First things first, apologies for the title, I couldn't come up with a better idea.
Ah, Idea Factory. Who hasn't heard the name? Well, quite a few people I'd assume, despite its notoriety. So, a brief history of the company that not too long ago celebrated its 20th birthday.
Founded in 1994 by ex-Data East employees, the company has been churning out RPGs and female-oriented visual novels ever since, sometimes releasing upwards of 20 titles a year. A great majority of these titles were Japan exclusive; after all they were, and still remain, super low budget and rather niche products. While more active back in the 90s and early 2000s, IdeaFactory still make quite a lot of games these days, but mostly defers to its left and right hand associates/subsidiaries: Design Factory(who makes VNs and other female-oriented products for the Otomate label), and Compile Heart.
Oh, here's another name that should ring a few bells (maybe alarm bells for some too). Good ol' Compile Heart. Rumor has it that by 2006, the IdeaFactory brand name had quite a few negative connotations, so what better way to escape them than by creating a new identity? And lo and behold, Compile Heart was born, taking the reigns of game development as a subsidiary of IF, who did the publishing. Now, outside of having the old CEO of Compile heading the company, Compile Heart had nothing to do with the original Compile, who made many classic shmups, RPGs and the Puyo Puyo series. Well, up till 2012 anyway, when said CEO retired of old age and Compile Heart acquired the rights to all the old Compile games and began digital distribution of them in Japan (save for PuyoPuyo, still owned by Sega).
Alright, enough of the history lesson. So Compile Heart, and by association IdeaFactory, make a lot of RPGs (and also DS games for children but those don't really matter here). Low budget RPGs. Sexualized male-oriented RPGs. Bad RPGs. Or at least that's the general impression.
Some of the most common features of these games include overly complex mechanics (or by contrast very simple ones), reliance on grinding, reliance on sexualization, throwaway plots, asset reuse, and so on. Quite the melting pot of negativity. And yet the company still trucks on as if unaffected, successful in the west and east, quite to the chagrin of a few. You'll often hear comments to the tune of "Why'd they localize CH games instead of game X or Y?", "IdeaFactory, more like IdeaFuck", and my favourite "Compile Heart is giving RPGs a bad rep!". And you still get your Neptunias, Agarests, curry, and other assorted moe games.
So at some point, IdeaFactory/CompileHeart became the end-all be-all of all negative RPG traits. "Ugh, why is FireEmblem pandering like CompileHeart trash", "Man SMTXFE looks like some shitty IdeaFactory game", "Don't compare game X to IdeaFactory, it's way better than that!", "I'd rather have a million Lightning games than more of those games"... You get the point.
The thing here is, IdeaFactory has been playing it safe for around a decade now. Reuse assets to lower production costs (although asset recycling should not be mistaken for such a negative thing as it can be used cleverly), have low poly models that don't fully utilize the hardware they're on, make heavy use of VN sequences instead of actual cutscenes, target hardcore Japanese niches that will guarantee you sales (and maybe get a couple bucks from the west too). And hey, it worked. They're still in business, and doing better than ever since Comcept gave them a boost a while back.
So here's the question. Is the reputation of IF/CH as some evil company ruining RPGs deserved? Should they be blamed for playing it safe and pandering to that small loyal audience to get guaranteed sales? Should they go make more mainstream(and better quality) stuff?
Personally I feel like this whole issue is severely overblown by internet hyperbole. Ignoring the quality of their games for a moment, here's their top sales for 2014 (many thanks to the Media Create Thread and hiska-kun):
This isn't to say that the company is blameless. On the contrary, they're rather subpar compared to many other producers, albeit showing signs of improvement here and there. And yet I can't find it in me to condemn people that enjoy their games.
The above FireEmblem/SMT quotes seem to highlight a minor move towards IF's sort of elements in more mainstream games (or well, as mainstream as an SRPG can get). A shift that's rather disliked by some in the west. Intelligent Systems, when faced with the threat of closure (EDIT: I was corrected here, IS were not being closed but would simply stop making FE games if their next one did not sell well), used some of those elements(although mildly) and found success. Should they be blamed for doing that? Or maybe it's the Japanese audience's fault for not buying "normal" games? After all these elements are still niche stuff. This isn't as much a shift in consumer preferences over there so much as general disinterest for video games at hand.
So yeah. Interested in hearing opinions. Sorry if I didn't make much sense or rambled on at parts. Please feel free to point any errors or fallacies I made.
Ah, Idea Factory. Who hasn't heard the name? Well, quite a few people I'd assume, despite its notoriety. So, a brief history of the company that not too long ago celebrated its 20th birthday.
Founded in 1994 by ex-Data East employees, the company has been churning out RPGs and female-oriented visual novels ever since, sometimes releasing upwards of 20 titles a year. A great majority of these titles were Japan exclusive; after all they were, and still remain, super low budget and rather niche products. While more active back in the 90s and early 2000s, IdeaFactory still make quite a lot of games these days, but mostly defers to its left and right hand associates/subsidiaries: Design Factory(who makes VNs and other female-oriented products for the Otomate label), and Compile Heart.
Oh, here's another name that should ring a few bells (maybe alarm bells for some too). Good ol' Compile Heart. Rumor has it that by 2006, the IdeaFactory brand name had quite a few negative connotations, so what better way to escape them than by creating a new identity? And lo and behold, Compile Heart was born, taking the reigns of game development as a subsidiary of IF, who did the publishing. Now, outside of having the old CEO of Compile heading the company, Compile Heart had nothing to do with the original Compile, who made many classic shmups, RPGs and the Puyo Puyo series. Well, up till 2012 anyway, when said CEO retired of old age and Compile Heart acquired the rights to all the old Compile games and began digital distribution of them in Japan (save for PuyoPuyo, still owned by Sega).
Alright, enough of the history lesson. So Compile Heart, and by association IdeaFactory, make a lot of RPGs (and also DS games for children but those don't really matter here). Low budget RPGs. Sexualized male-oriented RPGs. Bad RPGs. Or at least that's the general impression.
Some of the most common features of these games include overly complex mechanics (or by contrast very simple ones), reliance on grinding, reliance on sexualization, throwaway plots, asset reuse, and so on. Quite the melting pot of negativity. And yet the company still trucks on as if unaffected, successful in the west and east, quite to the chagrin of a few. You'll often hear comments to the tune of "Why'd they localize CH games instead of game X or Y?", "IdeaFactory, more like IdeaFuck", and my favourite "Compile Heart is giving RPGs a bad rep!". And you still get your Neptunias, Agarests, curry, and other assorted moe games.
So at some point, IdeaFactory/CompileHeart became the end-all be-all of all negative RPG traits. "Ugh, why is FireEmblem pandering like CompileHeart trash", "Man SMTXFE looks like some shitty IdeaFactory game", "Don't compare game X to IdeaFactory, it's way better than that!", "I'd rather have a million Lightning games than more of those games"... You get the point.
The thing here is, IdeaFactory has been playing it safe for around a decade now. Reuse assets to lower production costs (although asset recycling should not be mistaken for such a negative thing as it can be used cleverly), have low poly models that don't fully utilize the hardware they're on, make heavy use of VN sequences instead of actual cutscenes, target hardcore Japanese niches that will guarantee you sales (and maybe get a couple bucks from the west too). And hey, it worked. They're still in business, and doing better than ever since Comcept gave them a boost a while back.
So here's the question. Is the reputation of IF/CH as some evil company ruining RPGs deserved? Should they be blamed for playing it safe and pandering to that small loyal audience to get guaranteed sales? Should they go make more mainstream(and better quality) stuff?
Personally I feel like this whole issue is severely overblown by internet hyperbole. Ignoring the quality of their games for a moment, here's their top sales for 2014 (many thanks to the Media Create Thread and hiska-kun):
Hardly impressive. Any other company would be bankrupted by such small numbers. Supposedly their games sell better in the west, but that could be attributed to the larger overall market.
This isn't to say that the company is blameless. On the contrary, they're rather subpar compared to many other producers, albeit showing signs of improvement here and there. And yet I can't find it in me to condemn people that enjoy their games.
The above FireEmblem/SMT quotes seem to highlight a minor move towards IF's sort of elements in more mainstream games (or well, as mainstream as an SRPG can get). A shift that's rather disliked by some in the west. Intelligent Systems, when faced with the threat of closure (EDIT: I was corrected here, IS were not being closed but would simply stop making FE games if their next one did not sell well), used some of those elements(although mildly) and found success. Should they be blamed for doing that? Or maybe it's the Japanese audience's fault for not buying "normal" games? After all these elements are still niche stuff. This isn't as much a shift in consumer preferences over there so much as general disinterest for video games at hand.
So yeah. Interested in hearing opinions. Sorry if I didn't make much sense or rambled on at parts. Please feel free to point any errors or fallacies I made.
