Yearsoflurking
Member
What? Both bayonetta and MG:R have very good fanbases. People love platinum, good platinum games
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Hideki Kamiya: "to say that Yoko-san saved Platinum would not be an exaggeration."
- Thread starter BRSxIgnition
- Start date
SinCityAssassin
Member
When a company is in straits, people will latch on to the most stable and reliable source of work that company has gotten as the only way out. Now that things aren't that dire anymore, they can just wish they make Da Gud Gaems.
starry sonata
Member
Aw, I'm getting the fuzzies. 
James Scott
Banned
PlatinumGames are usually well received critically and by fans.
None of this "they were never good" or "no one cared" nonsense.
They made a few bad licensed kids games but that doesn't really suddenly remove their history (and Bayo 2 is <3 years old at this point)
None of this "they were never good" or "no one cared" nonsense.
They made a few bad licensed kids games but that doesn't really suddenly remove their history (and Bayo 2 is <3 years old at this point)
"Good," but small fanbase. How much did the Bayonetta games sell again?
SinCityAssassin
Member
The Scalebound cancellation and a more recent string of duds did a real number on them. Lost employees, lost revenue. This project resparked invigoration in platinum not only in finances, but with recruiting as well.
entremet
Member
Their games don't sell that well.
Yearsoflurking
Member
Taking on bad and releasing bad projects
Platinum has a history of underperforming/bomb games and had a huge game canned.
This isn't good for an indpendent studio.
Some people just think businesses operate with no thiught for profit or have no concept how Platinum makes money.
James Scott
Banned
Nothing official. Probably rough times recently.
I imagine expecting a big team to be busy on a project for several months and for the project to suddenly be cancelled hurts.
They don't have much announced right now. On consoles it's just GranBlue which doesn't have a localization announcement nor a release window
Yearsoflurking
Member
Bayonetta 2 bombed , they released it on a platform that doesn't cater to their fans. All platform projects should be geared towards pc ps4 xbox one
Well its obvious that YT is the G.
And some people said Nier A was just a niche title that woulden't amount to anything prior to release. I'll admit even i didn't expect this kind of result even if i hoped for it.
Just based on my previous experiences with YT games...the fact that Nier A actually gained a huge following of people that wasn't a slow burn years after release is just astounding to me, and i'm very happy for YT and the staff over at Platinum games, it could not have come at a more important time
And some people said Nier A was just a niche title that woulden't amount to anything prior to release. I'll admit even i didn't expect this kind of result even if i hoped for it.
Just based on my previous experiences with YT games...the fact that Nier A actually gained a huge following of people that wasn't a slow burn years after release is just astounding to me, and i'm very happy for YT and the staff over at Platinum games, it could not have come at a more important time
SinCityAssassin
Member
First of all: Ha.
Second of all: I'm pretty sure Bayonetta 2 made enough money and sold enough to be considered a good success after the reprint and Smash 4 effort.
TylerDurden4321
Member
God, I hope that doesn't mean from now on Platinum will make many many more games with weighty controls where you have to run around in endless empty open areas playing depressive, whiny characters and do tons of forced walking before and after some unskippable cutscene parts (A2 as a character and later playing route C plus ending D was ok though).
TissueBox
Member
Bayonetta 1 sold 1.3 million copies in the first 6 months and was considered a disappointment.
http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/pdf/release/20100514_hosoku_e_final.pdf#page=5
We don't have any numbers for Bayo 2 except that it didn't weven sold 1/3rd of what Bayo 1 did in launchweek
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/despite-glowing-bayonetta-2-reviews-sales-in-japan/1100-6422548/
Metal Gear Rising has had the favor of being a Metal Gear game.
Their history are consistently bad selling games.
The response they get on NeoGAF is not representative of the market a a whole or their sales.
I never even said they were never good, i love their games.
It's fact that the market at large did not care however or they wouldn't even be in the situation were they can hardly get funding for Bayo 2 or the need to take on cheap licensed project for activision
Scalebound being cancelled had more effect on Platinum than Bayonetta 2 and W101 bombing. The games came out, Nintendo at least paid the company for their contract work, while Scalebound was in development for 4 years and will never see the light of day, that's a huge blow to a company.
Bayo 2 and W101 can/will probably be ported to the Switch, which would end up increasing their overall sales. Scalebound will never have that luxury, nor will they probably ever be able to restart development on it due to JP leaving and the nature of their contract with Microsoft.
The Pet of the Month
Member
Making use of the 140 character limit
Happy to hear Nier was a success, couldn't have come at a better time in my opinion. Now, I gotta get better at their games before I buy Automata...
Tyrant Rave
Banned
Scalebound was a very big project that definitely put quite a few employees in situations without work. Not to mention their CEO, Minami, resigned last year and so did JP Kellams who was another long-time employee. From an outsider's perspective, it seemed like morale was kind of low at the company, so this was a nice boost for them.
Making use of the 140 character limit
Happy to hear Nier was a success, couldn't have come at a better time in my opinion. Now, I gotta get better at their games before I buy Automata...
Automata is not hard to play compared to previous Platinum games. They went out of their way to make it more accessible for people, to the point where there's an Auto-chip available in Easy mode where your character can fight without you controlling them.
Nier's subpar gameplay and Platinum's meh storytelling completely cancelled each other out with this game. I was amazed with how well they both worked together to create something that was a flawless experience.
I hope Taro becomes a permanent Platinum employee and gets to work on future Platinum IP's
I hope Taro becomes a permanent Platinum employee and gets to work on future Platinum IP's
and MGR2 please lord
Kwansu Dudes
Member
Wasn't a big fan of Platinum Games, but I really enjoyed Nier: Automata. Hope they collaborate again.
Yearsoflurking
Member
All 3 and shitty Activision games is the reason platinum is in the position they're in. Scalebound would have bombed as well. It wasn't a good game. Like any contracted game development they were paid up into that point.
Towards making fewer and fewer action-centric titles?
SinCityAssassin
Member
At least they would've been paid the full amount for their work and not face an internal restructure if it had been completed and released.
I'm curious if they've started making a sequel yet.
Generally independent studios have to sign projects six months in advance, but all the statements surrounding this game suggest that Square Enix wasn't sure that Nier would do well enough to sign up a sequel right away, so they might have to actually ship a non-service game to have an available team to work with.
Then again, Scalebound's cancellation may have changed that.
Generally independent studios have to sign projects six months in advance, but all the statements surrounding this game suggest that Square Enix wasn't sure that Nier would do well enough to sign up a sequel right away, so they might have to actually ship a non-service game to have an available team to work with.
Then again, Scalebound's cancellation may have changed that.
funkystudent
Member
I wouldnt mind more of the Square x PG partnership even if it isnt a Neir sequel too.
Well, you have to remember that independent studios generally see zero profit from their successes unless they're incredibly large successes (or negotiate from a position of strong previous success), so their continued existence depends entirely on publishers being willing to sign them for work.
Those contracts also take a long time to nail down, so cancellations are often a worst case scenario.
Given that Yoko Taro officially left his office at P* a few months ago, i'm pretty convinced that it hasn't entered production yet.
I'm pretty sure they already said that they want to make more mainstream RPG titles with platinum strenght in the future because Character-Action doesn't sell.
However, i can't find that statement right now, so i might be misremembering.
Serenade_King
Banned
zenspider
Member
Transformers is dope hush your mouth!
I guess I more so mean that their staff may have been signed to something with another publisher to follow up after Scalebound if Square hadn't already agreed to another project circa October 2016.
I guess so. I'm going to assume that that experience with ms and how much of a close call it was have made platinum quite weary with whom they'll work for
didn't platinum make the pc port? Why is se to blame?
Well that's part of why Nier was important though. They had very limited publisher options due to the amount of failures they had, and now they seem a lot more attractive to potential publishing partners.
Mobile Suit Gooch
Grundle: The Awakening
The man blessed us with 2B.
Oh, you played it?
Wonderful 101's also easily the best game Platinum's released (I will easily put it above Bayo 2 any day of the week) aside from Nier Automata, but that's more Yoko's ideas being put into a game where he's finally paired with a developer that can do what he wanted to do. I was also initially super meh on Nier Automata until I finished all the routes, and I adored the first game. And SinCityAssassin is right, Scalebound being cancelled is the biggest blow, because they basically worked 4 years on something for a fraction of what they'd have been paid when the game was finished.
The Activision licensed games make a lot more sense when you consider they probably took those because they were relatively easy to complete and helped prop up active development on Scalebound, since reporters with sources involved in Scalebound's development state that Microsoft had halted payments and made unachievable milestones.
Spieler Eins
Member
This. Is. Their redemption song.