Topic: igarashi,alvarez... were they scapegoats?

[olrox2]

I noticed in both cases complaints by fans who hated them were centered on one person. But we, consumers, have no ideas about hwhat happen in the company. When a developer makes a wrong choice, how can we be sure he does it on its own, and that he hasnt been pressured by the Publisher, the marketting department,etc?

For Diablo 3, Jay Wilson focused all the hate, i myself must say i blame blizzard for a ton of décisions they made about this, but i dont think a single person is responsible for messing everything.

In the world of cinema, sometimes some scenarists are forced to change the ending if they want to have their movie produced.
A lot of people pointed out Lords of Shadow was made by someone who didnt give a fuck about Castlevania. But hasnt been this done for purpose? If you look at diablo story you may say the same thing, for different reasons.

My feeling is that complaints are often headed around one specific person in the company who has a twitter account and uses it a lot(for example), but that this is the tree hidding the forest.

Look how Silent hill changed. I think both games were victim of the strategy that consists in giving the development to an external studio to reduce costs. Silent hill obviously had less luck.

Sadly, this strategy can work, at least on a short termist view. But i see it as a kind of double edged sword,making a content targetting everyone can bring you more sales, but when the hype is over, if fans are disappointed, you may loose your most faithful audience.

[crisis]

at the end of the day, its all just hearsay no matter who its from, so we just gotta take their word for it, no matter how true or false it is

but the big picture is, its konami as a whole's fault for mismanaging the property in the first place

[Viskod]

I don't believe it was mismanaged. After the success the first Lords if Shadow it would only be natural and logical to put more faith in Mercury Steam for a sequel. There was really no way for them to know said success might go to someone's head and make them believe they can't make a mistake.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I'm finally playing the game and it's real garbage.
Average so far and has many annoyances already.

Ultimately, the buck stops with the development team's head.  So they take the brunt regardless.
If there was executive meddling, some leeway is given but not much; it's still their baby.

[crisis]

I don't believe it was mismanaged.

its been mismanaged since the late 90s/early 2000s, with the constant metroidvanias being released on almost a yearly basis, which in turn depleted the style, etc.

[Ratty]

I don't believe it was mismanaged. After the success the first Lords if Shadow it would only be natural and logical to put more faith in Mercury Steam for a sequel. There was really no way for them to know said success might go to someone's head and make them believe they can't make a mistake.

MercurySteam made Clive Barkers Jericho that's every indication that they might mess up lol. But more to the point:

If the series hadn't been mismanaged by Konami for a long time it wouldn't have "needed a reboot" in the first place. Now, to be fair, part of the problem is that the series sadly slipped in between technological leaps. After (and largely during) the 32bit era and before the rise of digital distribution, conventional wisdom in the industry decreed that 2D games were only viable on handhelds, and after attempts to translate the series into 3D fizzled that's unfortunately where Konami decided to stick the series and forget about it. By the time the PSN and WiiWare titles came along it was too late to make much of a difference, at least to the management at Konami.

But, Konami really dropped the ball in not giving the series reasonable budgets and development times. Which led to less polished games and recycling assets to cut corners, ultimately damaging what should by rights be one of Konami's biggest and most prestigious brands. It was Konami's treating Castlevania like shovelware that hurt the credibility and quality of the series.** Same thing with Silent Hill. Basically if it's not got Hideo Kojima attached Konami hasn't wanted to know about it, much less properly finance and plan it, for the last 10 to 15 years.

**In retrospect it's kind of amazing IGA was able to make the games come out as well as he did.

[Ahasverus]

I'd say Cox was Alvarez' scapegoat.

[X]

I'd say Cox was Alvarez' scapegoat.

I'd say this to some extent, but Cox is also responsible for all the things he said and the promises he didn't keep with regards to LoS.

BTW Nice banner Ratty, lol!

[e105beta]

I'd say this to some extent, but Cox is also responsible for all the things he said and the promises he didn't keep with regards to LoS.

BTW Nice banner Ratty, lol!

"Optional bosses"

"Ending rewards"

I'm of the opinion that Cox was partially blindsided by a constantly changing and rocky development, but he doesn't do much to help himself look good.

[Charlotte-nyo:3]

A lot of the time the "front men" of the series are going to get all the credit or all the blame. It's almost certainly not fully deserved either way. These people cannot possibly be micromanaging everything that is in the game. A lot of it is by delegation with some adjustments and advice as the project comes along. Often the worst mistake one makes at such a high level is simply delegating a task to a subordinate who is not good at that task or is not experienced enough or ready for it. Likewise, when a skilled subordinate does a great job on something like level design, it more often boosts the opinion of the front man rather than the level designer himself, whose name is buried in the credits if it is clear at all who is responsible for what exactly with the obtuse job titles in some games (perhaps the smaller budget CVs aren't as bad as other series in that respect...well, the ones that list real people's names in the credits at all anyway).

[Flame]

"Optional bosses"

"Ending rewards"

I'm of the opinion that Cox was partially blindsided by a constantly changing and rocky development, but he doesn't do much to help himself look good.

This. Given the shit he promised with LoS2, and the reveal of how shitty it's development was, it would be no surprise if there was tons of cut content that as far as he knew, was planned. That wall of invisible climbing points is evidence enough of cut content.

You really don't tend to see that kind of "unused area" very much in AAA gaming at all. I think Sonic Unleashed was the last game I played that actually had unused content in it. It's become increasingly rare.

[Viskod]

Cox isn't in a position to promise anything. He just did PR but everything they told him he could say, could change depending on what Mercury Steam wanted.

He just had the unfortunate position of having to do PR for a game that was apparently changing its content and tone on a daily basis.

I wouldn't say they were mismanaging Castlevania with the DS games either, Dawn of Sorrow far exceeded their sales expectations, so that was good. Portrait of Ruin and Order if Ecclesia were both good games as well and there was no reason for them not to continue with them when DoS did much better than they wanted it to.