The media would have a field day. Conservatives would call it racism.
Webforums would nickname Starcraft to Nwordcraft or bwordcraft.
And there would be less sales of the product. Period. If Jim Raynor was black or female, the game would sell less. And Activision wouldn't publish it.
So basically, it gets to the point that since your movies will only have a handful of minorities you either have to make the person generally positive as far as stereotypes go or face being called racist. When in truth...a better solution would be to simply have a wider range of characters so you could escape tokenism altogether. Or to simply make the person more realistic so they just aren't a basic stereotype.
I agree with your solution... however thats WHY its a double-standard though on your first statement.
I understand tokenism. Token minority however is when there is only ONE of said race. When there are a handful or there IS some degree of diversity... then people are just LOOKING for reasons to cry discrimination.
@Blackheart: Dude, you really need to bring it down a level. You say you don't really care about it but you seem to be getting in a bigger huff about it than most people.
Here is what bothers me and usually rouses me to post: People who claim racism? Are usually more racist than the things they are protesting against.
I would like to meet this hypothetical human being who has been looking forward to SC2 since it was announced, then flat out decides not to buy it because the characters have a different skin color. Do enough of these people exist to dent SC sales? I guess I already know the answer, but I don't wanna believe it...
And I'm assuming the story is a big deal because people have been freaking out about use of spoilertags and talking about cutscenes and plot twists and whatnot over in the SC2 thread. Really. EDIT: I'm assuming this is all from the single-player campaign.
Automatic Jack on
0
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Thing is...we don't live in a idealistic world.
And when it comes to this it isn't a simple case of "It matters what race a person is" and "It doesn't matter what race a person is"
It is a question if why it matters what race a person is and why when you get down to it, it really does matter.
And I rather have an interesting and civil talk about it than hear people shouting for everyone to shut up because they live on some other planet.
Edit: That being said...this isn't D&D so...it really isn't the place for it. But not the first time this thread has gone off-topic.
@Blackheart: Dude, you really need to bring it down a level. You say you don't really care about it but you seem to be getting in a bigger huff about it than most people.
Here is what bothers me and usually rouses me to post: People who claim racism? Are usually more racist than the things they are protesting against.
Which is a more racist statement?
"It matters what race a person is."
"It doesn't matter what race a person is."
I would say the former.
Well, no shit.
Now, care to put some context on that crap sandwich? We're talking about why characters are mostly white and male and why that matters.
So the two black game designers people can come up with is Derek Smart, that horrible excuse for a human being, and Aureia Harvey, creator of truly pretentious and stupid games like The Path (To Get Raped).
Sigh.
So whats wrong with Derek Smart exactly? Aside from him being a troll and making shitty games.
Also, I think its kind of a double standard to say Tosh might have racist undertones and then not make that same accusation of other characters. Arcturus Mengsk could indicate that white people are power mongering despots who use propaganda, money, and military power to make people obey them.
Except the main character, the main character's right-hand man, the main character's handyman, etc. etc. are all white too.
There were other black characters in the game though. General Warfield, and at least one of the mechanics on the ship.
I guess thats not diverse enough though... so it MUST be racist.
Warfield is a minor character compared to the likes of Matt or even the chief engineer (who shows up every two out of three missions to give you new gear to play with.) He's certainly not the main flipping character, like Raynor is, compared to Megnsk.
I'm not saying that Tosh is the end-all, be-all of black characters in the SC universe; I'm just pointing out that he's a wildly different situation compared to Mengsk.
And did the black engineer show up outside of that one scene?
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
0
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Nintendo is releasing lots of investor, Wii Party, and Metroid Other: M news.
1. NdCube which originally started as a subsidiary Nintendo company for GameCube and Game Boy Advance development, started as a joint venture with 78% shares for Nintendo and 13% shares by Dentsu (Nintendo's advertizing firm). But the company has struggled and lost several employees to SONY. As of 2010, Nintendo has completely overhauled the developer and bought out Dentsu's small shares, and now is the sole proprietor. NdCube is now being considered a Nintendo R&D instead of just a subsidiary as per Nd Cube's website. Nintendo has also expanded the studio, by opening a second division in Sapporo and Tokyo. Both near Nintendo's branch offices.
2. Mario Party is definitely in danger of being less poignant. Not only is Wii Party very successful in Japan, but lead Mario Party staff has indeed left Hudson and joined Nd Cube. For those who don't know the original Mario Party staff was actually a Nintendo/Hudson joint venture called Monegi. Although because of their invisible credits, everyone solely credits Hudson.
3. Wii Party from concept was designed to capture a larger audience than Mario Party.
4. Sakamoto explains that Metroid was conceived with a deep story from the beginning. But game development was very different when the game was first conceived. As technology and development has sophisticated, Sakamoto has been able to express the story himself and some of the original design team have encapsulated. This game in particular is a very "romantic" project for him, and something full of many ideas formed in the past years.
...National Parts Depot? Narcissistic personality disorder? Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands?
As has been pointed out, just because you're white and male doesn't mean you're incapable of writing non-white, male characters. And I assume most game developers are just like us: They're a media-savvy bunch, familiar with the common archetypes and tropes used in popular culture. Do they really not have the kinds of discussion we're having right now, about whether the fact that one of two black characters in their whole game is associated with voodoo magic might possibly be construed as politically incorrect? Did that decision get made because there was a black person on the dev team who was consulted and said "hey, fine by me"? I would just like to understand their thought process a little better, or even whether there WAS a thought process involved.
EDIT: Mario is of African American descent according to Wikipedia.
...National Parts Depot? Narcissistic personality disorder? Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands?
As has been pointed out, just because you're white and male doesn't mean you're incapable of writing non-white, male characters. And I assume most game developers are just like us: They're a media-savvy bunch, familiar with the common archetypes and tropes used in popular culture. Do they really not have the kinds of discussion we're having right now, about whether the fact that one of two black characters in their whole game is associated with voodoo magic might possibly be construed as politically incorrect? Did that decision get made because there was a black person on the dev team who was consulted and said "hey, fine by me"? I would just like to understand their thought process a little better, or even whether there WAS a thought process involved.
EDIT: Mario is of African American descent according to Wikipedia.
I will point out that it actually sometimes is an issue when white males write or especially act for another race. I'll use South Park as an example:
When Trey Parker and Matt Stone originally created South Park, they wanted to do all the male voices including Chef's. However, Comedy Central would not let them voice a black man because doing do in a satire could be viewed as racist to the viewers. That's when Matt and Trey decided to hire Isaac Hayes to voice Chef.
It wasn't until the Succubus episode when Matt and Trey voiced Chef's parents did this trend stop. I find it very ironic that to appear to be not racist, Comedy Central decided to place a specific race apart from others.
Now, I am not saying that all game or movie companies do similar things, but because it had happened before, it's not a stretch of the imagination that it has not happened again on some level.
Mild Confusion on
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
...National Parts Depot? Narcissistic personality disorder? Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands?
Nondescript Penis Diddlers.
Actually it's NPD Group, the organization that measures sales for all kinds of things in the U.S., including vidja games. "NPDs" is shorthand for "sales figures."
...National Parts Depot? Narcissistic personality disorder? Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands?
Nondescript Penis Diddlers.
Actually it's NPD Group, the organization that measures sales for all kinds of things in the U.S., including vidja games. "NPDs" is shorthand for "sales figures."
They also measure Canadian sales, but we haven't gotten those in ages.
Last year around this time, Namco Bandai was in the red, with a quarterly operating loss of ¥2,758 million yen on sales of ¥75,729 million. This year, sales were up 8.2% to ¥81,912 million, and operating income rebounded to ¥2,953 million.
The company still posted a net loss for the quarter of ¥1,644 million, but even this was an improvement over the ¥2,846 million loss of last year's first quarter.
The company changed its organization this year, combining its video and music business with its video game business into a single "contents" segment. Sales for the merged segment was up 16.8% to ¥32,948 million. The division saw a loss of ¥619 million, although this was far improved over last year's loss of over ¥4,000 million.
Game unit sales were down for the quarter, from 3,466,000 units last year to 3,153,000 units this year.
No new major releases made it out, the company noted in its earnings report. Its top selling game for the year was the North American version of Tekken 6, which managed 1.07 million units. Japan-only Taiko no Tatsujin DS Dororon! Yokai Daikessen was the second beset selling game, with 170,000 units. These were followed by Ben10 Alien Force 2 with 110,000 units and Super Robot Taisen OG Saga Masou Kishin with 110,000 units.
DS saw the most new support with nine new releases (regional versions counted as one). PS3 was the best performing platform for the company though, selling 696,000 units, besting DS's 636,000 and Xbox 360's 581,000.
For further details, see the Namco Bandai investors relation site.
In a climate of exchange rate challenges and Western market hurdles for Japanese publishers, Namco Bandai's video game segment narrowed its losses year over year by millions of dollars over the course of its first fiscal quarter.
As a company overall (Namco Bandai is also comprised of toy and arcade businesses), the company cut its losses by almost half, from 2.8 billion yen ($32.9 million) to 1.6 billion yen ($18.7 million) year over year.
The game segment's sales were up overall to 32.9 billion yen ($383.36 million) from 20.2 billion yen ($234.3 million), but software sales slipped slightly to 3.1 million units sold worldwide across its portfolio versus 3.4 million last year. In its presentation materials to investors, Namco Bandai said its small and mid-level titles "struggled", and that with the exception of Tekken 6, worldwide sales were poor.
The title sold 1.07 million units on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 worldwide over the first quarter; by contrast, DS title Taiko Drum Master and Ben 10: Alien Force sold just 170,000 and 110,000 units, respectively.
Like many Japanese publishers in the present environment, Namco Bandai says it will look to increasing global marketshare and a diverse range of platforms incorporating mobile and digital to increase its agility and improve its performance.
Namco Bandai specifically notes it aims for a more focused console product mix, maximizing franchises like Tekken and its Dragon Ball games with the introduction of new IP like God Eater -- the latter sold 600,000 units within 50 days of launch on the PSP in Japan. Namco Bandai says it plans to globalize the game and "explore worldwide as a new franchise"; it's announced that through its relationship with D3Publisher, the game will be coming to the West as God Eater: Burst.
All aboard the rape train!
Edit: Who the fuck bought Tekken 6?
Couscous on
0
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Seriously, who the hell bought Tekken? The game was released last year. Most fighting games don't continue to sell that well like Nintendo franchise games. I don't remember it ever charting again this year so it couldn't have done more than a few hundred thousand in the USA. Ditto for Europe.
Unfortunately Namco is run by idiots. They're localizing God Eater despite the PSP being all but dead in the West and Monster Hunter never being as big a deal here (i.e. doomed to fail). Meanwhile they sit on games that have a much better chance of pulling better sales (PS3 vesperia, Graces etc.). when the tales series pulls much better sales than any PSP game.
Rakai on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]XBL: Rakayn | PS3: Rakayn | Steam ID
Seriously, who the hell bought Tekken? The game was released last year. Most fighting games don't continue to sell that well like Nintendo franchise games. I don't remember it ever charting again this year so it couldn't have done more than a few hundred thousand in the USA. Ditto for Europe.
I think you're missing the overall relevance:
In its presentation materials to investors, Namco Bandai said its small and mid-level titles "struggled", and that with the exception of Tekken 6, worldwide sales were poor.
What is the exception? And just how bad does 'struggled' mean?
As for who buys Tekken? That same mentality (though not necessarily people) that buys yearly sports franchises. It would seem that there are enough people who buy it worldwide to keep the company afloat. In spite of their ineptitude.
Somebody here a long while back posted an awesome quote that described Namco fairly accurately. I'll see if I can find it.
Yeah, I really don't understand why Namco didn't localize Tales of Graces in the US, considering Tales of Symphonia and DotNW did fairly well over here.
I think that the internet has been for years on the path to creating what is essentially an electronic Necronomicon: A collection of blasphemous unrealities so perverse that to even glimpse at its contents, if but for a moment, is to irrevocably forfeit a portion of your sanity.
Xbox - PearlBlueS0ul, Steam
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
Well, looks like Activision's ridiculous business ways have caught up with them, as they reported a hefty loss for the quarter.
Did I say hefty loss? I meant even bigger profit.
Major publisher Activision Blizzard saw its second quarter profits grow 12 percent year-over-year to $219 million, in no small part due to its "focused effort to increase digital revenues," which carry a higher profit margin, the company said today.
In the three-month period that ended June 30, total revenue was down 7 percent to $967 million, from $1.04 billion in the same quarter last year, but online revenue was actually up by 20 percent, providing a profit margin boost.
Activision did not provide a specific financial breakdown between its digital and retail sales performance, but the company claimed that "Q2 sales from online channels exceeded retail sales for the first time" -- an extremely uncommon milestone for such a large publisher.
Despite the profit growth, Activision didn't hit Wall Street analyst estimates, which send the company's stock price down around 6 percent late in the trading day.
The Call of Duty franchise was a star performer for Activision during this quarter, with the company calling it the number one third-party franchise and the number three overall franchise by NPD's calculation. Modern Warfare 2's lucrative map packs, which recently contributed to a 20 million units sold milestone for franchise DLC, are very likely a big part of why Activision saw such a boost in digital revenues.
Blizzard was also cited as a top performer, with its catalogue titles World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft Battle Chest, and Diablo Battle Chest. Activision also trumpeted the 1.5 million units sold so far of StarCraft II, but those sales will not impact financials until the end of the current quarter.
"Our quarterly results were fueled by continued strong consumer response to Activision Publishing's Call of Duty franchise and Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft," said CEO Bobby Kotick in a statement. "For the first and second quarters, we outperformed our earnings per share outlook, and we grew our operating margin year over year for the six month period, driven by our focused effort to increase digital revenues."
"There are clearly more opportunities than ever before to create great games and we are at the forefront of doing so," he added.
So it looks like selling add-on packs like crazy is the cause, and it's nearly guaranteed they'll find more ways to charge us for stuff.
Meanwhile, Harmonix is dragging down Viacom.
Weak sales in disc-based video games could lead MTV parent Viacom to write down the value of Rock Band subsidiary Harmonix, the media giant said in its Thursday earnings release.
"The Media Networks segment continues to be affected by softness in the disc-based video game industry," the company said in its quarterly regulatory filing.
"If such conditions persist and impact the sales projections for our existing and future product, this could result in an impairment loss on Harmonix goodwill," the statement added. "At June 30, 2010 the carrying amount of goodwill associated with the Harmonix acquisition was approximately $300 million."
Goodwill is the amount paid above the fair net book value for an acquisition. When goodwill is overstated, the acquiring company writes down the value to a fair value. And a lower-than-expected forecast for cash flow due to weak software sales at Harmonix could be enough to cause a write-down.
Viacom subsidiary MTV said in September 2006 that it would acquire Cambridge, MA-based Harmonix for $175 million as instrument-based music games like Guitar Hero were becoming increasingly popular. Since then, music game sales and overall industry sales have experienced softness at retail.
Separately from unit sales, the contraction in the music genre is particularly pronounced. Expensive instrument-software bundles drove high dollar sales volumes when the genre was new to most consumers. And users who bought a band set that included controllers typically would not purchase a bundle again, instead buying lower-cost standalone software.
The genre strategy of releasing track packs as add-on content prolongs the life of existing discs for many consumers who may buy songs instead of a full new iteration. Harmonix is currently readying Rock Band 3 for the 2010 holiday season.
Part of the acquisition deal included an opportunity for Harmonix's owners to receive $300 million in earnouts, based on sales performance of Rock Band video games. In February this year, Viacom sought a "substantial" refund of a portion of the $150 million in performance-based bonuses that it had already paid to Harmonix stakeholders. Viacom said that even paid bonuses were subject to adjustment.
For the quarter ended June 30, Viacom reported worldwide ancillary revenues (including video game sales) of $179 million, flat year-on-year. The company said that growth in online content licensing fees and consumer products revenues were offest by lower music game royalties. Viacom pointed to a "difficult" comparison to the previous year, when the company received a settlement from a dispute.
Overall Viacom revenues were $3.3 billion for the quarter, flat year-on-year, as total profits rose 40 percent to $418 million.
As for who buys Tekken? That same mentality (though not necessarily people) that buys yearly sports franchises. It would seem that there are enough people who buy it worldwide to keep the company afloat. In spite of their ineptitude.
Somebody here a long while back posted an awesome quote that described Namco fairly accurately. I'll see if I can find it.
But Tekken was released last year. This would be like buying a yearly sports franchise game half a year after it came out. You expect those kinds of games to drop off the face of the earth after January.
"Our quarterly results were fueled by continued strong consumer response to Activision Publishing's Call of Duty franchise and Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft," said CEO Bobby Kotick in a statement. "For the first and second quarters, we outperformed our earnings per share outlook, and we grew our operating margin year over year for the six month period, driven by our focused effort to increase digital revenues."
The funny thing is that the part about Call of Duty and World of Warcraft applies to every goddamn Activision quarter ever.
Activision did not provide a specific financial breakdown between its digital and retail sales performance, but the company claimed that "Q2 sales from online channels exceeded retail sales for the first time" -- an extremely uncommon milestone for such a large publisher.
What the hell did they even release this quarter? WoW+CoD DLC selling more than the other shit isn't necessarily surprising.
Edit: Can someone explain exactly what goodwill is?
Goodwill in financial statements arises when a company is purchased for more than the fair value of the identifiable assets of the company. The difference between the purchase price and the sum of the fair value of the net assets is by definition the value of the "goodwill" of the purchased company. The acquiring company must recognize goodwill as an asset in its financial statements and present it as a separate line item on the balance sheet, according to the current purchase accounting method. In this sense, goodwill serves as the balancing sum that allows one firm to provide accounting information regarding its purchase of another firm for a price substantially different from its book value. Goodwill can be negative, arising where the net assets at the date of acquisition, fairly valued, exceed the cost of acquisition.[1] Negative goodwill is recognized as a liability.
For example, a software company may have net assets (consisting primarily of miscellaneous equipment, and assuming no debt) valued at $1 million, but the company's overall value (including brand, customers, intellectual capital) is valued at $10 million. Anybody buying that company would book $10 million in total assets acquired, comprising $1 million physical assets, and $9 million in goodwill. In a private company, goodwill has no predetermined value prior to the acquisition; its magnitude depends on the two other variables by definition. A publicly traded company, by contrast, is subject to a constant process of market valuation, so goodwill will always be apparent.
In other words, Viacom figured that Harmonix was worth more than its actual value due to brand recognition and the potential for future sales and reported it that way on their financial sheets, but they suspect that the power of the name is lessening and may lower that number.
So it is basically just the tangible value plus the intangible crap like brand name recognition that the company thinks it worth the X amount they are paying for the entire company they are buying?
So it is basically just the tangible value plus the intangible crap like brand name recognition that the company thinks it worth the X amount they are paying for the entire company they are buying?
Goodwill only covers the intangible crap, but otherwise yes.
As for who buys Tekken? That same mentality (though not necessarily people) that buys yearly sports franchises. It would seem that there are enough people who buy it worldwide to keep the company afloat. In spite of their ineptitude.
Somebody here a long while back posted an awesome quote that described Namco fairly accurately. I'll see if I can find it.
But Tekken was released last year. This would be like buying a yearly sports franchise game half a year after it came out. You expect those kinds of games to drop off the face of the earth after January.
I said it's the same mentality, but not the same situation. People buy Tekken 6 because they bought Tekken 5. Maybe they just like fighting games. Maybe they just like shitty fighting games. Maybe they like infinite juggle combos. Who knows, who cares. They buy Tekken 6 the same way people buy the next Zelda game, because they feel compelled to do it.
The quality of the title eventually becomes secondary. See: Tony Hawk.
As for who buys Tekken? That same mentality (though not necessarily people) that buys yearly sports franchises. It would seem that there are enough people who buy it worldwide to keep the company afloat. In spite of their ineptitude.
Somebody here a long while back posted an awesome quote that described Namco fairly accurately. I'll see if I can find it.
But Tekken was released last year. This would be like buying a yearly sports franchise game half a year after it came out. You expect those kinds of games to drop off the face of the earth after January.
I said it's the same mentality, but not the same situation. People buy Tekken 6 because they bought Tekken 5. Maybe they just like fighting games. Maybe they just like shitty fighting games. Maybe they like infinite juggle combos. Who knows, who cares. They buy Tekken 6 the same way people buy the next Zelda game, because they feel compelled to do it.
The quality of the title eventually becomes secondary. See: Tony Hawk.
I may hate the game, but I can't deny that it's a popular game that gets played at the biggest fighting game tournaments. Of course it's going to keep selling well.
Is there a resource that shows Activision Blizzard's revenue by genre divided by region? I think the earning's report only uses one of those filters at once, unless I read it wrong.
Posts
Webforums would nickname Starcraft to Nwordcraft or bwordcraft.
And there would be less sales of the product. Period. If Jim Raynor was black or female, the game would sell less. And Activision wouldn't publish it.
I agree with your solution... however thats WHY its a double-standard though on your first statement.
I understand tokenism. Token minority however is when there is only ONE of said race. When there are a handful or there IS some degree of diversity... then people are just LOOKING for reasons to cry discrimination.
Here is what bothers me and usually rouses me to post: People who claim racism? Are usually more racist than the things they are protesting against.
Which is a more racist statement?
"It matters what race a person is."
"It doesn't matter what race a person is."
I would say the former.
And I'm assuming the story is a big deal because people have been freaking out about use of spoilertags and talking about cutscenes and plot twists and whatnot over in the SC2 thread. Really. EDIT: I'm assuming this is all from the single-player campaign.
And when it comes to this it isn't a simple case of "It matters what race a person is" and "It doesn't matter what race a person is"
It is a question if why it matters what race a person is and why when you get down to it, it really does matter.
And I rather have an interesting and civil talk about it than hear people shouting for everyone to shut up because they live on some other planet.
Edit: That being said...this isn't D&D so...it really isn't the place for it. But not the first time this thread has gone off-topic.
Well, no shit.
Now, care to put some context on that crap sandwich? We're talking about why characters are mostly white and male and why that matters.
(Please, we've been talking this is it/isn't it racist in gaming crap conversation for two days now....lets move on.)
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
Not wanting to talk about race makes you RACIST.
I am a freaking nerd.
DOH!
Foiled again!
So uh...NPDs tonight?
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
I'm not saying that Tosh is the end-all, be-all of black characters in the SC universe; I'm just pointing out that he's a wildly different situation compared to Mengsk.
And did the black engineer show up outside of that one scene?
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=403137
Hmmm...so Nintendo poached the Mario Party staff from Hudson to make Wii Party? That is rather funny.
Mario Party as a franchise is dead it seems.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
As has been pointed out, just because you're white and male doesn't mean you're incapable of writing non-white, male characters. And I assume most game developers are just like us: They're a media-savvy bunch, familiar with the common archetypes and tropes used in popular culture. Do they really not have the kinds of discussion we're having right now, about whether the fact that one of two black characters in their whole game is associated with voodoo magic might possibly be construed as politically incorrect? Did that decision get made because there was a black person on the dev team who was consulted and said "hey, fine by me"? I would just like to understand their thought process a little better, or even whether there WAS a thought process involved.
EDIT: Mario is of African American descent according to Wikipedia.
I will point out that it actually sometimes is an issue when white males write or especially act for another race. I'll use South Park as an example:
When Trey Parker and Matt Stone originally created South Park, they wanted to do all the male voices including Chef's. However, Comedy Central would not let them voice a black man because doing do in a satire could be viewed as racist to the viewers. That's when Matt and Trey decided to hire Isaac Hayes to voice Chef.
It wasn't until the Succubus episode when Matt and Trey voiced Chef's parents did this trend stop. I find it very ironic that to appear to be not racist, Comedy Central decided to place a specific race apart from others.
Now, I am not saying that all game or movie companies do similar things, but because it had happened before, it's not a stretch of the imagination that it has not happened again on some level.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Nondescript Penis Diddlers.
Actually it's NPD Group, the organization that measures sales for all kinds of things in the U.S., including vidja games. "NPDs" is shorthand for "sales figures."
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/08/06/namco_bandai_earnings/
Edit: Who the fuck bought Tekken 6?
Tekken 2K10
Tekken: Modern Warfare
Man...I just want a new "Tales of" game.
Aside from that one that's DOOOOOOOOOM'd, of course.
Tales of Tekken. There you go. ONE-TWO PUNCH!
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Unfortunately Namco is run by idiots. They're localizing God Eater despite the PSP being all but dead in the West and Monster Hunter never being as big a deal here (i.e. doomed to fail). Meanwhile they sit on games that have a much better chance of pulling better sales (PS3 vesperia, Graces etc.). when the tales series pulls much better sales than any PSP game.
Vesperia did about as well as ToS2. ToS2 might have actually beat it because they shipped more of them at a much lower price.
I think you're missing the overall relevance:
What is the exception? And just how bad does 'struggled' mean?
As for who buys Tekken? That same mentality (though not necessarily people) that buys yearly sports franchises. It would seem that there are enough people who buy it worldwide to keep the company afloat. In spite of their ineptitude.
Somebody here a long while back posted an awesome quote that described Namco fairly accurately. I'll see if I can find it.
It was a fun distraction until I learned what a good fighting game looked like.
That being said it isn't my favorite fighting game either.
Anyway, it went something like
Silly geese.
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
Did I say hefty loss? I meant even bigger profit.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29632/Activision_Increases_Quarterly_Profits_As_Online_Revenue_Grows.php
So it looks like selling add-on packs like crazy is the cause, and it's nearly guaranteed they'll find more ways to charge us for stuff.
Meanwhile, Harmonix is dragging down Viacom.
Blah.
But Tekken was released last year. This would be like buying a yearly sports franchise game half a year after it came out. You expect those kinds of games to drop off the face of the earth after January.
What the hell did they even release this quarter? WoW+CoD DLC selling more than the other shit isn't necessarily surprising.
Edit: Can someone explain exactly what goodwill is?
In other words, Viacom figured that Harmonix was worth more than its actual value due to brand recognition and the potential for future sales and reported it that way on their financial sheets, but they suspect that the power of the name is lessening and may lower that number.
Goodwill only covers the intangible crap, but otherwise yes.
I said it's the same mentality, but not the same situation. People buy Tekken 6 because they bought Tekken 5. Maybe they just like fighting games. Maybe they just like shitty fighting games. Maybe they like infinite juggle combos. Who knows, who cares. They buy Tekken 6 the same way people buy the next Zelda game, because they feel compelled to do it.
The quality of the title eventually becomes secondary. See: Tony Hawk.
I may hate the game, but I can't deny that it's a popular game that gets played at the biggest fighting game tournaments. Of course it's going to keep selling well.
Twitter
Steam: CavilatRest