Marvelous gives up on original IPs: a microcosm of old Sega

[Sega Stylista]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6264927.ht ... story%3B10

Japanese publisher Marvelous Entertainment has a strong track record of innovation, releasing such titles as the Harvest Moon series Killer7 (we all know this is an editorial error) and No More Heroes to Western audiences. But it seems this focus on originality hasn't helped the company grow, with news that the company has been forced to stop the production and release of new intellectual properties.

Marvelous says no to No More Heroes.

According to a Japanese report of the company's financial structure, Marvelous' slate of original games has landed the publisher in financial trouble, with recent titles like Little King's Story, Deadly Premonition, and the No More Heroes series failing to sell well in the publisher's home country. No More Heroes: Paradise--the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 port of the original game--sold just around 30,000 units combined in its first week in Japan, while Little King's Story developer Cing filed for bankruptcy in March this year.

As part of a financial restructuring, Marvelous will now focus exclusively on developing sequels to successful franchises like Harvest Moon and Rune Factory. The publisher also intends to try its hand at making Web games and software for the Nintendo 3DS sometime in the next financial year.

The original report also states Marvelous will sell off its European subsidiary and withdraw its titles from distribution outside Japan.

So there you have it, if you try to be about innovative artsy and edgy ip's you don't make it with modern gaming audiences.  Great art but no profits, crank out the sequels to casual and mainstream titles if you are going to survive.

Where was their "32X"?

[Sega Uranus]

Little King's Story is a poor mans Pikmin.

No More Heroes is all style, no substance.

Harvest Moon peaked over ten years ago and has been the same game with stupid gimmicks since then.



And nothing of value was lost.

[Aki-at]

Pretty much what Sanus had to say, I didn't find them to be a particularly good publisher or even more so a developer, the last Harvest Moon game was on the Gameboy Advance and even then, that was just retreading old ground with newer graphics and I don't hold much of a positive opinion on No More Heroes (Well neither do I on most of Suda's games)

[MadeManG74]

Did they do Muramasa? That was a good game. Not great, but good.

No More Heroes is still one of my favourite Wii games, but didn't Ubisoft publish that for most of the world?

In any event, a little Publisher that deals with games like this can hardly be expected to compete with the big boys. Especially when some games (like Deadly Premonition) are supposed to be utter trash.

[George]

SEGA has released more new IPs than any other publisher. Most do rather well. Bayonetta is a new one and so is Vaquish. Also Marvelous is NOTHING like SEGA. Good job though.

[Sega Stylista]

You could go back a decade and use this article as a template and insert Shenmue, Jet, Seaman, Rez etc for the artful and innovative games and replace Harvest moon with Sonic and focus on 3DS with GBA.  It's the same story.

Gaming used to be a niche industry and gamer part of a subculture that valued innovation and quirky art, now unless a publisher enslaves itself to the mainstream it is just not going to survive over the long haul.

No More Heroes is Sega style, what are you guys thinkin'?!

[MadeManG74]

Gaming used to be a niche industry and gamer part of a subculture that valued innovation and quirky art,

So the old wildly successful Madden and FIFA games were all fine art? I didn't know that.

I guess that ET and the horribly broken Pac Man port to Atari 2600 must have been some really brilliant games since they were both in the top ten selling Atari games of all time.
http://au.retro.ign.com/articles/903/903024p1.html

[Sega Stylista]

Gaming used to be a niche industry and gamer part of a subculture that valued innovation and quirky art,

So the old wildly successful Madden and FIFA games were all fine art? I didn't know that.

I guess that ET and the horribly broken Pac Man port to Atari 2600 must have been some really brilliant games since they were both in the top ten selling Atari games of all time.
http://au.retro.ign.com/articles/903/903024p1.html

Madden, Fifa, Tecmo bowl sports crap like that was all that gaming was to the mainstream in the early days.  What you confuse is that while gaming always had some mainstream participation over time mainstream adoption and dedication to gaming crew to the point that the core audience shifted from the old hardcore core to the new core mainstream core. That happened with the playstation era.  

I really want you to get that fine distinction so if you don't please ask and I'll give it another try.

2600 crashed and burned and the industry was so dead in 83 that Nintendo later had to call NES and "entertainment" system and include R.O.B. to try to convince retailers they weren't pitching a video game system which they wouldn't touch with a 100 foot pole.

[MadeManG74]

I agree with you that the market has gotten bigger, I disagree with is that the quality of games has dropped severely, and I also disagree that all big selling games are less worthy of praise than others.

Mass Effect 1 and 2 for example are honestly some of the best games out this generation IMO, and I would say that they are better games than No More Heroes, Muramasa and Killer 7 to name a few examples.

Those games are just as special as something like Yakuza in my eyes, so seeing them selling so well I thought would make you pleased with the industry rather than angry.

[Sega Stylista]

I agree with you that the market has gotten bigger, I disagree with is that the quality of games has dropped severely, and I also disagree that all big selling games are less worthy of praise than others.

Mass Effect 1 and 2 for example are honestly some of the best games out this generation IMO, and I would say that they are better games than No More Heroes, Muramasa and Killer 7 to name a few examples.

Those games are just as special as something like Yakuza in my eyes, so seeing them selling so well I thought would make you pleased with the industry rather than angry.

Well I can't argue with the subjective stuff. Even I won't disagree some of the mainstream stuff has aspects of high quality, it's just a matter of old schoolers preferring the old school style that was more game play centric, more about technique, and intense arcadey action to the new school stuff that is more cinematic, story driven, and with casualized or dumbed down gameplay.

[MadeManG74]

I can understand your point, but as you said: it's purely subjective.

Games that are more 'old school' in terms of action and content are still around though, a lot of it on XBLA and PSN. Not to mention that fighting games fit that bill I would think, which are going through a big resurgence since SFIV (and again this year and next most likely with MVC3, KOFXIII, Tekken 7, BlazBlue and VF:FS).

Even so, the idea of story driven games and games with slower, more cerebral or exploratory based gameplay isn't new either. Some of my favourite classic games are very light on action. Take a look at LucasArts adventure games, or the old Fallout Games (which are truly, truly brilliant games btw) for examples of story driven classics. You could even go back to the Atari with games like Adventure (again one of the best sellers on the system).

I think there is still a good balance of games, and some that kind of fall into both categories like Bayonetta.

As for 'Dumbed down' gameplay, can you cite some examples? Because even cinematic games like Conviction are absolutely rock-hard at times. Finishing that game on Realistic difficulty was more challenging than Bayonetta on in some ways. And it wasn't cheap kills either, it just took a lot of good timing, planning and execution to get through some later levels.

[Team Andromeda]

So there you have it, if you try to be about innovative artsy and edgy ip's you don't make it with modern gaming audiences. Great art but no profits, crank out the sequels to casual and mainstream titles if you are going to survive.

Where was their "32X"?

They you have what ? Those casual Japanese don't like innovative Arty games? Wow shock to us all  that ! and why make brand new violent IP on NCL kids machine, I mean C'Mon  ?.

 Japan as quite a habit of backing the most casual consoles known to man , and lovel their sequels . Oh they go mad for the mainstream SNES with over 90% of the Market, just love the Playstation and can't get enough of yet more sequels of Dragon Quest , or Final Fanasty . Fact that haven't changed since the NES days in Japan

Maybe No More Heroes  should have made it for the grown ups console, and Little Ralf is all Art, but boring gameplay
Nothing at all edgy,  yet another Japanese Sim RPG  . Little lesson that needs to be learnt , the Wii is casual city for games and gamers , where 3rd party new IP that isn't mainstream is almost doomed to fail.

There lots of brand new IP that has done very well on the real gamers consoles . Play Demon Souls and see how even what some like to call the most 'HardCore' game can do quite well .
Lesson that all developers need to learn , to do well on the Wii , put no effort in to games, don't spend money, just put in some piss poor mini games and watch the sales fly .

Otherwise make it for the PS3 or 360.

[Sega Uranus]

Like MadeMang said, I think there is a good balance of everything still. Games with 'classical' design values like 'Splosion Man, Lost Odyssey, New Super Mario Brothers Wii and Dragon Age Origins are widely praised all around, while games like Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Disaster: Day of Crisis, Final Fantasy XIII and Cross Edge are slaughtered for being too creative to the point that it can hurt the overall experience.

A big issue is that they spent too much of their time and money on just one platform. To be a big and stable publisher you need to have more of a balance, like SEGA does! They are like the only developers still pushing PSP outside of Japan, and are still one of the only publishers actually making any money!

Compare their lineup to Namco's, which has recently gone on to say that the Wii and DS markets have collapsed (clearly far from true). Not only are they losing billions (much thanks due to their heavy hitters under preforming) but they are working on pushing stuff like Enslaved to the point they are already certain it will be a big enough success to warrant two sequels with more to come after. They do not have a balanced market, and they are hurting because of it. When you compare this to the companies actually pulling in a profit, like Activision and Nintendo and look at all of the games they release, not just some, it all makes sense.

[STORM!]

Cing got bankrupty? Holy shit! I have not noticed that.

 Marvelous was a very close company of Sega in the past, I think that Sega was the one who helped them growing. They were doing fine for me on this era.

 However we knew that they were going to broke, since their games just don't sell good in Japan.

 They should merge with AQ(the outer-Sega) and be happy!