Hurdles for a Legendary Collection

Whenever I see someone asking why there isn’t a collection for the Mega Man Legends games, I point them to the Japanese-exclusive PSP ports. Of course, these get ignored as they’re in Japanese and don’t fit the schema that the Legends series doesn’t have a port on then- and now-current consoles and Steam. The PSP ports are important, however. That handheld console was the locus for Mega Man trying to get a new start. It had both remakes of the original Mega Man and Mega Man X, both of which were intended to remake both series and move them. Both ended up as curiosities rather than sales hits.

I don’t like to admit it, but Mega Man was no longer the same icon in the mainstream culture as it had been in the 1980s and 1990s. The Blue Bomber would remain an icon for gaming for sure, but Capcom moving to the evergreen model also meant pretty much everything was put on ice. Merch would appear on the figurative store shelves, that one cartoon that most seem to have passed by, and the collections. Those collections, alongside Mega Man 11, kept Mega Man relevant and afloat. As much as I have a personal distaste for the evergreen model, it does allow people to buy and get into these games much easier. You could argue that emulation already did that, but just buying the games and launching them rather than finding the ROMs and ISOs, then setting up the emulator to run the games really is that much more work.

We’re not in a Mega Man Renaissance. It’d need a whole lot of new games across the different Mega Man series to be that.

Because we live in the era of Evergreen Collections, there have been some expectations for a new Mega Man Legends Collection. I fully admit that I am one of these people, because there are no real ways to show any support for that particular section of Mega Man outside the new comic miniseries that just came out. That is honestly the only way you can show support for Legends at this moment in time. I would always recommend caution and not expect any sort of new releases for the Legends games that weren’t just PSN PS1 Classic releases.

With a recent interview, this suggestion has been more or less justified. Shingo Izumi, the current Producer for Mega Man, stated that there are no plans to develop such a collection, but it would be one of the possible candidates. The Legends games have issues that the rest of the Mega Man series don’t. Some aren’t Capcom’s own fault, while others are directly related to how late 1990s Capcom liked to do business.

Let’s start with the biggest one, and that is the constant and steady drop of sales. I’ll have to trust VGChartz and Namu.wiki for these numbers, but they align with what I recall seeing across the years.

Mega Man Legends was released in 1996 in Japan and a year later elsewhere. It sold around 830,000 units across all regions. Breaking this down, Japanese sales were 120,000, North America 390,000, Europe 260,000, and the rest of the world bought 50,000. The N64 port would see 130,000 units sold, with most of them being in the US at 127,000 sold units.

1999’s The Misadventures of Tron Bonne saw a very limited print in the West, limiting its availability and making it stupidly expensive, which gives some colour why I’m having some hard time finding solid sales numbers. Estimations cap at 110,000 sold units, with Japan seeing 61,127 units, North America 20,000, and Europe only 5,000 due to that extremely limited distribution. Bought mine for 15€ back then. Other regions added 25,000 sold units. Even for a side game, these are sad numbers.

In the year 2000, Legends 2 would sell worse than the first game did at 420,000 sold units. 100,000 in Japan, 170,000 in North America, 120,000 in European regions, and 30,000 in the rest of the world. By this point, it was clear that the series had failed to establish itself and the market wasn’t interested in it.

This would be the end of the series, with mobile games taking the slot. Not that these games would contribute much to the survival of the series, but at least they’re something.

The PSP ports of the first two games, initially released as stand-alone, saw sales at 11,500 and 2,500 units respectively. The 1+2 Value Pack sold only 10,000 units. When the three games hit PSN, their sales have been described as “negligible.” Digital sales that sell low don’t get their numbers published. Despite hype and loud fandom, this didn’t translate to sales.

The history of the series’ sales starts relatively strong with the first game, but it was less than expected. It nailed the Greatest Hits/Platinum status and managed to build a niche fanbase, but as Keiji Inafune would admit later, the game wasn’t the hit they had wished for. The devs had expected the main audience, elementary school kids, to follow the name Mega Man (or rather, Rockman) from 2D action to 3D action-adventure with RPG elements. This would appeal to the older otaku audience, however. Inafune called it arrogance in his book What Kind of Decision is That!

While the sales of the first game were strong enough to warrant a sequel and a spin-off, in hindsight we should call those numbers poor sales as the game cost Capcom around a billion yen, or about $10 million. That’s 1997 USD too. This was the reason why Legends 2 saw a delay. This was still in an era where three years between titles was considered to be long.

There were other reasons for the games’ lack of success other than the core audience rejecting the Free Running RPG nature of the series. First is that the devs were inexperienced with 3D game design, as Inafune admits in the aforementioned book. The game is, in the end, surprisingly flat with verticality mostly being used to fence player progression until Springs are found. Platforming itself was awkward at best. Controls were janky, as left-right camera motion is controlled by L and R. It didn’t help that the turning speed in general was rather slow. This was the industry standard of sorts at the time, as the PS controller lacked the dual sticks at the time. Lock-On would freeze Mega Man in his place, making the accurate shooting a chore. The game would auto-aim a little bit for the player, as long as the enemy was in the middle of the screen.

Some of the same issues would persist in Legends 2. Some were changed, like how Lock-On allows the player to move around. Nevertheless, both games have the core tactic of circling the enemies and shooting, making it the de facto tactic for how to defeat pretty much any enemy in the game. Some controversy and fan criticism was given to how the first game’s single island had one dungeon connecting to all other dungeons in the game was lost when the second game was set on multiple islands. I’m not going to give a full review of the games. That’d be unfair, I am far too positively biased towards the games.

The main issues with Mega Man Legends 2 were that Capcom was expecting it to be a new Mega Man 2, where the series would properly kick off and find mainstream popularity. If the sales are anything to go by, there was never a large enough audience to justify the series’ continuation, something the fans who fell in love with the series would mourn. Yours truly included.

In the same book, Inafune mentions how the lessons learned with Legends directly translated to the Battle Network series. From an outsider perspective, we can pinpoint a few things. First, the whole collecting cards and using them for battling was popular among the target audience at the change of the millennium. The linear RPG model with real-time action nailed interest down better. Connected life was becoming more common too, with Digimon taking advantage of this earlier. Link-Battling made for a more social game as well, with tournaments being held. Less expensive development turned in bigger bucks, and that’s all she wrote. Mega Man Legends walked so Mega Man Battle Network could run.

There is more to this than just sales numbers, however. Mega Man Legends games all have some elements that make their new releases inconvenient for Capcom.

First, there are some legal issues. The Japanese version of Legends had licensed the Oronamin C energy drink to appear in the game. These sorts of licensing agreements always come with territorial restrictions, time limits, and platform limitations. When the game hit PSN, Capcom had to relicense the drink, as Sony does not allow changes for PSN PS1 Classic titles. If Capcom had simply removed the drink license, like they did with the Western versions, they would’ve had to release Legends as a whole new title on PSN rather than as a Classic. Similar things happened with Rival Schools.

Similarly, the Yoyogi Animation Academy building in the game is an actual animation school and there is a character that gives out the school’s phone number the player could call. While this was removed in the later releases of Legends, this is another example of Capcom using real-world trademarks at the time for promotional licensing.

Is all the music in the games legally Capcom’s, or do they have a need to relicense the Japanese openings and ending songs?

Further legal complications could stem from Capcom opting to use non-union voice actors and actors under limited studio contracts in the late 1990s. This applies to all three Legends games, as there has been speculation on how legal complications can arise when voice actor contracts don’t include residual rights for later re-releases. In the worst case, Capcom might need to find the original VAs and make a new contract with them for each new release, and even then it might just be for a limited time. There is no major lawsuit of any kind regarding the voice actor contracts, but it can be an obstacle for any new release nevertheless.

Robert Norman Smith’s role as Tiesel Bonne could be an issue. He pleaded guilty to possession and distribution of CSAM in 2008 after being arrested in 2006. Unsurprisingly, this killed his career. He would be a repeat offender and see additional charges in 2020, and drowned later the same year. While we shouldn’t assume guilt by association, it would be worth questioning if Capcom themselves want to have one of their game series associated with a dead paedophile.

Outside Smith’s own doings, the Legends games carry some legal baggage that Capcom would need to address both in-game and in the real world before they can even put the games into a Collection.

I’m not sure how much bad blood Capcom wants to carry, but knowing certain aspects of Japanese corporation culture, Keiji Inafune’s and Capcom’s internal conflict didn’t leave anyone with a good aftertaste. He had been the public face of the franchise for decades and his resignation from Capcom was met with numerous Mega Man related cancellations. Legends had been Inafune’s baby, and it is possible that Capcom, at the time, simply clapped back the only way they could by hitting his possible legacy.

Legends 3 comes into the picture with this, as Inafune left in the middle of its early production. Capcom said that the game was cancelled due to the lack of fan support, which we can dispute however much we want. Capcom didn’t deal with the fallout and got tons of bad PR, but the main issue was again legal. Because fans could submit character designs, ideas for the plot and concept art, legal issues rose as to who actually would own the intellectual property created in this fashion, who would get the credit for the work done, and if there would be any compensation. At best, Capcom was getting supposedly free ideas and suggestions from fans, and at worst was outsourcing the game’s development to its customers without compensation. Capcom aimed to alleviate these concerns by sending gifts and letters to some of the participants. The official word from Capcom, however, was that the game didn’t meet the internal required criteria. Within Capcom, games don’t get just one greenlight to go, but there are multiple points of evaluation where they need to get that green light multiple times.

Because of this, I personally believe any work done on Legends 3 should be scrapped and started anew to avoid any issues. The ready demo that was meant to be released might work as some sort of window to how the game was intended originally, but as an extra only. We would see the game’s engine being recycled to the Gaist Crusher series, which honestly seems to share a lot of the same basic controls.

Legends 3 was a PR nightmare for Capcom, if we’re being straight about it.

The fans love the games and want at least one more entry to finish the story. The story, however, is the least of Capcom’s concerns. Inafune probably had more than a few ideas how the third game would’ve played out. Legends 2’s scenario writer Makazu Eguchi still works with Capcom, so he probably would be the person who has the best idea how the third game was intended to end the story. The Director and Story architect Yoshinori Kawano seems to be associated with Capcom still, so having two thirds of the core team making the story is still there.

However, whatever form a hypothetical Mega Man Legends 3 would end up being, it would be a completely different game from what it could’ve been if it had been made right after the second game, or from the Legends 3 on the 3DS. I’ve personally raised some questions as to whether I really want a sequel to a nearly thirty-year-old game by developers who have different sets of goals and values. It wouldn’t be the same after all this time. It would be, at best, a simulacrum of what it could’ve been updated for modern sensibilities.

All that said, sales numbers are very much what Capcom looks at when determining success and whether or not something gets new entries. They also need to be convinced by third parties with enough data to justify something. This isn’t anything new to Japanese corporations though; they run on established data. Looking at Capcom’s history, they’ve got some collections of their Arcade games for sure, but console-specific games rarely get collections. The Mega Man IP is different. Digital Eclipse had approached Capcom in 2015 with a suggestion of preserving the NES Mega Man games.

Understanding the difference between Digital Eclipse and Capcom’s mindset is important there. Capcom had already done collections of their arcade games in the 1990s because arcade hardware was becoming increasingly scarce and breaking down. This would accelerate with time. Console games, on the other hand, had already seen ports to the newer platforms. The Mega Man games had seen ports to the PlayStation, which were used for the Anniversary Collection.

Seeing the PSP remakes of Mega Man and Mega Man X failed to garner enough purchases, Mega Man remakes aren’t on the table despite remakes being the company’s modus operandi with classic games at the moment. Capcom considers remakes to be replacements for their older games, which don’t seem to meet their current level of demand for quality. Much like how Capcom’s internal staff had managed to convince higher ups of the need to port arcade games to new systems due to hardware failing, how Digital Eclipse wanted to make Criterion Collection of games with Mega Man collections, GOG had to convince Capcom to allow the original Resident Evil trilogy’s PC ports on GOG. Capcom was questioning if these games would even sell considering they’re so old and there are new, better versions of the games out there.

This is where an issue comes up. If we follow the idea of treating Legacy collections as definitive, preservative versions of the games, Capcom would have a need to re-license all the real-world materials. However, I don’t think this would be an issue; Capcom would probably opt to remove these. However, they’d probably have to make new contracts with the voice actors, and in case of dead ones, either negotiate with their estate executor, the heirs, or some rights management company.

Does Capcom have any data to justify a Legends Collection? All the sales data we have is now decades old, and even then it didn’t scratch up enough dough to keep The Misadventures of Tron Bonne on Japanese PSN too long. Some contract had expired; it was taken down. There has been no real Mega Man Legends merch to buy that wasn’t part of something else. Out of all series, Legends doesn’t even have a Complete Works book. A third party released the two main games’ music on vinyl a while back, but you can’t really gauge interest based on niche of a niche. The now-current comic is relatively easily available and probably is the best way to give some indication that there is an audience out there for the games.

That’s of course assuming they don’t already know that. Capcom knows Mega Man Legends has its dedicated core audience. They just don’t see it as a large enough audience. Would a remake be a better option, something that improves and fixes everything that’s wrong in the first game while expanding upon it now that designing 3D games is their bread and butter? They’d probably avoid all the licensing issues by recording all the voices from scratch. While I’d imagine this would make for better mainstream appeal, it’d probably leave many fans and preservationists dissatisfied.

Circling back to the interview, what Izumi said is still disheartening. They have no plans to make a new Collection at this moment. When they consider one in the future, Mega Man Legends would be one candidate among many. All things considered, for Capcom there would be more lucrative IPs they could farm into a modern collection than Legends. I don’t believe Monster Hunter Collection would become a thing, something like Onimusha, or a collection to hype up a new Sengoku Basara. Perhaps there is bad blood in Capcom still and keeping Legends is a jab at Inafune, but I wouldn’t want to believe in this.

Mega Man Legends Legacy Collection doesn’t have unsurmountable hurdles to beat. What it has is baggage that needs to be sorted out every time Capcom wants to re-release the games. A three-game collection would be a bit empty, so throwing in all the mobile phone games with translations would be a nice add-on. Perhaps having the Legends 2’s PSP port’s enhancements as selectable options would be nice; the game plays really well on PSP.

Here we’re met with two things: keep the development time as short as possible and cost-effective. Deliver a Collection that has minimal content and was cheap to make; hope it sells well so that cost-sales ratio looks good. Alternatively, make an enhanced Collection, add more value at a slightly higher price, and hope it’s enough to attract more people than just the core fans. The elephant in the room would be Legends 3. To be brutally honest, I don’t think Legends Collection would sell enough to warrant Legends 3’s production. I wish it could after all this time, after all the good word we’ve spread about the games throughout the years. However, game development doesn’t work on good vibes, especially nowadays when developing is costlier and takes longer than ever before, at least for big studios. There must be correct justifications for Mega Man Legends 3 to become a reality, and most of it has to come from inside Capcom’s staff championing for it and convincing the deciding body it would be worth the time and money. Improving customer relations isn’t enough, or finishing up the story. If the story was that important inside Capcom, somebody could’ve turned the third game’s plot into a comic or a book already.

Historically, Mega Man’s target audience has been elementary school kids. The X series aimed a bit older, but was still enjoyed by the same audience. Legends assumed this audience would follow the series everywhere, but didn’t. Battle Network took that slot, and after that, Mega Man never really found a way to entertain new generations of elementary school-aged kids. The more I look at Legends, Mega Man losing that core audience is why the series has languished. While I’d like to think a game series could stand on its own two feet without many changes, the Mega Man as a series always changed to try something new and be a hit with kids.

I’m afraid now the Blue Bomber only has older fans, people who grew up with the games. These things need to cycle in new fans of the same target age while the majority of the fans cycle out to other things as they grow older. Just as with comics, some fans will stay there for a lifetime, but even then the cycling must go on. Otherwise stagnation will set in and nothing will end up working. Trying to make new stuff for the target audience contradicts the need to make the old stuff for the older audience, often in a more mature manner for better or worse. Future Mega Man games have a very thin line they need to walk by not to veer off too much to either direction.

#CAPCOM #computerGames #culture #customerAndService #customers #videoGames #videogames

2004 Freedom of Imagination

https://makertube.net/w/uBhab5KCNcsyaDHDbB7NTu

Dalam World
an upcoming MMORPG.
Optional NSFW mode included :D

Game Mechanics:
---
Castle Sieges
Fishing
Agriculture
Ship Travel
Fortress Assaults
Betting on Races
Lotteries
Personal Houses
City Conquests
Clan Battles
Personal Pets

https://dalam.world/

#mmorpg #indiegames #games #computergames

#TheHuntingOfTheSnark #LewisCarroll #games #videogames #computergames #cardgames #virtualcardgames #game #videogame #computergame #cardgame #gamedesign #virtualcardgame

In 2026 we can celebrete the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" (https://snrk.de/150th-snark-anniversaries/).

My contribution will be a virtual card set helping to revive ZZOTA's legacy card game "SNARK!". I don't know wether I will turn it into a complete virtual card game.

The game is based on Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”. Jeremy Jexon Secker defined the rules in 1985. The beautiful design of the cards is by Xanna Eve Chown. My work on their game is aligned with both of them.

Sadly, ZZOTA vanished away in 2017.

More (with links to the game rules): https://snrk.de/zzota-snark/

See also: http://snark.games

"Free Games Collection
Free games available on GOG that will help you relax and pass time at home"

#Games #VideoGames #FreeGames #GOG #ComputerGames ...

https://www.gog.com/en/partner/free_games

Interesting news about game studio Cryptic, but there's not a whiff, not a sign, of Champions Online in this video:

https://youtu.be/GG5jEK68sOw

#MMO #ChampionsOnline #ComputerGames #Cryptic

Experimenting with Crossover and Heroic Game Launcher on my Mac to see how well (and which) Windows games run. It's bizarre that I can't get Freedom Force to play, but Batman: Arkham Knight is completely playable, at least as good as it would have been on my Windows machine despite running through a translation layer on the Mac. Thought it was worth splashing out three quid in the Steam sale to give this one a try and I'm impressed. Of course, if I don't buy Crossover then it will stop working in a week or so when the trial expires, but still... the more things I can find that work, the more likely I am to shell out the cash for Crossover.

#Mac #ComputerGames #Crossover