WTF

Driveby commentary. People who cannot argue coherently. Malformed and misinformed opinions. Opinions as facts. People who express bookish knowledge and apply it to the real world and become self-proclaimed internet experts when they know nothing about the real world applications. Getting up on the wrong side of the bed.

Not quite. I can't remember it exactly but they are downsizing a lot. I should look that up and post more. It was pretty much going to be a reduction in game development and more rereleases of old titles. A slow death.

To be fair, the vocal minority who protest about something in media won't really get it pulled down unless it represents a significant percentage of the viewership and before it gets taken off it gets reviewed. Systems are in place for such a contingency. If the vocal minority were actually capable of change we'd basically be living in a completely different world where one day the some nutjob rightwing groups come into power and the next day some nutjob leftwing comes into power. There are no absolutes and the only time they appease vocal minorities is if they gain something. This much is fairly evident in society. If a vocal minority were powerful then the Kurds would have a nation by now just like how Israel came into being back in the day. There was a reason Israel came into being and there's no proper Kurdistan - those in power had something to gain from it. But that's a different topic since it's entering politics more than gaming. Giving them an option to choose doesn't make things any different but it does protect an individuals right of choice. The individual isn't representative of the group. What we have now is no right of choice for the individual on some matters that are irrelevant to the state but matter to an individual. Consumption of media that does not destroy the fundamental values of a nation is pretty much that.

Since the Human Centipede 2 was brought in and I know people who banned 'that filth' in this country aaand I know a bunch of people who worked on that film I suppose I can talk about it to some extent. Censorship is not an easy thing and the BBFC is actually a very liberal organisation that doesn't just ban each and every thing. We've long moved past days when we found the word Ninja offensive due to our cultural history and thus the Ninja turtles were the Hero turtles here. However censorship here in the media works like this - if there is content depicted that they believe can negatively affect a large number of people it will be banned. It's not to do specifically with violence, drug use, horror, stereotypes and such. The depiction of someone being anally raped by a dick covered in wire gauze was too much for the censorship board. That's one of the things why they banned it. There was also something about sandpapering a penis. There is a reason why snuff and torture porn isn't depicted in mainstream media and it's illegal - there is actual physical harm and illegal activities involved. When they released or were on the verge of releasing the Human Centipede 2 - they were interested in pushing the bar just to get a shock reaction. They wanted to disturb people and the purpose of it was to disturb people and make them as uncomfortable as possible. I'm not sure of how much content was cut in the versions released, however there's a lot of things in the film that they did not want to expose the general public to. HC2 wanted an 18 rating and the BBFC at best would give them an R18 because of the content. This isn't to do with freedom of speech as much as the unwillingness to be a ratings body that would expose the public to some of the film's content. Had it been released, the reaction would be to pretty much shit on the BBFC - trust me a lot of the content in that film was downright horrid. I do recall someone working on the film and someone who saw the film telling me that it was pretty vile. Also based on what happened it's unlikely tom six will be allowed to film here in the UK before his content is extensively reviewed because of reports by some of the actors (would've been fine otherwise). This isn't like the Middle East where you aren't allowed to negatively depict some of the states and if you do face a lifeban. When it comes to media there is such a thing as expression and public expression. Freedom of speech when it comes to media content needs to work with both of them. However that said, the UK has done some fairly silly things of late when it comes to hate speech, particularly in terms of punishment. The biggest issue with gaming is that software and entertainment are married in a really shitty relationship. Hence ratings are always going to be an issue in many countries. Plus as discussed, we live in a global world - what is kosher in your culture may not be kosher in mine and honestly people of that nation are fine with that. For instance Gravure, while being weird, is perfectly acceptable in Japan because of the way their culture works. I doubt people give a shit. Bring that here to the West and because of the way our cultures have evolved we'd be pretty much going 'ban this filth'. Let's take for instance the UK, does anyone remember the very furry orangina advert that was aired a few years ago with all sorts of sexual references. The Ad council obviously didn't have a problem with it. People complained to OFCOM and it was banned from being aired. Freedom of Speech for all rights and purposes is a very flexible thing. Some people want a lot and some people want nothing - the thing we should accept is to give a society the choice to choose how much freedom of speech and expression they choose to have. Otherwise what's the point of giving such powers to organisations like OFCOM and FCC? The problem with these silly ratings in Australia is that people do not have a choice. People don't like the ratings and there are several organisations that consider these ratings silly. However there are those in power who are pushing their agendas in order to push their views forward. Should we not allow these idiots to not have their freedom of speech or expression? Of course not. But that said we should prevent them from encroaching upon someone's freedom of 'choice'. If they want to be restricted in expressing themselves then so be it - it's their personal 'choice'. If there are enough complaints to the regulatory then perhaps they can ban it. But for that they have to release it uncensored first. This holds true in the case of some of those games - particularly since the reason for censorship doesn't seem to be something that majority of the people would object to or care to object to.

That's why I'm saying Gung Ho. Ragnarok isn't such a massive IP but they pushed investment into it (through acquire) and we all know that Grasshopper Manufacture's IPs are niche. They have money and are looking to expand. i feel like if they bought Atlus they'd just let them do their own thing. That's what they're doing with Grasshopper Manufacture so we just need a company like that. Worse than SE would be Image Epoch, Compa and Idea Factory... then again they aren't rolling in the dough. Another company that's sort of in trouble is Cave.

No. I'd rather not let Toriyama and co have their hands on SMT/Persona. We can have some atrociously crap games that are very pretty but not much substance. edited: Yes I want to be optimistic! I just don't want Square Enix to handle them considering where Square Enix holdings is right now.

Demon's souls is an exclusive franchise. Dark Souls isn't. NBGI as frosted noted has international distribution rights for all future Dark Souls games. Atlus USA has distribution rights for Demon's souls alone and that too only in the US. We will see Demon's souls 2 but that's not something anyone's allowed to divulge as yet. I can't confirm if Miyazaki (director of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls (1 but not 2)) is working on it or not. Actually all SMT titles carry the prefex Shin Megami Tensei. Soul Hackers, Devil survivor, DDS, Raidou Kuzanoha, vanilla SMT are all part of SMT.(they clearly possess the SMT branding even on the boxart) Persona is persona. The split is very clear and simple. All Persona titles are a spin-off and all the rest are SMT titles with the exception of Catherine which is a spinoff of Persona but is treated as a standalone product. The division is clear there. Etrian Odyssey, Trauma Center and other weird little games like Princess Crown etc are the ones they'll try to offload in strange ways. Okay now as for the IPs. No they will not sell each IP to separate bidders but rather club the SMT titles together, the Persona titles together and then comes the miscellaneous. Nintendo are only helping out with the publishing and marketing of SMT 4 in Asia and Europe. Nintendo prefers to publish most titles on their own in Europe even it's from other devs who have publishers. Monster Hunter was published by Nintendo here in Europe. A bunch of Sega games and as always Level 5 games and even other Capcpom (yeah I like that typo XD) games were published by Nintendo. This isn't to do with helping the developer but rather a long term strategy wherein they know that if they published it in a region they can make sure they can rerelease the title within said region. If Atlus were that close to Nintendo they wouldn't have let NISA publish Soul Hackers in Europe. Nintendo chooses titles on a case by case basis and it's not a lot to do with the developers as much as it is to do with the product. SMT vs FE came about only because Nintendo wanted Atlus to work on a Fire Emblem game for them and Atlus asked if they could attach the SMT branding. It's co-developed. Nintendo isn't going to fund Atlus just because of that. They might become a 33% shareholder in an independent Atlus so that they would make exclusive games for them and also retain their autonomous state. But if that's the case Sony might try for that as well. Neither party wants to be involved entirely. Though there must be some rumblings on both sides if yosp made that morale support tweet. Also Nintendo did not have the publishing rights for Devil Survivor in Europe. Here's a funny thing. Devil Survivor 2 the animation is actually licensed primarily by Sony Entertainment. I think music is also published by Sony Music. Both Sony and Nintendo are invested in Atlus and neither wants to buy them out because it's a complicated web. Sony has more reason to buy than Nintendo because the merchandise, music, animation and other things from Persona are actually fairly profitable for Sony (not Index!). Gameswise it is an even split. Mindsharewise SMT fans have no allegiance they bought them on whatever platform they came out on. Persona fans are affiliated to Sony which is why P4G had a ridiculous attach rate on the Vita which probably helped it in a way to go past the 360's LTD in Japan (that's not an achievement but it does show how abysmal the 360 is there and why MS will not be investing heavily there - I mean the Vita, a floundering handheld, that's been out for 16 months beat the 360's LTD).

Worst case scenario. All the staff of Atlus quits and forms spinoff companies. The ips are the only thing of worth with Atlus Japan and they get sold off to the highest bidders, which would also include resale rights of legacy titles (There would be a lot of interest in this as selling legacy titles is an easy thing and many have been ported already or their engines are viable for a quick port). Atlus USA would essentially be fucked. It's a huge distribution wing so unless some company is interested in continuing that they'd suffer the worst fate and unlike Japan they aren't developers to make spin-off studios. However, and this is a big if, the current CEO of XSEED was the former CEO of Atlus USA and I can see them trying to take on some of the distribution wing if Marvelous AQL wants them to. They would take the translation staff for sure since XSEED is quite in need of more there. I do think that Index was ready to split SMT and Persona already. A lot of the monsters/demons of SMT4 were redesigned and there's a much smaller overlap right now between SMT4 canon demons and the original SMT universe. I'm betting Persona 5 will also have redesigned monsters. I think Index knew where it was going when they were doing this. Not to mention a lot of staff from Atlus USA who'd been there for years like Aram Jabbari left. I think it's the same with Atlus Japan, some staff have been quiet for far too long. I think they are probably trying to sell SMT to Nintendo and Persona to Sony as a split sale might bring them more money. However it's not ideal for the fans. One thing is certain, the IPs under the Atlus brand will find a buyer. It is profitable. It's like we were certain Volition would find a buyer. I just hope it's all under one company and not too complicated.

I figured it might not be a bad idea to have a catch-all thread for all the negative crap surrounding games companies with uncertain futures instead of smaller threads. And since we do have a company filing for bankruptcy this probably a good starter. I know we have a studio deaths thread but that's when studios die. This is probably best for stories that are uncertain for a fair while - I mean we had THQ's long protracted death and this isn't going to be an uncommon trend. So let's begin with the flavour of the day. Index corporation - the shady company that bought Atlus Co ltd which is now defunct and only serves as a brand under Index. What's been happening? For the past month or two Index has been under investigation for cooking up their books, hiding bad debt and well basically the management profiting while the company was going down the drain. They'd been delisted from the stock exchange back in May I believe pending investigation. Right now they're filing for what's essentially equivalent to Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the US. They owe their creditors a lot of money and as such are now trying to find a buyer for Atlus or get Atlus to be spun-off into a different company with the aid of some bankrollers. Of course this brings up a very interesting set of issues. People only look at the gaming side and say yes Nintendo should buy them or Sony should buy them for whatever platform loyalty they have but it's a crazy can of worms involving several rights issues, overlapping content from a few different IPs and so on. So where do we stand. Atlus is the only really profitable wing of Index i.e. their gaming division. Atlus USA is a very good publishing arm that publishes several games such as Rock of Ages, Demon's Souls, Daylight and so on. Relationship with Nintendo: They were approached by Nintendo to co- develop a Fire Emblem game which became FE vs SMT. Intelligent Systems is working with them on this one. A lot of their SMT output the last gen has been on Nintendo consoles. As well as Trauma Centre, EO and such. However these while very profitable aren't something to write home about and definitely not really worth purchasing the company over. However the Persona games aren't on Nintendo systems because there's some interesting issues there. Relationship with Sony: It's been a while since SMT games have come out on Sony platforms and this is because Atlus does like to work on older assets and the DS and 3DS really helps them out with this. They can hide the nature of the assets under good art. They have however consistently released Persona games on Sony consoles. They aren't exclusive but it makes sense for them to work with Sony on this. Sony Entertainment markets all Persona content in Japan - collectibles, Music, Animation, concerts - everything. While Persona isn't exclusive it works out best for them to release the titles on a Sony platform because the content ip outside of games is licensed (and some of it is even owned if memory serves me right) by SME. Not even entertaining MS since they're not focussed on working with niche developers in Japan right now. let's put it this way. Owning exclusive rights to Persona or SMT will not move Xbone units in Japan and they'd prefer that. This isn't like D4 or other titles. A first party purchase by either group is a pain because if Sony were to purchase it they'd probably have to pay Nintendo for whatever development expenses were lost in the transfer for FE vs SMT and I doubt Nintendo would just want to give in that easily and Nintendo would really not want to have deal with other Persona rights not being in their hands if they bought the whole company. They would both prefer if a third party bought them. However that said it isn't out of their realm to own shares in the company so that the Atlus brand works independantly and still churns out exclusives to both of them but that would be really weird for both of them to invest (So it's going to be one or the other here). Not to mention neither of them would have much use for Atlus USA since it's purely a publishing wing. NBGI is another good possibility but then Bandai would like to own the entertainment rights to the SMT and Persona. That said there are plenty of Bandai owned IPs that have exclusivitiy to Sony platforms (or at least in the past) and they can work out some deal there. NBGI has a good portfolio with Bandai but Namco's portfolio is sort of narrowing. Gung-Ho has a lot of money from Puzzle and Dragons and has been acquiring companies like Grasshopper Manufacture and such. They do not have a distribution wing in the states and they could keep portions of Atlus USA for that while getting rid of the rest. Marvelous AQL is an interesting option because of their Hydra like nature. Plus it would bring Atlus and XSEED together which would be odd and entertaining. NIS/NISA is too small to go through with this though they could benefit from this as well. Tecmo-Koei is the other alternative. I doubt SE/Capcom/Sega really want to do this right now. Sega is diversifying away from the console business and doesn't really want to invest too much into the handheld space. SE is focussing on iOS. Capcom could but I doubt they'd want to since they have a decent portfolio. Konami wouldn't be interested as they too want to keep a narrow games portfolio while focussing on their resort business. That leaves us with the western pubs and devs. Of all of them, the most likely would be Koch Media in my view since they tend to buy smaller devs and this would be a good addition to their portfolio along with Volition and Techland. Doubt if the others really want to purchase Atlus but we'll see.

if you want a good superman villain bring in Brainiac or Darksied. Now that would be epic. Because bringing in darksied would bring in the forever people and the new gods and that would be an awesome film. Also I agree with Goh on this one.

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