one played it

 

[mt1200]

wtf they didnt even took GRIN seriously.

How cant they say that XII's art doesnt look like final fantasy?, did they even bothered looking and comparing the art?.

And wtf have I read, did they sent the music in binary / hex / ASCII formats via FAX?, seriously wtf square.

 

[From The Dust]

wtf they didnt even took GRIN seriously.

How cant they say that XII's art doesnt look like final fantasy?, did they even bothered looking and comparing the art?.

And wtf have I read, did they sent the music in binary / hex / ASCII formats via FAX?, seriously wtf square.

It's quite clear Squeenix was desperate to get out of contract

 

[Teknoman]

wtf they didnt even took GRIN seriously.

How cant they say that XII's art doesnt look like final fantasy?, did they even bothered looking and comparing the art?.

And wtf have I read, did they sent the music in binary / hex / ASCII formats via FAX?, seriously wtf square.

Either:

A.) They just wanted to brush Grin off and pretend the whole deal never happened.
B.) They really dont know/arent familiar with some of Yoshida's own art for some odd reason.
C.) Grin never sent the XII concept art in the first place.

 

[Brobzoid]

should have just send an infinite fax. always the best way to be passive aggressive in a professional way.

... maybe an infinite fax of cock pics would be better.

 

[Teknoman]

should have just send an infinite fax. always the best way to be passive aggressive in a professional way.

... maybe an infinite fax of cock pics would be better.

If they really wanted to be funny, they should've just sent ASCII art of a big music note.

 

[duckroll]

One thing I'm curious about is how the NDA was structured. It seems that GRIN has no problems bad mouthing Square Enix as an overall company with these accusations, which might well be true, but who were they working with on the other end? There would certainly be a Japanese producer and project managers on the other end who they are communicating with. Who was producing Fortress, and who were the Japanese staff overseeing it? I'm pretty curious myself.

 

[Dead Man]

If they really wanted to be funny, they should've just sent ASCII art of a big music note.

That would have been perfect, ascii art of each note, thousands and thousands of pages.

 

[From The Dust]

One thing I'm curious about is how the NDA was structured. It seems that GRIN has no problems bad mouthing Square Enix as an overall company with these accusations, which might well be true, but who were they working with on the other end? There would certainly be a Japanese producer and project managers on the other end who they are communicating with. Who was producing Fortress, and who were the Japanese staff overseeing it? I'm pretty curious myself.

Nobody. Squeenix just sat back and trolled GRiN to death

 

[duckroll]

Nobody. Squeenix just sat back and trolled GRiN to death

Squeenix is not a person! Someone had to be doing the trolling.

 

[Infinite Justice]

Squeenix is not a person! Someone had to be doing the trolling.

Wada.

 

[From The Dust]

Squeenix is not a person! Someone had to be doing the trolling.

There's a Shyamalan joke in here somewhere

 

[Teknoman]

Nobody. Squeenix just sat back and trolled GRiN to death

 

[Dunan]

Ssoass, that is some beautiful concept art. I'm lucky enough to have the FFXII Ultimania Omega, which contains it (with commentary), but often wish I could have a giant poster of some of it, particularly that first shot of Archades.

Where is the second picture from? I can't quite place it. Nalbina?

Great stuff. I love FFXII more every time I think about it.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

Where is the second picture from? I can't quite place it. Nalbina?

Yes.

Too bad you only ever go through the south western area where the bazaar is.

 

[Ravidrath]

Nobody. Squeenix just sat back and trolled GRiN to death

You have this entirely backwards: this is just GRIN trolling Square from beyond the grave.

The only reason anyone is talking about this is because everyone has a hate-on for Square. GRIN only has relative goodwill here.

 

[Dunan]

Yes.

Too bad you only ever go through the south western area where the bazaar is.

And you only get to visit the dungeons -- with their fantastic music that really made me feel like I was playing Vagrant Story 2, which is a good thing -- once. It's easy to forget that there's a castle, a bazaar, dungeons, and a disused subway station in Nalbina. A great area that deserved more attention.

 

[mt1200]

It's quite clear Squeenix was desperate to get out of contract

Yes, it seems that they backed out from that contract and trolled.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

It's sad because if Square would give their usual 3-5 year development cycles to ANY other developer for a main/big final fantasy game it would be significantly better than anything they could produce.

 

[Teknoman]

It's sad because if Square would give their usual 3-5 year development cycles to ANY other developer for a main/big final fantasy game it would be significantly better than anything they could produce.

I wouldnt say that. They still have the potential to make great titles, its just they need to focus on what made past FF games so great, instead of trying to completely reinvent the wheel in a way that no one really wants. That and they suffer from the same problem Grin did: taking on too many projects at once, not to mention mismanagement in general.

 

[I NEED SCISSORS]

Why not just get Nomura to do the art then if it wasn't 'Final Fantasy' enough? He already has his fingers in everything at Square anyway..

 

[Margalis]

In related story: Player buys GRIN-developed game - exposes GRIN incompetence.

 

[Ravidrath]

It's sad because if Square would give their usual 3-5 year development cycles to ANY other developer for a main/big final fantasy game it would be significantly better than anything they could produce.

Not really.

Square projects go on for a long time, but they have a pretty barebones staff for all but the last year of them, just doing the planning and getting all their ducks in a row. When all that is done, they throw a ton of people at it to execute the plan.

When you hire a 3rd party developer, you sign them because the plan is more or less done, and you're ready to execute. From there you generally have 2 years at a fairly stable staffing level to finish the game.

 

[Rahxephon91]

In related story: Player buys GRIN-developed game - exposes GRIN incompetence.

That dosen't really make the news because it dosen't involve bashing Square Enix.

 

[dramatis]

When you hire a 3rd party developer, you sign them because the plan is more or less done, and you're ready to execute. From there you generally have 2 years at a fairly stable staffing level to finish the game.

That's not always the case. For example, Dmc is something specifically designed and conceived by Ninja Theory, keeping in mind the original material (lol). A lot of third party developers receive a really high level concept ("Put Mario in an FPS", etc.) and listen to pitches designed by the third party developers before deciding on one. The plan hasn't even been actually started until post-selection process.

 

[Pistolero]

Oops wrong topic!

 

[charlequin]

A.) They just wanted to brush Grin off and pretend the whole deal never happened.
B.) They really dont know/arent familiar with some of Yoshida's own art for some odd reason.
C.) Grin never sent the XII concept art in the first place.

Especially given the well-documented incompetence in other areas on the part of both management teams involved in this story, this particular list does a good job of summarizing exactly how difficult it is to actually apportion blame between the two.

 

[Drkirby]

Not sure why they didn't do it. You can fax compiled code and music just as easily as text, it'll just look like gibberish on the other side. Whenever manager makes an obviously shitty demand of you and refuses to listen to logic, satisfy the demand and let them get hoisted by their own petard.

Maybe they wanted the source code faxed and music in sheet form?

 

[Curufinwe]

On the E3 Day 2 Giant Bombcast, Ulf Andersson of Overkill software (the co-founder of Grin) was very critical of the Western press outlets who ran this story, accusing them of getting/mangling the quotes via Babelfish or Google Translate.

Starts around 2:24:20.

http://www.giantbomb.com/podcast/?podcast_id=234