What do big companies care more about?

[recme]

SEGA still making shitty Sonic games on console and not other good games like NiGHTS, Jet Set Radio, Rystar, etc.

corrected it for ya

[psychospacecow]

Yes, Konami owns Yu-Gi-Oh. They still make  cameo cards off of their videogame franchises.

Still I don't know how profitable it is as the fad's passed - are they still being produced/used/stuff?

Chiming in really fast - they are, actually (Cinemarella's brother plays) They're still putting out new decks and whatnot and national tourneys are still being held. Hell, they're still churning out the card battler games, too (though I think they're on iOS now) and I think the cartoon's moved onto "Arc-V" and holy smokeheck how do they keep on making these protagonists so anime. It's being dubbed and released internationally sometime this year.

I think if anyone, psychospacecow might be able to shed light on this, but now that I think about it, Yugioh is totally enough to keep them afloat stateside. I wouldn't be surprised if they start laying off a majority of their games sector though, and keep it primarily focused on mobile development.

EDIT: Also according to the article, Konami owns a company called...are you ready for this
"4K Media"

formerly "4Kids"



oh no, it's back (but in all seriousness, the company is now dedicated to producing dubbed versions of Yugioh cartoons)

The Cow has been summoned. Yu-Gi-Oh! formats last 3 months and until 2013, the OCG and TCG shared the same banlist. The typical trend that has arisen in Yu-Gi-Oh! is actually somewhat simple. A current established set of decks are popular. 1-3 of them are very good, game breakingly so. This continues until either the beginning of a format, or half-way through one. The reason this stops at the beginning of a format is that the deck has had key cards limited or banned in some fashion which hampers the deck. This makes people either buy into another of the decks, or the inevitable better deck that comes out around the same week. So, you have a new, better deck or two that people are gravitating to. These become the norm, and the process begins again. The problem is that this relies on releasing more powerful decks as time goes by, stimulating a massive power creep over the span of one year, and invalidating the hundreds of dollars a player spent getting their HEROES, their Nekroz, their Prophecy, their Dragon Rulers, their Wind-Ups, their Monarchs, etc. etc. etc.. See, though this is bad, its relatively stable. The game because more complicated over time as different strategies come out.

At least, that was the case until around the time 5Ds came out. This put a new spin on things, a new mechanic called synchro summoning. The game sped up tremendously over a few short months, not immediately as the starter synchros really weren't all that powerful at the time (although some of them are practically staples now) due to the complication to summon them, but as the mechanic was fleshed out. Diversity in strategy and play really started to build in 5Ds, and though the speeding up of the game led to more prevalent OTK potential, it was workable. The meta grew more stable and things were well. There would continue to be spikes here and there mind you. The same can more or less be said of Zexal as well.

Single duels became problematic as there really wasn't much that can be done if your opponent just so happens to have a hard counter to your deck, which just so happens to be their deck, but matches got pretty nice.

Probably my favorite period in Yu-Gi-Oh! was the end of Zexal. It was actually the most balanced I've seen the game. You could play basically any kind of deck if you found the initiative and way and though not everything was competitive, you had a chance.

I'm almost certain the same will happen with Arc-V as well, but its got me nervous. The barrier of entry has never been higher and its really feels like we're reaching a point where the current way of doing things isn't going to work. The game has somewhat overstepped its bounds as of now.

(Basically, this guy cannot be removed without having a monster with 3.5k attack, or a monster above level 10 with an effect that can kill this beast, when each turn, you can make your opponent either discard one card from their hand or the field, and the 3 monster requirement is a bit of a joke nowadays because of pendulum summoning, a mechanic which as advertised, allows a player to swarm their entire board in one turn)

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Shaddoll
The ultimate cycling and toolbox engine.

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Masked_HERO
Heroes never die. They just put on masks and disallow your opponent from playing the same game as you.

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Ruler
These guys have a special place in my heart for being the most broken thing I have ever seen in the game, ever. They just flipped them in the ban list. All the adults were allowed but are now banned and all the babies were banned and are now allowed. This was done in response to a non-archetype deck which was starting to gain traction. They were an entire deck of OTK at their prime and when tournaments rolled around when they were full force, there was ONE other deck that was being played and it had this.
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Spellbook_of_Judgment


Just gonna throw a few of these out there.
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Infernoid
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Nekroz_of_Sophia
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Nekroz_of_Brionac
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Nekroz_of_Trishula
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Zefra-Exa,_...lame_Beast
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Zefra-Saber...ord_Master
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Zefra

[Goemar]

Konami played around on the Wii with that weird "reboot" kinda franchise - think they were called "Reborn" or something (Castlevania, Gradius, Contra). Didn't really make a splash.

Konami was the king of the Arcades with their side-scrolling brawlers and made some amazing SNES games. Since then, I don't know - Metal Gear Solid? Think that's about it. I have no idea how the Silent Hills situation is going to work now, or if it will even happen. But well, they might be able to bring that franchise back - who knows?

As for Nintendo being a beacon of light in this dark times? Please... Nintendo make some great games, but they are hardly leading the way in terms of making anything exciting. Nintendo is king of "here's more of the same, but better!" and their absolutely decade behind knowledge of the digital world is staggering. Nintendo's ability to blow me away has been greatly lacking since the N64.

Most of the exciting interesting things are done by the small guys now days. And well, in all honesty, I'm fine with that.

Konami needs to get a new 2D Castlevania on something. That would easily make money. Then they need to remake Metal Gear Solid 1 (from the ground up) using the Fox Engine. Again, easy money. I would say they should completely remake Silent Hell 1 and 2 - but well after the "HD Collection" of that series I think people would be too worried.

Also, bring Goemon back. Something crazily Japanese would probably sell on the 3DS or even as a downloadable game on the PS4/Xbone. Hell you could do it episodically in the style of an anime.

Basically Konami needs to make some drastic changes or exit. The market has changed drastically for Konami and I don't know if they'll be ok.

Oh, and Gradius 6. That would be pretty cool.

[E-Man]

Most of the exciting interesting things are done by the small guys now days. And well, in all honesty, I'm fine with that.

The small guys as in indie developers, right?

It's great that there is a market for those who would make games as an artform, but what do you think would happen if Nintendo wised up and wanted to get a piece of that action for themselves? Besides taking some of those unique ideas under their wing, an interesting idea is that they could give these smaller studios their blessing to make official (for lack of a better word) Mario and Zelda games. Sure, considering how Nintendo is a bit of a dinosaur, getting struct by lighting has a better chance than that ever happening. Still, I do want to explore that "what if" scenario all the same.

By the way, Goemar, which indie games do you consider interesting? I got firsthand experience with Don't Starve and Minecraft (even if the latter gets old without mods) to understand a small sample of what indie developers are capable of, but I do want to know which other games caught your eye.

[Maxpphire]

Kojima left? Who is working on Silent Hills then?

Probably also Konami randoms

Honestly it wasn't even made in anger I've just realized that when Konami posted their twitch stream officially streaming a GBA castlevania game, that they are trying to fix themselves and scrambling to do so.

They will likely just survive off of what they have left for sure.

[Goemar]

Most of the exciting interesting things are done by the small guys now days. And well, in all honesty, I'm fine with that.

The small guys as in indie developers, right?

By the way, Goemar, which indie games do you consider interesting? I got firsthand experience with Don't Starve and Minecraft (even if the latter gets old without mods) to understand a small sample of what indie developers are capable of, but I do want to know which other games caught your eye.

Small guys as in the Indies or even smaller teams within bigger companies. Pix the Cat, Valiant Hearts, Velocity X2, Oddworld: New n Tasty, OlliOlli 2, Never Alone, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, etc etc.

I brought my PS4 with the idea that Alien would be the game I played, just didn't happen. I ended up playing a fair bit of Destiny (because brothers and friends had it) about an hour of Killzone and about an hour (if that) of Alien. Everything else has been a downloadable game, and so many have been fantastic. Big releases, I mean yeah, I'm looking forward to Batman and MGS V (even though every word spoke by Snake will make me cry because he's no longer Snake) but the exciting stuff I find myself really enjoying is either made by a small developer or a small team within a big company.

Nintendo makes great games. I loved Mario Galaxy 2, it was a very fun game. But it didn't blow me away. Mario hasn't blown me away since Lakitu ducked under that bridge for the first time in 3D. Yes sometimes they still get me (Zelda: Link Between Worlds) but most of the time it's a case of "this is great" but just not magic.

OlliOlli 2 had me hooked in seconds, I cried at the end of Valiant Hearts and Velocity X2 made me grip my controller - hard (that's as close as I get to getting mad at games) as my heart raced like hell trying to get that perfect run.