Rayman developer angry over legends delay

richymcdermott

http://mynintendonews.com/2013/02/08/developer-rages-about-rayman-legends-delay/

Its awful ****ty ubisoft put them through to reach a deadline just to then delay it in september during a time when gta 5 coming out

Ubisoft sending rayman out to die

Morons

CastorTroy

Yeah read that earlier. Probably had to work crap hours over the holidays as well just to get it done for this month and now it's going to be put aside for a while.

gizmo

Aye, feel sorry for the devs alright, it's never fun to have to crunch your ass off and then find the dates have been moved around again at the last minute.

I do disagree on the sending it out to die comment though, the target demographics for both games are entirely different and in fairness, no matter what month they release it in there'll be a litany of other big games released, especially around that time of year. By releasing all three versions together at least they can consolidate their marketing budget and make one big push rather than splitting it in two spread months apart.

richymcdermott

gizmo wrote: »

Aye, feel sorry for the devs alright, it's never fun to have to crunch your ass off and then find the dates have been moved around again at the last minute.

I do disagree on the sending it out to die comment though, the target demographics for both games are entirely different and in fairness, no matter what month they release it in there'll be a litany of other big games released, especially around that time of year. By releasing all three versions together at least they can consolidate their marketing budget and make one big push rather than splitting it in two spread months apart.

I can only see the marketing that went into gta 4 and how everyone was playing it and talking about it for months . I can only see rayman legends selling at least 500k copies till xmas comes . My words are abit harsh but i think its crazy putting it in september though i fully understand the marketing ubisoft dont want to split it but origins had no marketing really and i remember my thread i posted was the only posted and i only did that close to the game coming out.

cloud493

I don't get delaying the Wii U version to ship with the PS3/360 version. If its ready for the Wii U now, or close enough, just get it out there.

tok9

cloud493 wrote: »

I don't get delaying the Wii U version to ship with the PS3/360 version. If its ready for the Wii U now, or close enough, just get it out there.

Ya, I don't get this one either.

gizmo

cloud493 wrote: »

I don't get delaying the Wii U version to ship with the PS3/360 version. If its ready for the Wii U now, or close enough, just get it out there.

As I said above, they'll have a limited marketing budget so they'll want to do one big push for all platforms come September.

cherryghost

The devs are now offering a 2nd demo exclusive to the Wii U. I bet that hurt.

Kinski

Shame for the developers, but purely from a suits' perspective, this makes total sense.

But what does surprise me more is that this happened even though Nintendo always seemed to have a very strong relationship with Ubisoft; is there any other third-party publisher they were so close too? What is the state of their relationship now, I wonder? Any serious weakening of that could leave the Wii U very isolated, with few, if any, major third party exclusives.

If so, I hope Nintendo dip into their warchest and buy up some more developers, and/or publish some more Bayonetta 2s. Otherwise the Wii U line-up could be fairly threadbare for a long time to come.

richymcdermott

the most furious part about all this for the developers and fans aswell is that whatever projects they were gonna do after rayman legends has to be put on hold for another 7 months of the developers porting the game over now to ps3 and 360. i dont mean to get anyone hopes up but there could of being a beyond good and evil 2 for all gods knows.

Mr.Saturn

I'm slightly mournful for the fact that the WiiU's continuing the GCN's legacy of having exclusives pilfered, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad it was making its way to the PS3 come Autumn. I mean, it's cool not having to invest in a new console before the system's roster of games is properly fleshed out.

And, yes, Rayman Legends was enough of a draw to rope me into a Wii-U purchase, even one barely out of its bog-standard, droughted launch-window. Origins was a brilliant, balls-hard ode to generations past, without getting bogged down in its nostalgia, and giving hope to a franchise thought to be struggling. Considering Legends is the same engine retooled, there'd have to be active, prolonged effort to bugger the formula. Indeed, one of the few instances where 'more of the same' isn't a cause for exasperated sighs.

cherryghost

I wonder if Bayonetta 2 will end up going the same way

abbir

cherryghost wrote: »

I wonder if Bayonetta 2 will end up going the same way

Nintendo are paying for the game to get made. If it wasn't for them Bayonetta 2 would not get made so it is going to be exclusive.

richymcdermott

cherryghost wrote: »

I wonder if Bayonetta 2 will end up going the same way

http://mynintendonews.com/2013/02/08/bayonetta-2-and-the-wonderful-101-will-stay-as-wii-u-exclusives/

Overheal

Im sympathetic. I work in a special district of my company that seems to be trapped in a pocket dimension from reality, where they think my store can do the same work as a regular store with a fractional workforce. They made those changes just before getting into the holidays. I'm shocked we made it out in half a piece, we lost 2 managers (1 to firing one to quitting), the GM transferred out almost immediately (because who else ****ing knew better what was coming), about half of the people that chose to stay on (not even counting the ones who were made redundant), and a lot of our credibility as a place to shop at. And you can't tell your territory manager the test model is FUBAR, because they will just think you're not working hard enough. Yes. You have 3 hours to get 4 people to re-price 20,000 square feet of floor space. Plus this list of other things to do before we open: palletize this, pull these signs down, put these signs up, put this out on display, assemble this shipper, tear down this shipper. Have at it. And that's not even trying to be creative about it. That's just the same plug and chug every week. Those developers, meanwhile, are put under that same gun in Crunch Time and expected to produce original work. Poor bastards.

gizmo

richymcdermott wrote: »

the most furious part about all this for the developers and fans aswell is that whatever projects they were gonna do after rayman legends has to be put on hold for another 7 months of the developers porting the game over now to ps3 and 360. i dont mean to get anyone hopes up but there could of being a beyond good and evil 2 for all gods knows.

The entire team won't be required to stay on the project for the port. The majority of art and design will be shuffled on with a good chunk of programming with them.

richymcdermott

michel ancel and the rayman team protest

Meesared

So Ubisoft have confirmed the game is complete, and is ready to be shipped, this decision is just bizarre on a whole new scale!

Star Lord

The thing is, they wouldn't even NEED to market the Wii U version! Most Wii U owners knew about the game coming, and a lot were looking forward to it! So they could just ship the game, and it'd sell!

hooradiation

DamoElDiablo wrote: »

The thing is, they wouldn't even NEED to market the Wii U version! Most Wii U owners knew about the game coming, and a lot were looking forward to it! So they could just ship the game, and it'd sell!

Yeah... no.

I was sort of aware this game existed, but if this 'scandal' wasn't publicised because it was a slow news day then i'd have forgotten about it entirely.
Not everyone (or indeed, i'd go as far as saying that most people) that owns a console pays attention to upcoming release schedule, if they did advertising wouldn't really be needed, would it?

The idea that " Most Wii U owners" know about seems like wishful thinking.

Star Lord

hooradiation wrote: »

Yeah... no.

I was sort of aware this game existed, but if this 'scandal' wasn't publicised because it was a slow news day then i'd have forgotten about it entirely.
Not everyone (or indeed, i'd go as far as saying that most people) that owns a console pays attention to upcoming release schedule, if they did advertising wouldn't really be needed, would it?

The idea that " Most Wii U owners" know about seems like wishful thinking.

Apologies, I did mean now, with the attention/free publicity that this has generated for the game!

hooradiation

DamoElDiablo wrote: »

Apologies, I did mean now, with the attention/free publicity that this has generated for the game!

Even then, I'm skeptical of how much of a consoles entire install base cares that much for the industry "news".

Yeah, sure, there are more eyes on the game now then there would have been before this news started doing the rounds, but i'd still say that the people who now know about the game is still only a fraction of the audience an advertising campaign would reach.

People who tolerate places like kotaku et al in order to get gaming news and/or post about it on gaming related forums are probably the (very fucking vocal) minority of any given consoles install base.
And if they care about a game, they'll get it anyway - if it's released six months from now or tomorrow.
It's everyone else you have to worry about.

SirLemonhead

Kotaku posts game related stories now? Wow that's a change

hooradiation

SirLemonhead wrote: »

Kotaku posts game related stories now? Wow that's a change

What you did there.
I see it.

johnny_ultimate

Well, the Wii U owners have been appeased. Or, more likely, many will still complain despite being offered the whole online segment of the game for free

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upQnUdeLftU

Meesared

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Well, the Wii U owners have been appeased. Or, more likely, many will still complain despite being offered the whole online segment of the game for free

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upQnUdeLftU

TBH I think theyre pretty entitled to be annoyed, to see a completed game delayed 7 months, for not really any good reason.

gizmo

Meesared wrote: »

TBH I think theyre pretty entitled to be annoyed, to see a completed game delayed 7 months, for not really any good reason.

But there is a perfectly good reason, they're just refusing to acknowledge it.

What's the alternative? Ubisoft to release the game now and pump a couple of million into marketing it solely on a platform that has a relatively small install base and then, come September do the exact same thing again for the 360 and PS3? Despite the fact that such a move would drive up the overall marketing budget and as a result, the number of sales required to turn a decent profit?

What happens if the game fails to meet sales expectations then and we don't get any more Rayman games? Do we blame Ubisoft for that too?

CastorTroy

They use that excuse but what about other games they've released in the past? Like Assassin's Creed games being released on PS3 and 360 3 or 4 months before the PC version, with shorter delays for the more recent games?

We'll see if in the future the Wii U version of a multi platform game is released by them the exact same day as the PS3 and 360. Think Watch Dogs will be the first test of this, assuming it comes to Wii U.

Meesared

Simple, release it quietly now, and push it when the other formats are released. Can't see why that is so hard

Mr.Saturn

gizmo wrote: »

But there is a perfectly good reason, they're just refusing to acknowledge it.

What's the alternative? Ubisoft to release the game now and pump a couple of million into marketing it solely on a platform that has a relatively small install base and then, come September do the exact same thing again for the 360 and PS3? Despite the fact that such a move would drive up the overall marketing budget and as a result, the number of sales required to turn a decent profit?

What happens if the game fails to meet sales expectations then and we don't get any more Rayman games? Do we blame Ubisoft for that too?

I see the argument for the marketing budget, but given the goodwill generated from Origins and the typical new console buyer's 'I'll try anything to justify the purchase of new hardware' mentality that festers during launch window, and the sweet position they would've been in with nothing half-noteworthy on the Wii-U 'til March, they could've doled a small chunk of Legends' marketing budget to a February Wii-U release, and have it potentially pay for itself over the course of seven months.

Besides, had Legends been ten times the barnstormer on the Wii-U that Origins was at its release, it benefits twofold:

A) The potential to be a Wii-U seller, while also catering to a starved install base.

+

Those not willing to make the leap to new hardware, but are interested as a result of good, solid player-feedback will be salivating by the time it goes multi-platform in September, and that's paired with the majority of the original marketing budget to aim towards those who think Rayman is brand of knock-off sunglasses.

=

C) Sales! Sales everywhere!

Those factors that would prove healthy for the future of the franchise, and all at relatively low risk. As an aside, I'm grateful it's going multiplatform, but the manner in which it's been approached stumps me a bit.

gizmo

CastorTroy wrote: »

They use that excuse but what about other games they've released in the past? Like Assassin's Creed games being released on PS3 and 360 3 or 4 months before the PC version, with shorter delays for the more recent games?

Ubisoft haven't given that excuse, it's just blatantly obvious from what they've done that this is the reasoning.

As for the staggered PC releases I assume they have more to lose from a less successful console launch than they do from a PC launch. Nevermind the fact that most people who would be buying Assassins Creed on the PC would be, generally speaking, more clued in and thus less sensitive to decreased marketing.

Meesared wrote: »

Simple, release it quietly now, and push it when the other formats are released. Can't see why that is so hard

Because then they'll get slated for "sending it out to die". Rayman Origins, if you think back, suffered from abysmal first month sales (~50k) due to the poor marketing so I'd wager they don't want to repeat that mistake with a franchise that could do quite well at launch based on the successful longer term sales of Origins.

On top of that, possible Wii U sales would more than likely be lower without a decent marketing campaign than with. Bear in mind that this game also isn't really targeted at the people who read gaming sites so it will most likely require more mainstream (read: expensive) advertising.

EDIT...

Mr.Saturn wrote: »

C) Sales! Sales everywhere!

While you certainly have a point, I'd wager Ubisoft's bean-counters see things quite differently and given that they currently publisher six out of the top ten games on the WiiU, I'd imagine they have a fairly good reading on the number of sales possible on the platform.