Mighty No. 9 (Kickstarter)

Miss Miko Mayonegg

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/mighty-no-9

Keiji Inafune and a bunch of Mega Man veterans are designing this spiritual successor to (the apparently dead) Mega Man. I look forward to this and backed it for a copy. :) This game is going to be great, almost certainly.

Salix Babylonika

Didn't the last Mega Man game come out only a few years ago?

Anyway, they're going to get sued by Capcom most likely, so I don't see any real benefit to backing this. :|

Salix Babylonika

by that I mean anyway

Mega Man and this new character look far too similar (even their animations are more or less identical) for Capcom to just twiddle their thumbs, so my hopes for this project are not terribly high.

Miss Miko Mayonegg

Mega Man 10 is from 2010 and any attempts after that to revive the series seem to have been cancelled.

Anyway, they're going to get sued by Capcom most likely, so I don't see any real benefit to backing this. :|

I doubt that. It is very similar to Mega Man but also is adding new concepts, like the hero being a transformer.

Miss Miko Mayonegg

Also, Inafune is like literally the mastermind of Mega Man and has been creating it since the beginning. He also had a very high position in Capcom. I don't think Capcom would sue one of their most prolific people?

Salix Babylonika

Unless he still has that position (and he well may, I don't know anything about these people offhand) I wouldn't really put it past them. If Nintendo's recent blunders have proved anything, it's that gaming companies have no sense whatsoever of what is bad PR.

Miss Miko Mayonegg

*googles*

hmmm he was Capcom's global head of production but then he left after Mega Man 10 and founded Comcept.

Section42L

He explains why he left Capcom in this interview.

Miss Miko Mayonegg

Interesting. :o

Miss Miko Mayonegg

I read the entire interview just now. :o

glennmagusharvey

Pasting my thoughts on that interview, from IRC (#ijbm on Espernet):

[13:20:36] <GMH> a few quick observations:
[13:22:10] <GMH> 1. i'm not sure how much Inafune's criticisms actually apply to the Japanese game industry vs. the western game industry; i think they are more applicable to the establishment vs. up-and-comers.
[13:23:05] <GMH> his criticisms are that the Japanese game industry has become a business, where the management doesn't understands games, and simply assigns tasks to underlings and demands blockbusters in return.
[13:24:08] <GMH> and there's little incentive structure for actually creating good games.  and he says that western devs have more incentive because their names and fates are more attached to the product and their success is much more directly dependent on their own actions.
[13:24:17] <GMH> that sounds much morelike an establishment/indie divide to me.
[13:25:09] <GMH> maybe the japanese/western divide is a little applicable since i hear that many japanese indie devs are less startup companies and more hobbyists, but still.
[13:26:08] <GMH> 2. inafune says how big companies are overly dependent on blockbusters
[13:26:13] <GMH> *talks about
[13:26:33] <GMH> well, fwiw, i hear that same criticism about big-name western publishers like EA.
[13:27:33] <GMH> 3. there are consumers, industry observers, and people within the game industry, on both sides, talking about the divide between western and japanese games.  and associating it with management practices.
[13:28:17] <GMH> inafune kinda implies that somewhat.
[13:28:29] <GMH> now, is there a cultural distinction?  yes.  Is it related to management practices?  I don't think so.
[13:29:25] <GMH> if anything, the fact that games can be successful in many different parts of the world speaks more to the cultural independence of the medium.
[13:32:32] <GMH> we can of course speculate abuot why platformers are bigger in japan and FPSes are bigger in the US, but I think we can safely say at this point that basically anyone can develop any game they dream up, subject to funding, idea flow, and such.  And with the internet, fandoms are increasingly cross-cultural anyway.
[13:35:11] <GMH> TL;DR: while Inafking highlights a Japanese/western divide in management practices and seems to speak about the need to be more western, I think the issues at hand are less culture-dependent and applicable to the whole game industry.  companies worldwide should think about their budgeting and management practices and how those relate to their products and their customers.
[13:35:33] <ClockworkUniverse> Budgeting especially.

FYI "Inafking" is a nickname of his.

Miss Miko Mayonegg

Here is another interview: http://www.themmnetwork.com/2013/09/01/the-mega-man-networks-interview-with-keiji-inafune/#more-23286