If you’ve been buying new Nintendo games, you probably noticed a slip that allowed you to register games on the My Nintendo website to earn gold coins. Previously, gold coins could be used to purchase Wii U or 3DS indie games for about 80-90 points but the rework in early March will allow you to buy Switch games. Buying digital games will earn you 5% of the original price while physical will earn you 1%. The percentage lower for physical is to encourage people to buy digital as it gives a larger profit margin to Nintendo.
Nintendo hasn’t determined how many gold coins will be needed for purchases for DLC, full games, or even indies yet. The points expire after 12 months so if you’ve been saving them, remember to check your point total.
Quantic Dream, the creators of Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls, are being sued by for creating unhealthy work conditions, sexual harassment by kissing employees on the lips from Studio head Guillaume de Fondaumière, and racist and homophobic remarks from Studio head, David Cage. Photoshop pictures of employees dressed in Nazi and sexual nurse outfits for women were sent to everyone within the Quantic Dream building since 2013. Cage and de Fondaumiere stated that they were not aware of the photos and they were swiftly deleted from the servers. Le Monde and Mediapart, French media companies, spoke to the 15 employees who claimed that the photos were just a sample of the environment and nature of Quantic Dream.
David CageGuillaume de Fondaumière
Cage denies these accusations and defends himself stating “We work with Ellen Page, who fights for LGBT rights. You want to talk about racism? We work with Jesse Williams, who fights for civil rights in the United States. Judge my work.” De Fondaumière also defends himself stating that the accusations were “absolutely false.” Le Monde and Mediapart also received reports from the 15 that Quantic Dream forced them to work overtime, with unnamed staff complaining of routinely working 60-hour weeks, plus regular weekend hours. De Fondaumière stated that the accusations were false and that if they worked overtime, they would be compensated accordingly. In France, law state that a working week is 35 hours and working day may not exceed 10 hours.
French Court has dismissed two allegations after the articles was released while a third claim “is in a tie,” the studio wrote. Quantic Dream is currently pursuing “several other legal actions” to ensure that the studio is cleared from of false claims and internal misconduct.
Whether Quantic Dream, David Cage or Guillaume de Fondaumière are found guilty still remains to be seen of any accusations. Their upcoming game, Detroit: Become Human is expected to release this year and whether it affects game sales remain to be seen.
2017 saw the return of Crash Bandicoot and it become one of PlayStation‘s best selling games for the year. Crash Bandicoot: The N. Sane Trilogybecame “No. 1 top selling remastered collection in PS4 history” and since its release in June, “has continued to remain among the top 10 selling PS4 titles in the US for the year, so far, in units” said Activision. Fans of the franchise proved the demand for Good Crash games exist and Activision is listening.
According to the spring edition of licensing trade publication Licensing Source Book Europe, Activision is to port The N. Sane Trilogy to the Nintendo Switch and Windows PC. GB Eye, a UK licensing company who sells licensed posters, drinkware and other merchandise, stated that Activision plans for a new Crash Bandicoot game for 2019. Whether it will be a new remaster or a new game remains to be determined. Hopefully it is a new entry for the series as the later games for Crash were received poorly than the original trilogy.
A new game shows the power that the audience can have on a game. While remakes or HD ports are becoming more common, they are to gauge customer interest into a new entry in the franchise. Fan petitions are one method of showing interest of a game to video game companies but money speakers louder than words. If you really believe your favorite game should receive a new franchise than it will take a lot more than a thousands of fans. Hopefully the port of The World Ends with You sells well.
Project Octopath Traveler is a upcoming 2018 JRPG from Square-Enix for the Nintendo Switch. The game had a downloadable demo where they could gather fan feedback for the game. The feedback was used to improve the game. Fans were able to convince the developers to improve the UI, movement around the map, visuals, and motivate them to improve the game even more. More details in video below.
Recently, Nioh was another previous Japanese game title that also took fan feedback to improve the game and how fans felt about the overall game. The power of fan feedback can have huge effects and will greatly effect how video game development changes in the future. Depending on the success of Octopath Traveler, future JRPG or games could have more feedback demos. Even Star Wars Battlefront 2‘s beta helped induce changes before the release (clearly not enough before the game’s release). Although developers want to appeal to their fans as much as possible, they will not able to please everybody. For Nioh, developers become stress about trying to please every fan. “The first problem we encountered after researching feedback was that many members of our team became too influenced and affected by the opinions of the players,” Team Ninja’s Fumihiko Yasuda writes. “By attempting to consider all of those opinions, we were not arriving at solid solutions, but rather creating more questions” said Yasuda.
Opinion on Nioh. First Beta
Fan feedback can create a good fanbase prior to the game release. Nioh did extremely well for a new IP from Ninja Theory with a 8.5 Metacritic rating. For a new game, developers can build a large interest by taking fan feedback. For a new IP, Square-Enix is taking steps to continue to push new classic JRPGs. Jairus Cambe stated that he is “excited for this since it’s an homage to the old school JRPGs presented in a beautiful way.”
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