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[Men_in_Boxes]

BGE fans weren’t clamoring for a live service piece of shit.

BGE fans are irrelevant.

BGE came out in 2003 and sold poorly. Only a small number of gamers from 20 years ago are still playing games.

BGE2 is an open world, co-op focused Star Wars that Ubisoft controls and owns. It's aiming for something far bigger than the small cult favorite that released way back when.

Ubisoft is in this to make money, not to pacify the 7 people today who want it to be like the 2003 flop.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Is there anyone who honestly still cares about this game? Or are we going to keep allowing ubisoft to bait BG&E in order to turn people's attention away from their latest fuck up?

 

[Teslerum]

BGE fans are irrelevant.

BGE came out in 2003 and sold poorly. Only a small number of gamers from 20 years ago are still playing games.

BGE2 is an open world, co-op focused Star Wars that Ubisoft controls and owns. It's aiming for something far bigger than the small cult favorite that released way back when.

Ubisoft is in this to make money, not to pacify the 7 people today who want it to be like the 2003 flop.

 

[nush]

BGE fans are irrelevant.

BGE came out in 2003 and sold poorly. Only a small number of gamers from 20 years ago are still playing games.

BGE2 is an open world, co-op focused Star Wars that Ubisoft controls and owns. It's aiming for something far bigger than the small cult favorite that released way back when.

Ubisoft is in this to make money, not to pacify the 7 people today who want it to be like the 2003 flop.

Harsh, but true.

 

[CuteFaceJay]

I guess some games just don't fit the Ubisoft AssCreed & FarCry templates.

 

[Kiddo Cabbusses]

BGE fans are irrelevant.

BGE came out in 2003 and sold poorly. Only a small number of gamers from 20 years ago are still playing games.

BGE2 is an open world, co-op focused Star Wars that Ubisoft controls and owns. It's aiming for something far bigger than the small cult favorite that released way back when.

Ubisoft is in this to make money, not to pacify the 7 people today who want it to be like the 2003 flop.

The easy counter-argument to this is "Why tie it to the BGAE IP, then?"

I mean, especially considering it seems like the game would have been better received in general if it was not titled as it was anyway.

Not to mention they aren't gonna get any audience if the game gets canned.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The easy counter-argument to this is "Why tie it to the BGAE IP, then?"

I mean, especially considering it seems like the game would have been better received in general if it was not titled as it was anyway.

Not to mention they aren't gonna get any audience if the game gets canned.

Because they value the IP from a creative perspective and they don't care about the small number of people who are obsessed with the original BGE.

I do agree that Ubisoft will have a hard time finding an audience from a game that never gets released. I suspect this difficulty may apply to other, non BGE IP as well.

 

[Kiddo Cabbusses]

Because they value the IP from a creative perspective and they don't care about the small number of people who are obsessed with the original BGE.

The thing is, can you recall any franchise that outright burned bridges with it's original fanbase and managed to survive the outcome?

Certainly, big franchises took big hits from this sort of thing - just look at pop culture in current year and you'll see a new example popping up every second.
As for examples specific to video games?
Tomba 2 tanked just because it went from well-done 2D spritework to kinda-worse-looking 3D polygons, even though the gameplay didn't change. No further entries.
Alundra 2 dropped the title character. No further entries.
Zelda 2 changed to mostly side-scrolling. Still the most controversial entry of the entire franchise to this date. Third game went right back to top-down.
As far as I can see, it's only ever really worked when the first game was particularly poorly received (like Dynasty Warriors).

 

[zaanan]

Good. That trailer was unbelievably shitty.

You want to peddle your woke bullshit, make your own cast and universe, don't stain someone else's

Ah, but the purpose of “woke” is to destroy, not create. Mission accomplished here.

 

[yurinka]

Nintendo's not a good example of a typical AAA culture treatment of game devs - not just because many of the people working at Nintendo are the same ones that were there since the Famicom era (Sure, Miyamoto may have a diminished role, but he sure as heck was not Kojima'd), but most of the "new" people they bring in to do projects are veteran devs that are the exact kind of people other companies let go under the "anyone is replaceable" AAA culture. Do you realize how many people who worked on Odyssey previously worked at Sega, one of the examples I mentioned? Or how the guys who make Mario Party games are Hudson Soft devs who left after the Konami buyout? Nintendo also has enough quality control that even their worst outings would not be on the "oof" scale of Cyberpunk or GTA Trilogy Remastered (although their recent N64 emulator is way below their normal standard... I blame their anti-emulation internal culture which dates back decades on that.).

Heck, Metroid as an IP by itself has two counter-examples to the notably buzzed "trouble projects" of current - If GTA Trilogy was Metroid Prime 4, would it have been restarted from scratch by a different studio? If Metroid Dread was BGAE2, would it have launched this year and been everything the fanbase was hoping for, more or less? Metroid is still mostly Sakamoto's little pet, even.

As an example, Metroid Prime trilogy was made a Retro Studio, and some of the main folks in charge of them left the studio and many of them are now at Bluepoint. The most recent Metroid has been made in Spain by Mercury Steam. Retro Studios and Mercury Steam had nothing to do with the Famicom games.

Sakamoto designed the original Metroid and directed the other 2D Metroids and Other M, but wasn't involved in the Prime ones and was producer of Samus Returns and Dread. But he's the 'PR star' of the series, in the same way Miyamoto is for Mario even if his involvement is pretty limited. Now you mention Kojima, I also remember he also appeared as 'PR star' for Castlevania Lords of Shadow, even if it was developed by Mercury Steam too, and they only saw Kojima three days.

Kojima's team endorsed their initial pitch to make a Castlevania and provided them facial animation tech and some minor feedback, and supported them with PR. That's all his involvement with that project.

 

[MastaKiiLA]

The development crisis is that it hasn't been cancelled already, after over a decade. This game will never come out, and if it does come out, it'll be a hollow shell of what made the original great. I'd almost prefer they not sully Jade's image by continuing this charade.

 

[Kuranghi]

BGE came out in 2003 and sold poorly. Only a small number of gamers from 20 years ago are still playing games.

Okay we get you are a young person and all about future ways of playing games but this is just a bizarre statement.

I'm 35, I played it when I was 17, I'm still playing games and so are millions of others, your statement is not well thought out.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The thing is, can you recall any franchise that outright burned bridges with it's original fanbase and managed to survive the outcome?

Certainly, big franchises took big hits from this sort of thing...

I'm having a hard time understanding your position.

Ubisoft doesn't look at this as "burning bridges" because so few people bought and played BGE in 2003, making another version of that would likely be akin to throwing money in a pit of fire.

It's like a kid selling lemonade who doesn't make any money because he doesn't get enough customers. He can either sell a different brand of lemonade or he can turn it into a coffee stand. This outrage is coming from the small handful of lemonade customers who are too few in number to matter. The market wants coffee.

Okay we get you are a young person and all about future ways of playing games but this is just a bizarre statement.

I'm 35, I played it when I was 17, I'm still playing games and so are millions of others, your statement is not well thought out.

I wasn't literal with my language. You have to admit that a relevant percentage of gamers "age out" of the market as they reach their 30s and 40s.

Let's not forget, there were a ton of "Ocarina of Time clones" released in the late 90s and early 00s. The genre withered away because the market couldn't support it. Today it's even less viable.

 

[Kiddo Cabbusses]

As an example, Metroid Prime trilogy was made a Retro Studio, and some of the main folks in charge of them left the studio and many of them are now at Bluepoint. The most recent Metroid has been made in Spain by Mercury Steam. Retro Studios and Mercury Steam had nothing to do with the Famicom games.

Sakamoto designed the original Metroid and directed the other 2D Metroids and Other M, but wasn't involved in the Prime ones and was producer of Samus Returns and Dread. But he's the 'PR star' of the series, in the same way Miyamoto is for Mario even if his involvement is pretty limited. Now you mention Kojima, I also remember he also appeared as 'PR star' for Castlevania Lords of Shadow, even if it was developed by Mercury Steam too, and they only saw Kojima three days.

Kojima's team endorsed their initial pitch to make a Castlevania and provided them facial animation tech and some minor feedback, and supported them with PR. That's all his involvement with that project.

To start, having new studios develop games as projects clearly become larger in scope than previously is not akin to ditching the old guard/treating key staff as replaceable, either. (Again, especially when notable key members of the game staff, like directors and music composers, are still contributing as ever.)
This is particularly apparent when notable Nintendo IP lay dormant for multiple decades simply because one of the heads of the old projects is either preoccupied, or "Can't think of a way to innovate in a sequel." (Ugghhh all I want is a F-Zero with both a car and a track editor at once, Nintendo!)
The Retro Studios story is a bit complicated, but if anything, the fact that there's been such a struggle to get a Metroid Prime 4 out makes the case that Nintendo took the leave of staff (I forget the exact reason why they left and will just assume for now that they're in the "not fucking Donkey Kong" audience) seriously enough to put the franchise on hold. It's also, likewise, an example of Nintendo's quality control standards not allowing a subpar product, considering what we can presume to be Bandai-Namco's failures on Prime 4. Either way, Retro Studios is certainly no Grove Land Games or... whoever those guys who made those GTA ports are.

Incidentally, Mercury Steam's current relationship with Nintendo is pretty much because of their Lords of Shadow series, giving them something in common with the Mario Party staff. That said, Metal Gear was always Kojima's baby, and that's a franchise that has not been doing so hot since he left. Though Konami doesn't really seem invested in the game industry anymore anyway, so perhaps trying to analyze their decisions is hopeless.

I'm having a hard time understanding your position.

Ubisoft doesn't look at this as "burning bridges" because so few people bought and played BGE in 2003, making another version of that would likely be akin to throwing money in a pit of fire.

It's like a kid selling lemonade who doesn't make any money because he doesn't get enough customers. He can either sell a different brand of lemonade or he can turn it into a coffee stand. This outrage is coming from the small handful of lemonade customers who are too few in number to matter. The market wants coffee.

When you call Coffee "Lemonade 2", you're not gonna get Coffee fans to drink it.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

And how many people even care about BG&E 1 or 2?

This game is just like Psychnauts, Abes Odyssey and Shenmue games.

Always some message board banter and gamers bringing it up. Yet sales are lousy.

 

[Kiddo Cabbusses]

And how many people even care about BG&E 1 or 2?

This game is just like Psychnauts, Abes Odyssey and Shenmue games.

Always some message board banter and gamers bringing it up. Yet sales are lousy.

From what I recall, Psychonauts 2 sold pretty well.

I didn't think Shenmue was gonna sell enough for what it's fanbase demanded either, but Shenmue 3 didn't help itself by actually peeving them off in several facets. (Especially changing the fighting game engine. Easily the absolute worst decision that could have been made for that game.)

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

When you call Coffee "Lemonade 2", you're not gonna get Coffee fans to drink it.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Ubisoft, a 20,000 employee size company, doesn't think the market will care. People play what looks fun.

 

[Kiddo Cabbusses]

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Ubisoft, a 20,000 employee size company, doesn't think the market will care. People play what looks fun.

Ubisoft also thought it was a good idea to continue this project without it's original creative director, and that's probably how it ended up in this development trouble to begin with. I wouldn't exactly be so eager to make a post that sounds like corporate bootlicking on their behalf.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

BGE fans are irrelevant.

BGE came out in 2003 and sold poorly. Only a small number of gamers from 20 years ago are still playing games.

BGE2 is an open world, co-op focused Star Wars that Ubisoft controls and owns. It's aiming for something far bigger than the small cult favorite that released way back when.

Ubisoft is in this to make money, not to pacify the 7 people today who want it to be like the 2003 flop.

Then why use the name? Call it "generic Ubishit for the average 15 year old normie live shit game with MTX".

 

[Fuz]

BGE fans are irrelevant.

BGE came out in 2003 and sold poorly. Only a small number of gamers from 20 years ago are still playing games.

BGE2 is an open world, co-op focused Star Wars that Ubisoft controls and owns. It's aiming for something far bigger than the small cult favorite that released way back when.

Ubisoft is in this to make money, not to pacify the 7 people today who want it to be like the 2003 flop.

Then there's no need at all to call it BG&E.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Ubisoft also thought it was a good idea to continue this project without it's original creative director, and that's probably how it ended up in this development trouble to begin with. I wouldn't exactly be so eager to make a post that sounds like corporate bootlicking on their behalf.

I'm not sure if it's "corporate bootlicking" to explain why BGE2 is going to be an open world co-op title as opposed to an Ocarina of Time clone...in the year 2023/2024.

Star Fox Adventures isn't going to keep the lights on at Ubisoft.

 

[Kiddo Cabbusses]

I'm not sure if it's "corporate bootlicking" to explain why BGE2 is going to be an open world co-op title as opposed to an Ocarina of Time clone...in the year 2023/2024.

Star Fox Adventures isn't going to keep the lights on at Ubisoft.

Well, when it was phrased the way it was here...

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Ubisoft, a 20,000 employee size company, doesn't think the market will care. People play what looks fun.

It sounds presumptuous of how good Ubisoft's read on the potential success of the game is. It assumes the market as a whole doesn't care about the perception the prior fans have (You know, in modern social media climate era, where dedicated fanbases are louder and more vocal than ever, and are possibly also influential content creators themselves). It assumes the game is "fun" even though no normie gamer has even played.
I mean, let's call it like it is; It sounds like "You don't understand how great this game actually is!"
Mentioning the size of the company via it's employee count was a completely superfluous tangent that isn't relevant to any of the points other than the scale of the project and the potential fallout of it's failure. It's almost as if it was mentioned just to imply "Ubisoft is a big company, therefore it's smarter and knows better than you do!"

Does that clarify why it sounds like corporate bootlicking now?

 

[Murdok]

Bad news.

 

[yurinka]

To start, having new studios develop games as projects clearly become larger in scope than previously is not akin to ditching the old guard/treating key staff as replaceable, either. (Again, especially when notable key members of the game staff, like directors and music composers, are still contributing as ever.)
This is particularly apparent when notable Nintendo IP lay dormant for multiple decades simply because one of the heads of the old projects is either preoccupied, or "Can't think of a way to innovate in a sequel." (Ugghhh all I want is a F-Zero with both a car and a track editor at once, Nintendo!)

I don't say they are treated as replaceable, I say they replaced them. Some because they left, others because they retired, others because have been promoted to different roles and nurtured younger generations who replaced them. In Nintendo and in all companys. Which is ok and normal. Obviously you weren't going to have Miyamoto and the other ones designing games during 100 years. It's the circle of life, like in the Lion King. Hakuna matata.

The Retro Studios story is a bit complicated, but if anything, the fact that there's been such a struggle to get a Metroid Prime 4 out makes the case that Nintendo took the leave of staff (I forget the exact reason why they left and will just assume for now that they're in the "not fucking Donkey Kong" audience) seriously enough to put the franchise on hold. It's also, likewise, an example of Nintendo's quality control standards not allowing a subpar product, considering what we can presume to be Bandai-Namco's failures on Prime 4. Either way, Retro Studios is certainly no Grove Land Games or... whoever those guys who made those GTA ports are.

It isn't complicated. The key Retro Studio staff in charge of the Metroid trilogy left to create other studios like Armature, so even if the new team after them did a great job in games like DKC Nintendo decided to try with another team, in this case a new Bandai Namco studio from Singapur for Prime 4. It didn't work and asked Retro to restart the project and handle them, even if most of the Metroid Prime staff are now in Bluepoint. This was less than 3 years ago, so pretty likely they will need a year or two more to complete it. There is nothing wrong or rare on cancelling or restarting a project, or to get a lot of big changes. It's something most companies do pretty frequently, but typically happens before they announced the games, so it doesn't go public. It's one of the reasons of why companies are secretive and typically wait a fair amount of time before announcing game they have under development.

Grove Street Games are a small mobile game developer who previously did some good ports to mobile of some games. Rockstar put them to make the Trilogy and seems they didn't have enough time and resources to properly polish everything.

Incidentally, Mercury Steam's current relationship with Nintendo is pretty much because of their Lords of Shadow series, giving them something in common with the Mario Party staff. That said, Metal Gear was always Kojima's baby, and that's a franchise that has not been doing so hot since he left. Though Konami doesn't really seem invested in the game industry anymore anyway, so perhaps trying to analyze their decisions is hopeless.

Outside their soccer team seems Konami left AAA games while ago, not only Metal Gear. Now seems they're back in some form, at least to make a -pretty likely AA- Silent Hill with Blobber and some MGS remasters with a Chinese team.

It sounds presumptuous of how good Ubisoft's read on the potential success of the game is.

Ubisoft is one of the few companies who consistently releases at least a handful of games every year that sells over 10 or even 20 million copies one of the top and most successful publishers. Which means they are very good reading the market and what their fans/target users want, or at least buy. A few noisy guys in social media or forums may not be representative of their userbase, specially considering that since they are many millions there must be all kinds of opinions there.

 

[iorek21]

Ubisoft’s assembly line methodology is not working anymore?

 

[zaanan]

Then why use the name? Call it "generic Ubishit for the average 15 year old normie live shit game with MTX".

Exactly! Why do this? If the original audience is too small for Ubi to care about, why bother using the name? On the other hand, if the audience is large enough to matter, why risk pissing them off by changing everything? It makes no sense either way. I have the same question about Prey btw.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Well, when it was phrased the way it was here...

It sounds presumptuous of how good Ubisoft's read on the potential success of the game is. It assumes the market as a whole doesn't care about the perception the prior fans have (You know, in modern social media climate era, where dedicated fanbases are louder and more vocal than ever, and are possibly also influential content creators themselves). It assumes the game is "fun" even though no normie gamer has even played.
I mean, let's call it like it is; It sounds like "You don't understand how great this game actually is!"
Mentioning the size of the company via it's employee count was a completely superfluous tangent that isn't relevant to any of the points other than the scale of the project and the potential fallout of it's failure. It's almost as if it was mentioned just to imply "Ubisoft is a big company, therefore it's smarter and knows better than you do!"

Does that clarify why it sounds like corporate bootlicking now?

- There isn't anyone better equipped to handle this particular situation more than Ubisoft. They have access to metrics people like me and you could only dream about and teams of highly qualified people to greenlight decisions based on those metrics.

- There is no "dedicated fanbase" for 2003s BG&E. The game sold poorly almost 20 years ago with nothing since.

- All developers assume their game is going to be fun for the general public. That applies to all genres and IPs.

- Mentioning the size of their company illustrates how successful they've been at making games over the last 30 years.

- On average, Ubisoft does know better than people like me or you. They think open world co-op is the way to go. They're experts in this field. We are not.

- No, the "corporate bootlicking" comment still makes zero sense.

I just don't see a coherent counter argument here other than "I don't like direction of new game so I complain." Beyond Good and Evil 2 was only going to happen if it went like this. We were never getting a traditional sequel 20 years later. That sucks for the 8 people still holding their breath for that on a planet with 7+ billion.


UPDATE:

 

[HYDE]

Darn it. Oh well, onto the next game.

Not even remotely like the original game, no one is interested at all.