Topic: Operation Akumajo preparing for Konami Campaign 9/26/11

[cecil-kain]

I really want both of those games to see the light of day. I will definitely write to Konami, and everyone who is a Castlevania fan should do it. I will try to write a longer message, but if you don`t have time, you can at least type one or two sentences. It would mean a lot. Unless you want 2D Castlevania to die. I know what I will write, it is everything that I have been thinking about CV for the last few years. Did we decide which email address to write to?

Just focus on writing for now.  I'm holding the contact info for later.

[SenileSnake]

Your tact is impeccable. 

thanks!

Unfortunately, any sensible strategy MUST show Konami that we're willing to pay for the quality that we're asking for.

i agree. paying for quality is good.

Like I said before, HD is lazy,

i agree, too!

but if Konami is making money hand over fist on the cheap

you would be a great father

--we're that much more likely to see a serious investment the next time around. 

no.

How can you expect Konami to put their time and energy into designing a quality product,

i don't. money is always a factor when designing a game, but deep in my naive heart i believe that some game developers still care about making a good game rather than the most lucrative game ever.

if they don't see strong support from their core fanbase?

"hey steve these jackasses will buy anything, you still got that gif animation with the flashing colors?"

  You're also forgetting the other elements of the strategy. 

you should really set the font size to maximum and add quotation marks to "strategy"

The fans obviously want higher quality

yep

and I'm sure that will come out in the emails and testimonials as well...

probably

Or maybe --you just don't agree with the final objectives...

OUR FINAL SOLUTION

yep, cause castlevania should die because of ONE Lazy game.

no it should die because obviously no one but the castlevania dungeon actually gives a shit anymore

some people should listen to how ridiculous they sound sometimes.

i absolutely, totally, and wholeheartedly agree. so click the preview button before you post!

[Successor The Cruel]

Supporting Harmony of Despair seems backwards, counter-intuitive, and, in a sense, fabricated. The strategy is not fabricated in itself, but it's asking fans to go against their better judgment in the hopes that it brings about the realization of some elaborate dream. I'm not going to get behind lame games in the round-about hope that it will bring about good games. For fans to legitimately support stuff, said stuff is going to have to be of legitimate quality. It's really as simple as that.

If you want to send Konami a message, let them know that what they're doing is wrong. Not right.

[KaZudra]

no it should die because obviously no one but the castlevania dungeon actually gives a shit anymore

Using that Logic, Why are you here? This is obviously a Board for Castlevania Fans Who Do Care... Unless you haven't Checked the General Discussion yet.
We (the Fans) May have our differences simply because we all like different castlevania styles.

i absolutely, totally, and wholeheartedly agree. so click the preview button before you post!

You took the Words right out of my mouth.

[C Belmont]

Supporting Harmony of Despair seems backwards

I Couldn't agree more
In fact encouraging everyone not to buy the game would send a more accurate message, but most of us probably don't plan on buying it anyway (I know I don't).
We're gonna need to find a much better way of showing Konami that there is money to be made by listening to the fans but I'm completely stumped on what exactly we could do.

It's a pity that there isn't something similar to Kickstarter for these kinds of things & even then Konami would have to start it not us
I don't suppose anybody has any friends in Konami?

[SenileSnake]

i'm here because i get bored easily and because i like message boards ok. also to monitor the successor's every move.

[cecil-kain]

i'm here because i get bored easily and because i like message boards ok. also to monitor the successor's every move.

Instead of visiting a thread you don't really care about and flamebaiting a fellow dungeonite, maybe you could take some of that extra time that's on your hands to write an email and tell Konami how you REALLY feel about their work.  The worst that could happen is they offer you some free shit, instead of making you pay for it.  Or it may suit you better to continue the sit on your ass and do nothing "STRATEGY".

<<--I previewed like you suggested, but the max font was really over the top.

[SenileSnake]

why is everone on the dungeon so opposed to an opposing opinion and reason? the best part is that some people are even agreeing with me, albeit with a little less crude wording.

i do plenty of stuff with my free time, thanks! posting on the dungeon just happens to fall into my computer time. also i don't think konami would appreciate me calling them dumb over the internet.

[Successor The Cruel]

I'm going to be completely honest with you, Cecil Kain, without the intention of offending, but with helping your cause. I think you'd do well to get some kind of council together, or something, because I don't think you can successfully head something like this up by yourself. You seem to have the ambition, and that's good, but you don't seem to have really good calls in judgment as to what you do. As a result, the more you post about this operation, the more it seems silly, and the more your demographic shrinks.

If loads and loads and loads of people buy Harmony of Despair (which wouldn't happen regardless of this, but...), you know what's going to happen? Harmony of Despair 2. Who wants to see that?

[cecil-kain]

I'm going to be completely honest with you, Cecil Kain, without the intention of offending, but with helping your cause. I think you'd do well to get some kind of council together, or something, because I don't think you can successfully head something like this up by yourself. You seem to have the ambition, and that's good, but you don't seem to have really good calls in judgment as to what you do. As a result, the more you post about this operation, the more it seems silly, and the more your demographic shrinks.

If loads and loads and loads of people buy Harmony of Despair (which wouldn't happen regardless of this, but...), you know what's going to happen? Harmony of Despair 2. Who wants to see that?

A council of fans is a terrific idea!  I'd love to see something like that happen!  Unfortunately, there's a great deal of complacency and disagreement within the fanbase, so it's really controversial to take a stand on anything.  The ambition was more to get the ball rolling than to make myself a leader in any of this...  I have a busy family life, so this is a labor of love on my part.  Anyone willing to help take some of the load off my shoulders would be a godsend.  Although like minded fans have stepped up to voice their support for the effort, none have really shown interest in leadership.  Based on the Facebook account stats, page activity has increased overall and membership spiked by about 50% after the viral campaign started on Youtube about 2 weeks ago.  That said, we are reaching another plateau...

I understand the cynicism toward HD, and we can certainly agree about the quality issues that plague the game.  But the fanbase needs to remember that we're ultimately dealing with a company motivated by profit.  Will supporting HD give us HD2?  As much as they've already cannibalized the code, it seems more likely they would sooner pass out more DLC than make an actual sequel.  I don't know if you have any background in business, but as a general rule --profit margins are a major factor in reinvestment.  In other words,  the more Konami actually profits from HD, the more likely they are to reinvest a larger amount in their next game design effort.

Let's consider another example...  Let's suppose I own a construction company that builds homes.  Unless I'm fabulously wealthy, I'd probably need a bank loan to buy my equipment and hire the help I need just to get started.  In other words, I'm building homes on the cheap.  Over time, as my business grows, loans get paid down and the profits start rolling in.  Then I can start reinvesting those profits in my business to buy better equipment and hire more qualified people.  The wider my profit margin, the more I can afford to reinvest in the quality of each house I'm building --and hopefully the more it improves my company's reputation and the bottom line.

It's an unfortunate reality to deal with, but the fanbase MUST find a way to entice a company motivated by profit if we intend to see Castlevania continue.  Poor sales do not send a good message.  So if HD is unsupportable, what would you do instead?  Emails alone can show passion and interest, but Konami's bean counters also need to see the profit potential.

[C Belmont]

What we really need is to find some friends in high places, looking at how Soul Calibur V got rolling it was only because someone on the inside agreed with the fans voices. Unfortunately the only contact we know from Konami's ranks is David Cox & while some of the hate towards LOS has since been patted out of the operation it was still practically created in response to it (at the very least that’s what it looks like). Besides that I tried asking Cox about his thoughts on a decent 2D game via twitter & he has yet to reply & probably never intends to.

I suppose another option would be to seek help from individuals already with a strong desire to make a 2D or 2.5D Castlevania for Konami rather than going to Konami themselves since they’ve shown 0 interest what so ever.

[affinity]

it's my opinion but I feel Cox is one of the last people that would care about 2D Castlevanias.   
They are busy finding ways to make money themselves and make games THEY want to make, not what the fans want.   They will twist and spit on the Belmont and Dracula names and people will still buy something like a  LOS2 because it has Castlevania on the title, new graphics, a whip, names like Belmont and Dracula, and that bald Star Trek guy narrating it.  But we know those things don't simply make a worthy Castlevania, even if it raised the graphics bar in the industry, that won't make up for the horrible uncastlevania gameplay and awful story direction Cox did with it.

As for Operation Akumajo, it is the best attempt the fanbase has ever made to give Konami a wake up call.  But skeptical people shouldn't jump to conclusions that "if we say this, then Konami will do this."    Fans should just go with it since there's nothing else fans can do besides rant on the boards about what Konami is not doing, and if it doesn't work, then try a different approach next time.   If it doesn't work, Castlevania fan campaigns don't have to end with Operation Akumajo, people can learn from it afterwards and make the new campaign better instead of doubting everything.

Okay, some people don't like Castlevania HD, people don't need to buy it to show their support to this campaign that Cecil made.  And people fear that if PSN Castlevania HD sells great, then all Konami will make is a Castlevania HD 2. 

EVEN IF that were the case, that wouldn't be worse than Konami again outsourcing Castlevania to Cox or some other company of idiots that don't have a brain to make a brilliant quality 2-D Castlevania that fits in the main timeline, and have the benevolence to work with IGA as producer to get that 1999 Demon Castle War done (because honestly, IGA understands Castlevania better than anyone else in the industry. They created the metroidvania SOTN, they made the legendary DS games, and the onlinevania HD, as much as haters deny it, is a revolutionary Castlevania in many fun ways while staying true to the core 2-D gameplay.  )

People really have nothing to lose supporting this campaign, if they really are Castlevania fans.   Whether peoples contributions are big or small, whether they buy PSN Castlevania HD, or instead choose to simply submit their anniversary comments/suggestions on Facebook or through Youtube, etc.   

Fans can help in different ways, even if they only do one of the things suggested in this campaign, it's much better than being negative, cynical, and just plain useless as a Castlevania fan.     

[crisis]

They will twist and spit on the Belmont and Dracula names and people will still buy something like a  LOS2 because it has Castlevania on the title, new graphics, a whip, names like Belmont and Dracula, and that bald Star Trek guy narrating it.

lmao


That bald guy is also professor x

[Sonic_Reaper]

You know there's an obvious and elegant solution here.  For those who purchase HoD, write Konami a letter, and let them know you've done so because you support Castlevania, but also that it's not the kind of game you'd like to see released again in the future.  So the money talks, but so will the letters.  You'll have more credibility too, as a fan who supports the series, but has some criticisms on where it's headed.

Cecil-Kain, if you don't mind me asking, are you taking motivation from the Mother 3 movement by any chance?  Some of your ideas seems similar, such as posting YouTube videos from the fans.  The reason that movement was "successful" however (in terms of getting Nintendo's attention) is because fans sent in hand written letters.  I don't remember the number exactly, but they were mailed all at the same time, and it must have been some hundreds, because it really got Nintendo's attention!  Unfortunately, in the end, Nintendo decided to leave Mother 3 untranslated, but they did respond directly to the cause.  If you could do something similar with Castlevania, even if it was a hundred letters or so, all mailed at the same time, in combination with emails and the Facebook page, would definitely get their attention.

Also, I wouldn't rule out Cox.  I know at least one person has asked him about 2D Castlevania on his twitter page, and he obviously ignored it and didn't respond.  But imagine a flood or hundreds of questions regarding it non-stop.  He would have no choice but to respond, in some capacity.  At the very least, it would get his attention.  Just a thought.  We can use Shawshank Redemption as an example, haha!  Persistence will get you that library still.

[Nagumo]

The money is going to end up in their wallets, and the letters in the shredder.