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Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we add an interview to our series on Batman: Arkham Asylum. Karl Stewart, Director of Marketing for Eidos at the time joins us to talk about the importance of the role and how it contributes to a product's success. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:54 Interview 1:03:18 Break 1:03:51 Outro Issues covered: a full year, the early history of Karl, drawing anatomy, getting the fundamentals of brand and retail, listening to the team and developing the language and brand, breaking the assembly line, blurring the line between team and publisher, differentiating different types of creative director, developing trust, the usual separation of the two, how the marketing tells a story, translation without the input of creators, avoiding games that were moved too quickly, bringing confidence to the team, showing the publisher what they've got, creating a bond with the studio, publisher working with studio more closely, the superhero stigma, seeing the playable demo, the game influencing the brand, changing how people think about superhero games, maybe giving it back and arguing against, getting two covers, canning a Dark Knight game, discussing and selecting a logo, wondering about an opportunity, moving floors, controlling social from the studio, building a studio-centric model, working in the same world, handing your teenager over, having a push as a team for marketing, working to create the brand identity, going down the rabbit hole, taking a big expense, an Asylum ARG, challenging what we do, going different with the logo, a press event on Alcatraz, a ghost story, being immortalized, stuck in a cell, struggling to get marketing on board, bombing out Washington DC, everything is intentional, making a character relevant again, collaborating with other people and mentioning them by name. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Merchant Retail Group, Signature Brand Inc, Eidos, Square Enix, Crystal Dynamics, Petrel Marketing, Pure Imagination Studios, BAFTA, Thunder Child, 124, IGN, Tomb Raider (series), Lara Croft (Guardian of Light), ZX Spectrum, John Lasseter, James Song, Bob Lindsey, IO Interactive, LEGO, Bionicle, Ford, Age of Conan, Jamie Walker, Sefton Hill, Urban Chaos, Unreal, Phil Rogers, Andrew Reiner, Andy McNamara, Warner Bros, Rob Dyer, Loony Tunes, 300, Lee Singleton, Mini Ninjas, Battle Station Pacific, Jurgen Goeldner, Nathan Burlow, Matt Geyer, Remi Sklar, Carlos D'anda, Insomniac, Darell Gallagher, Rockstar, GTA, Tim Miller, Blur, Noah Hughes, Meagan Marie, Lars Winkler, Janet Swallow, LucasArts, Todd Howard, Phil Rogers, Yoichi Wada, Rich Briggs, Halo, I Love Bees, Lee Singleton, Trevor Burrows, Sarah Hoeksma, Philip Ser, Geoff Keighley, Spike TV, Star Wars, Republic Commando, Chris Williams, Bethesda Game Studios, Pete Hines, Fallout, Dr Dre Beats, Batman Begins, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. Note: Apologies if I misattributed any names cited in this episode. There were many of them, often only with a firs tname, and tracking them down was quite a project. (Even so, I know I missed a couple.) Next time: Spooky Season Game Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub Discord DevGameClub@gmail.com
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the year of plenty, and it was the year of few. It was the year of Millions of Copies sold, and it was the year of Millions of Dollars in losses. It was 2001, and it was the year Square Co. began to die. I couldn’t find when it was reported to happen, but at some point in the late 90s someone thought that the Final Fantasy brand was strong enough to warrant the creation of an expensive feature film. Instead of doing live-action, which worked for the hit Mortal Kombat films, Square decided that their Final Fantasy movie would utilize their life-like cutscenes they were known for. Not only would it be animated, but it would be an animated film more serious in tone than other animated features at the time, something targeted at teenage audiences. You would think they would learn a lesson from the Titan AE bomb, but no, they went ahead and spent 140 Million + dollars on creating the technology needed for the uncanny valley CGI tech they were pioneering. To be fair, this is one of the few times where Final Fantasy was doing a FIRST of anything. FF has been a series that historically has improved on other creative ideas, like the gameplay elements from Dragon Quest, and the story elements from Star Wars, and put it’s own unique spin on it. Spirits Within, however, really was the first movie of its kind, taking the world of computer animation from the realm of Toy Story and stretching it to its breaking point, paving the way for future realistic-CGI films like Beowulf, Polar Express, and the relatively recent Jim Carrey starring Christmas Carol. Let’s take a minute though, and think about $140 Million dollars going to this new project based on a video game. Titanic (the most expensive film of all time up to that point) cost $180, was written and Directed by the creator of the massively successful Terminator 2 and True Lies, starred named actors, and like the other blockbusters of the 90’s, was a pioneer in special effects technology. Spirits Within had a creative staff known for making video games, not movies, and although the voice talent certainly included some big-named stars, it’s not like you get to see any of their faces. I applaud them for taking the risk, unfortunately for all of us, they bet the future of the company on it. You know what happens when the movie is released in July of 2001, but the crazy thing is that July of 2001 was also when Square Co. had it’s second-biggest gaming hit ever. July of 2001 was the month that Final Fantasy X came out in Japan. Final Fantasy X was going to be Final Fantasy’s first foray onto the Playstation 2, as well as its first with voice-acting. With a budget of 32 Million Dollars, the game would sell over 8 million copies at the time, and would be a massive critical hit as well. In terms of sales (and I would say legacy), FF10 ranks just below FF7 in popularity. It was a beautiful game, and brought the series into the modern era of gaming, leaving its roots behind and steered the series into what it is today. But even FF10’s massive success wasn’t enough to make up for Square’s Spirits Within losses. Hindsight is 20/20, but Square didn’t even have much of a line-up outside of those 2 products. The only other original Square-developed titles that year were All-Star Pro-Wrestling 2, and the Game Boy SAGA game called “Final Fantasy Legend” here in the states. Guys, 2001 was when Square took a nosedive it would never recover for, which to me is a shame since FF10 was so damn successful. Spirits Within turned out to be the Heaven’s Gate of CGI animated features, despite getting some good reviews from critics. Here’s an ironic quote for yuh: In an interview in October 2001, when asked "Are you ever worried that Square will become too heavily dependent on the Final Fantasy name?" Hironobu Sakaguchi (the man behind Spirits Within, not so much behind FF10) responded that "Avoiding that has actually been one of Square's goals for a long time. It is our aim to try and develop a few more major franchises for the company; that has always been on our minds." The honest answer should’ve been: “Yes, that is a concern, but we did it anyway”. Enix was nowhere near in as bad of shape as Square in 2001, although it also had some financial difficulties with the delay of “Dragon Warrior Monsters 2” and the flop that was the game “Endonesia”. Enix, unlike square, had spread around it’s investments in other publishing avenues, and Square had only 1 product that it was selling. Both companies were in talks for a merger, but at this point in late 2001, Enix decided it didn’t want to take on the sinking Square Co. ship just yet. In November 2001, Square Co went into survival mode. The company would restructure and Square CEO Hisashi Suzuki was to be replaced by COO, Yoichi Wada. On top of that, Square went to Sony, who bought out 19% of the company to stabilize the creators of one of their flagship series. This was by no means the end, Square was still kicking and would have some success in its remaining year and a half. Unfortunately, the repercussions of the failure of the Final Fantasy movie would continue to affect them until their untimely end… Remix - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssRM-psTUfc
Following the release of Square Enix's recent financials, we take a look at how the company has changed its approach within recent years and how the company's new mantras have manifested themselves into the games we are now seeing. Things have changed considerably following the departure of Yoichi Wada and from a Final Fantasy perspective, things are looking pretty good. We've seen the production of mobile games that have actual substance, and we have a handful of very promising console games on the horizon. The later part of the episode relates to some recent news from Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XV, Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy XIV! We hope you enjoy it, and also agree that the future is looking pretty good for the franchise that we love!
Hakuro Matsuda さんをゲストに迎えて、MacBook, USB Type-C, Apple Watch, Apple Pay, GDC, Oculus Rift などについて話しました。 Show Notes Why I like DST - All this Apple - March 2015 Special Event Apple - MacBook Apple’s next major Mac revealed: the radically new 12-inch MacBook Air | 9to5Mac Rebuild: 76: Heartwarming Bugs (hak) USB C adapter - Apple Store (U.S.) Rezence (wireless charging standard) - Wikipedia Retina MacBook Air specs: Core M processor versions spotted Intel Tick Tock Model Skylake (microarchitecture) - Wikipedia Apple updates non-Retina MacBook Airs and the 13” Retina MacBook Pro Rebuild: 57: The Extinction of 2D Minded (naan, hak) Hands-on with a (working) Apple Watch | The Verge Pebble Smartwatch The Apple Watch Is Time, Saved | TechCrunch Watch John Carmack's GDC session in full [GDC 2015]SCE,仮想現実対応HMD「Morpheus」を2016年前半に発売と予告 Bedroom Robots VR for PS4 Project Morpheus NVIDIA Shield Android TV console: Specs, prices and release date | BGR PlayStation Now - Streaming Game Service on Consoles Gamasutra - Yoichi Wada lays out Shinra's cloud gaming goals Paperspace: A Better Computer Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 820 with Kryo CPU - GSMArena.com news
A long time in the making and finally a reality, RPG Site presents the first episode of their ongoing monthly podcast. This episode, we discuss Square Enix.
Happy September ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the 83rd episode of FInal Fantasy Union! Darryl is joined by Lauren and Spencer and they jump right into the fray! First up is news and there's a bit to get through! There's new info about Lightning Returns including the return of Sazh, guest characters in battle, the length of the game, and the first development vlog for the game! Final Fantasy 10 HD also got a little news with the release of the newly arranged battle music that we're in for! And then Final Fantasy 14 including the game being released and the beta records for MMO's being smashed! The trio then move into your responses to the Burning Question from the last episode which was what you were expecting from TGS this year. You guys stayed very optimistic which made us feel warm fuzzies! Get your answers in for the new BQ which is "Are you happy with all of the old characters returning?" And then your questions for the gang and we have two great questions this episode. Listen as the gang talks about their individual levels of excitement for Final Fantasy 14 and whether or not "Ask Square-Enix" will still be released even though Yoichi Wada has been canned. If you're a long time listener of the show, you know what's up next: the music segment! We have a fantastic arrangement from Final Fantasy 7 that you're sure to enjoy. Get your FF14 fix now and we'll see you in just a few weeks!
Cast al gran completo, con il mitico ritorno di Gabbre (per l'occasione in collegamento diretto dal citofono), e con l'eccezione di Aurelio, ché gli era esploso il computer. Debuttano Mirco Pierfederici e Marco Tassani, con cui parliamo di gente che lascia Square, Sony che flirta con gli indie, Warren Spector che chissà chi è, ed un po' di altra roba. Free Playing, perché un editing diverso è possibile! (infatti questo episodio è stato editato da fapo8, che ringraziamo!) [0:00:00] Intro, e i migliori insulti di Yotobi [0:04:55] Yoichi Wada lascia la presidenza di Square Enix [0:23:50] Sony ama gli indie [0:37:04] Warren Spector e i giochi che copiano i film [0:44:03] La narrazione nei videogiochi secondo un fumettista a caso [1:10:37] La domanda audio di littlexaus [1:14:18] Extra Credits [1:14:36] 20th Century Boys [1:17:06] I fumetti da due soldi su cui lavora Mirco, tipo Wolverine [1:19:30] The Making of Prince of Persia [1:22:20] Dead Space [1:24:25] Fester Mudd [1:26:09] Kick-Ass [1:30:16] The Walking Dead [1:31:59] Starship Troopers: Invasion [1:33:34] Indie Game: The Movie [1:36:09] Doom 3 [1:37:16] Dredd [1:38:05] Super [1:38:24] Resident Evil 6 [1:47:02] Ridiculous Fishing [1:47:59] Face Noir [1:48:38] Shadow on the Vatican Atto II [1:56:33] Retro Racing [1:57:59] Il nuovo disco dei Daft Punk [1:59:08] Fire Emblem: Awakening [2:11:36] Franco Minchia su Facebook [2:13:22] Outro. Divagazioni più o meno degne di nota: [0:16:14] Yoichi Wada e i cartomanti [0:17:24] RIP Kenji Eno. Hanno partecipato Bruno #brunodinoi Barbera, Simone #ilsaggiosimone Andreozzi, Davide #miticodavide Alexandro Fiandra, il citofonabile Gabbre, il grande fumettista Mirco Pierfederici, e l'imponderabile Marco "Astro" Tassani. L'amicone Aurelio #auronemaglione Maglione ed il manoscrivibile Fabio Di Felice erano come sempre nei nostri cuori. Un saluto anche agli amici che ci hanno seguito in diretta: Matteo Beconcini, littlexaus, moffetta, Andrea "The Benso" Vena, subr3v, andmind, skilloiso, jackzr, prtruz, Femto88, mrKaizen, Luke, Magiustra, e ctekcop. Ricordate di scriverci numerosi in email (info@freeplaying.it): i vostri dubbi e le vostre domande troveranno saggia risposta nella posta del cuore di Simone. E non dimenticate di seguite il nostro nuovissimo fantasticissimo forum! Volete supportarci? Piaceteci e fateci piacere su Facebook, cerchiateci e fateci cerchiare su Google+, cinguettateci e fateci cinguettare su Twitter e, ovviamente, recensiteci, cinquestellateci e seguiteci su iTunes! E se siete ricchi sfondati, supportateci comprandovi il super libro di Fabio Di Felice su Amazon e le magliette fashion di The Indie Shelter!
Welcome back again to world of Final Fantasy with this, the 79th episode of Final Fantasy Union. We have your fix from the Final Fantasy universe this week with Darryl who is joined by Lauren and Spencer! First up, the news, and boy do we have some doosies this time. The gang talks about the Final Fantasy X HD remix that will include X-2. Unfortunately, if you want it for the Vita, you'll have to buy them both (X and X-2) separately. In addition, they talk about how the music from FF came in third in the Classic FM Hall of Fame because of your support! And then the biggest piece of news: Yoichi Wada steps down from being the president of Square Enix most likely due to huge financial losses (listen to the show to hear what the losses were). Next up on the schedule is the Burning Question. SInce SE announced all information about FFX HD, the old BQ wasn't relevant anymore, so we asked another. The trio spends time reading your thoughts on Wada leaving and what it could mean for SE, and you don't hold back (which we love)! And lastly, we have your questions and this week, there is a great discussions. Listen in as they talk about whether or not future FF games should be cross platform as the XIII series has been. As always, don't miss out on the music segment at the very end. In honor of the news about FFX HD, the remix this week comes from the game and you won't want to miss it! This explosive show is one that you won't want to skip!
Happy April everyone and welcome to the 52nd episode of Kingdom Hearts Union! The gang is back and Branden is joined by Churro and Jackie to discuss all things KH. First thing's first: the news. There are several huge developments that have come up in last couple of weeks that you simply won't believe. The trio talks about hidden data in KH 1.5HD that suggests that Sherwood Forest might be in a future title as well as a couple log files that reference Agent 47 (main character from Hitman). In addition, there has been a photo leaked from the Game Developers Conference (currently going on) that may be hinting at a new KH game. And let's not forget the biggest piece of news which is Yoichi Wada, the CEO of Square-Enix, has resigned! Big news segment this show. Next up is a special section that is a discussion all about the release of KH 1.5HD in Japan. The group talks about the good and the bad about what was and wasn't included in the release. You'll walk away from the discussion with a good idea of what to expect when the game hits western shores! And finally, the questions segment! This episode brings a great conversation as the trio talks about how much Nomura has planned out KH, will KH get it's own Theatrhythm game, will the concept of death be introduced to KH (even though it hasn't up to this point), and what will be the primary song for KH3. But don't turn off the show yet because there a great "remix" from Kingdom Hearts Final Mix that many of you will love and recognize! Don't miss out on the insane news and discussions this week and we'll see you again at the end of the month!
This week, we talk about native bird calls, North Korea, hangovers, cockles, Tom's double-date, Hercules, Jessica Alba, Bioshock Infinite, and cheating in games.In SSST: The Walking Dead, Hotline Miami, and Limbo headed to PS Vita, Square Enix announce the wrong Final Fantasy remakes, Yoichi Wada resigns as Square Enix CEO, Twitter thinks Valve is about to announce something, and Konami announces Metal Gear V: The Phantom Pain.In Ask SSJ: we make up our own fanfiction, forget to help Ghost Bride move, talk about the impact of Australia's R18+ rating for games, investigate how the Americanisation of Australia has coloured our enjoyment of Bioshock Infinite, and our lives as Australians on the whole, and we look back on some treasured memories from our childhoods.MUSIC USED:SSJ Theme 2: Xavier Rubetzki NoonanFall of the Free Market: GunfaceTwinkle: Lo-Bat / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0Leafless Quince Tree: Rolemusic / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0CLICK HERE to download!GIRL OH GIRL!Add Sandsky on XBL and PSN: colourfastAdd Xavier on PSN and XBL: xavierrn
After talking about fighting multiple Jason Vorhees in a scrapyard for 30 minutes, our hosts talk about Yoichi Wada resigning as Square-Enix CEO and what that may entail. It all turns into a dungeon-crawling paradise as the hosts talk Etrian Odyssey's remake, Might and Magic X: Legacy and Legend of Grimrock II. All this recorded while Tobbii is super-tired in a hotel room with terrible wi-fi.
Yoichi Wada, President and CEO of Square Enix, teases Final Fantasy Versus XIII for Xbox 360, and Final Fantasy XIII tops 5 million in sales. Kyle and Jamie tackle the news for the first episode of FF Union with only two hosts, also ringing in the come back of 'Whatcha Been Doing', alongside listener questions ranging from Versus XIII player party members, and the music of Final Fantasy.