Post by Adrian2040 on Dec 17, 2011 20:30:53 GMT -5
MegaMan Legends was released way ahead of its time. In the PSOne/N64/Saturn era, most games prioritized gameplay over story. (With the exception of RPGs.) It is in the Wii/360/PS3 era where most games started involving a "cinematic" experience with story, full voice acting and realistic cut-scenes.
However, since the original Legends was released on that era, it also had a lot of good gameplay together with its cinematic experience. In other words: The game would definitely sell more now than in the PSOne era.
Of course, old games had lower budgets. Most of them involved gameplay more than story since it was an easier (And cheaper) way to lengthen the game. After re-playing the classics, I feel that they're shorter than I remember them being. That is because I've become better at those games. Old games were hard in order to make them longer, but I've become better and now I can beat most of the classics in minutes (Or a few hours) . MegaMan Legends was a bit easier than most games because the dev team wanted people to enjoy the story, like most games nowadays.
The problem is that, even though Legends 3 (And any other Legends Game) would sell more than before, the budgets are also higher than before. Would the sales be enough to, not only recover the investment as money, but also to have made all of the years of development and time inputted by the dev team worth it? The problem is even bigger now that there is a lot of competition. (In fact, Capcom's own games can compete against each other.)
Sometimes I've been told that Capcom could make another game to cover the costs for Legends 3. However, this is illogical since Capcom could just keep the profit from the other game instead of losing money by making Legends 3. Capcom owns the MegaMan franchise and, like any other enterprise in the world, they try to make profit and not losses.
Capcom have heard a lot of fans before. For example: SSFIVAE. Before the flaming starts, I want to say one thing: This version wasn't going to be released. It was going to be an Arcade Exclusive. However, everyone urged Capcom to release it. Not only did Capcom release it, but they added new features, and sold them in two ways: As a 15 dollars DLC so you wouldn't need to re-buy the disc AND as a full retail disc for 40 dollars so newcomers wouldn't need to pay 40 dollars for the original SSFIV + the 15 dollars for the DLC. Most importantly, Capcom isn't evil enough to charge for Online Passes. (Do you have any idea how much money they could earn by doing that?) Let's not forget about things like GGPO, all of the fan service in Dead Rising, the revival of the RE franchise and the SF franchise (Believe it or not, they were dead for some years), MM9 and 10, AA X Layton Crossover (We have enough evidence that it IS being brought to the US), Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition, etc.
But let's get back to our subject. MML as a series (And I mean the Legends series specifically) hasn't been tested by Capcom. Japanese people mostly work by tradition and right now their tradition is not to take any risks and listen to the fans when it proves to be worthwhile. (SFIV was released in an era where new fighting game were being released, so there would be more hype. RE4 was released in the days were action games were all the hype and when there were not enough games to fill the hole of demand for horror games.) Since an audience for this game exists right now, the game was announced over a year ago. However, something happened and it was cancelled. While Legends 3 Prototype could have been a good test for the game, it just had too many references to a "Full Retail" game being released as to release the Prototype version in its current state. Modifying it would take more work and time (It would even include having to modify some of the are of the island that hasn't been finished.) . Capcom Japan seems to need a Pre-Prototype confirmation of an audience or else they'd see this as a major risk. This could be one of the reasons why it was not released.
It is true that things are changing with the LegendsNeverDie campaign. My question is: Is 100,000 really enough for the game to be put back in-development? Most of the times that I've seen a cancelled game being re-announced, it was either being made by another major team or being re-made with a noticeable different gameplay/storyline. (Or even both)
However, since the original Legends was released on that era, it also had a lot of good gameplay together with its cinematic experience. In other words: The game would definitely sell more now than in the PSOne era.
Of course, old games had lower budgets. Most of them involved gameplay more than story since it was an easier (And cheaper) way to lengthen the game. After re-playing the classics, I feel that they're shorter than I remember them being. That is because I've become better at those games. Old games were hard in order to make them longer, but I've become better and now I can beat most of the classics in minutes (Or a few hours) . MegaMan Legends was a bit easier than most games because the dev team wanted people to enjoy the story, like most games nowadays.
The problem is that, even though Legends 3 (And any other Legends Game) would sell more than before, the budgets are also higher than before. Would the sales be enough to, not only recover the investment as money, but also to have made all of the years of development and time inputted by the dev team worth it? The problem is even bigger now that there is a lot of competition. (In fact, Capcom's own games can compete against each other.)
Sometimes I've been told that Capcom could make another game to cover the costs for Legends 3. However, this is illogical since Capcom could just keep the profit from the other game instead of losing money by making Legends 3. Capcom owns the MegaMan franchise and, like any other enterprise in the world, they try to make profit and not losses.
Capcom have heard a lot of fans before. For example: SSFIVAE. Before the flaming starts, I want to say one thing: This version wasn't going to be released. It was going to be an Arcade Exclusive. However, everyone urged Capcom to release it. Not only did Capcom release it, but they added new features, and sold them in two ways: As a 15 dollars DLC so you wouldn't need to re-buy the disc AND as a full retail disc for 40 dollars so newcomers wouldn't need to pay 40 dollars for the original SSFIV + the 15 dollars for the DLC. Most importantly, Capcom isn't evil enough to charge for Online Passes. (Do you have any idea how much money they could earn by doing that?) Let's not forget about things like GGPO, all of the fan service in Dead Rising, the revival of the RE franchise and the SF franchise (Believe it or not, they were dead for some years), MM9 and 10, AA X Layton Crossover (We have enough evidence that it IS being brought to the US), Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition, etc.
But let's get back to our subject. MML as a series (And I mean the Legends series specifically) hasn't been tested by Capcom. Japanese people mostly work by tradition and right now their tradition is not to take any risks and listen to the fans when it proves to be worthwhile. (SFIV was released in an era where new fighting game were being released, so there would be more hype. RE4 was released in the days were action games were all the hype and when there were not enough games to fill the hole of demand for horror games.) Since an audience for this game exists right now, the game was announced over a year ago. However, something happened and it was cancelled. While Legends 3 Prototype could have been a good test for the game, it just had too many references to a "Full Retail" game being released as to release the Prototype version in its current state. Modifying it would take more work and time (It would even include having to modify some of the are of the island that hasn't been finished.) . Capcom Japan seems to need a Pre-Prototype confirmation of an audience or else they'd see this as a major risk. This could be one of the reasons why it was not released.
It is true that things are changing with the LegendsNeverDie campaign. My question is: Is 100,000 really enough for the game to be put back in-development? Most of the times that I've seen a cancelled game being re-announced, it was either being made by another major team or being re-made with a noticeable different gameplay/storyline. (Or even both)
