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Capcom is in trouble


Jedi
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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-09-10-capcom-looks-towards-big-changes-after-difficult-fy13

Now as much as Capcom has fallen from grace these past few years [although they make some great games still], I'm sure it would be a very heavy blow to many a gamer for them to go under. Alot of us gamers have played Capcoms many games over the years but this seems to signal maybe they need to look back at what made people love their games so much.

We'll see how this goes.

Edited by Jedi
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>2.8 million for MH4

oh my god capcom what are you even doing

even if it just reached 1.9 million

damn

^you have to take in the account that they need these numbers to make a profit, so if mh4 doesn't at least make the 2.8, they won't make significant profit

also, this is one of the greatest opening sales in mh history, right in front of mhp3rd, which really says something, especially when their target is pretty high

Edited by AstraLunaSol
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Eh, after the cancellation of Megaman Legends 3, they deserve whatever financial hell they're going through. Focusing on downloadable content instead of the actual game itself...that's a stupid strategy, and everyone knows it. And honestly, they can really only dig themselves out of this rut in three possible ways:

1. Release Monster Hunter 4 in the west.

2. Make sure that their PS4 exclusive, Deep Down, delivers an extremely solid game experience.

3. Make another full-fledged Megaman game. Their only options now that people will give a shit about are X9, Legends 3, or ZX3.

I'm really not seeing any other alternatives here.

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I don't really believe they're in trouble when they sold 2 million copies of a game in two days.

That said, if they didn't have MH, they'd be REALLY fucked nowadays.

Edited by Nobody
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Just because one series does well does not save a company. Street Fighter/Marvel vs Capcom has a dedicated following but it's niche at best, Resident Evil games have been expensive to make but the last slew have been panned hard and for good reason, Mega Man has pretty much been axed entirely since Capcom doesn't think the numbers are worth it, DmC reboot didn't do blockbuster numbers, nor did Asura's Wrath, and it doesn't look like Lost Planet 3 is going to help either. Dragon's Dogma did okay but considering the Japanese marketing campaign, it could have done better. At the very least, Dragon's Dogma had a good critical and fan response and is worth exploring further in a sequel to iron out the flaws of a new IP. Ace Attorney 5 had a strong launch but, like SF, it only reaches a niche audience. Dead Rising 3, one of their stronger western titles, looks positively regressive and probably won't generate big enough numbers to satisfy Capcom's needs from the series. The demo of Deep Down from Tokyo Game Show is kinda lacking and as a new IP, is yet another risk for Capcom who seem to mismanage almost every new IP they bring out lately. Though, judging from their new business strategy chart that's floating around, I think Capcom's corporate heads don't understand that the quality of the games needs to prove itself before they start thinking about DLC, especially if it's thought about early enough to be locked on-disc. Their corporate culture led to some of their brightest talent heading for the hills, ie Keiji Inafune. DLC is not a glue to fix their games. They are going to outsource less and bring in more manpower for the games, but generally speaking I still think the company is looking too hard at DLC to patch up their financial woes.

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The problem with Capcom is different than what they think it is. People don't want to buy the games in the amount you hope they do. Answer should be: Lower the budget, fix the gameplay of the games in question to make the more appealing. All the problems from HD are created by game companies assuming they need to spend these big budgets on long drawn out CG scenes rather focus on making great games.

Hence, from what I read from the report, that the Monster Hunter series is the ones that's meeting its expectations. Because it's gameplay matches with its worth and cost for development. It doesn't have the giant budget these other games have.

And on their solutions? I agree with two of those. Their DLC content has done negative damage because it's hurt their brand, and not sold well enough. Capcom should take a break from DLC or minimize their DLC development, to regain it's brand in game development.

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>2.8 million for MH4

oh my god capcom what are you even doing

even if it just reached 1.9 million

damn

^you have to take in the account that they need these numbers to make a profit, so if mh4 doesn't at least make the 2.8, they won't make significant profit

I was assuming 2.8M was just their sales projections though, not really the minimum amount necessary for profit?

People don't want to buy the games in the amount you hope they do. Answer should be: Lower the budget, fix the gameplay of the games in question to make the more appealing. All the problems from HD are created by game companies assuming they need to spend these big budgets on long drawn out CG scenes rather focus on making great games.

I agree. Despite getting higher revenue, their net profit ended up being half of what they made last year...? That's kind of amazing ;;
From what I've seen of their Resident Evil series recently, they really need to cut down on making the games pretty. A lower graphics budget would make it much easier to profit on the series, imo, without having to set their sales bar so high.

Flashy graphics are great I suppose. But if you're just using them to cover up what your game lacks, then no amount of budget spent on it will fix things :c

Edited by pinkbubblegum
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2. Make sure that their PS4 exclusive, Deep Down, delivers an extremely solid game experience.

The demo of Deep Down from Tokyo Game Show is kinda lacking and as a new IP, is yet another risk for Capcom who seem to mismanage almost every new IP they bring out lately.

WELL, Deep Down was just announced at TGS as a "free-to-play" game. Meaning that you can play the game for free, but to WIN, you have to put down money for stuff that can help you beat the game.

I reckon this new IP is dead in the water now.

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Nooo, not Capcom! They made those old Disney games for the SNES that I loved so much! They also made Zelda: The Minish Cap, one of my favorite games ever. I hope they can fix this. :(

And now they suck. So nothing of value would be lost.

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I didn't read the article. tl;dr

But with Monster Hunter 4 having sold nearly 2 million copies in two days, I find it hard that they're in trouble...

It depends on what costs they need to cover the production and dissemination of the product. Many AAA games these days are failures if they don't make like three million sales because of the advertising and production costs that went into the material. Tomb Raider 2013 had like 3.5 million units moved, more than any other title in the franchise's lifetime, and it still failed to meet Square's projections.

Though I don't know Capcom's specific situation, you have to keep in mind that revenues =/= profits. Every company has operating costs and just because you made a million dollars in sales doesn't mean you're taking a million dollars home.

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It depends on what costs they need to cover the production and dissemination of the product. Many AAA games these days are failures if they don't make like three million sales because of the advertising and production costs that went into the material. Tomb Raider 2013 had like 3.5 million units moved, more than any other title in the franchise's lifetime, and it still failed to meet Square's projections.

Though I don't know Capcom's specific situation, you have to keep in mind that revenues =/= profits. Every company has operating costs and just because you made a million dollars in sales doesn't mean you're taking a million dollars home.

Square's projections also don't necessarlily equate to what they needed to sell to break even. 3.5m might have been a "failure" by not reaching Square's outlandish projections*, but it still might have been enough to break even.

*Tomb Raider opens the best out of any game in the series and Square laments that it didn't sell more and complains about lost money from their western projects during financial calls, but conveniently neglects the fact that they've been hemmoraging money from Versus XIII/XV since 2006 with nothing to show for it. I seriously want to know what these executives and projectors are smoking in the games industry with all of these outlandish expectations.

I tend to agree with Jim Sterling's opinion on this matter - if Dark Souls can sell a couple million copies and be a financial success that the company is overjoyed about but Tomb Raider is a failure, then something needs to change for the bigger publishers. You know, like controlling your budgets and not expecting that the game conforms to 4k resolution with bloom lighting or pumping out "A" or "AA" titles to fill in inbetween your "AAA" releases (and space them out a bit more than normal). Or, you know, not releasing a "AAA" game in late November when there are 12 other "AAA" games coming out at the same time, possibly even in the same week.

EDIT - As for Capcom in particular, I have no sympathy. If they fail, then they fail. I will cry no tears. The same applies to pretty much any studio out there. (Heck, I almost *wish* it upon some of them some days... *glares at SEGA*)

Edited by Lord Glenn
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Financially, just look at those 2 million MH4 numbers. I bet the development cost is cheap compared to the likes of GTAV, and that excluding the latter promotional budget.

Essentially, with BoF 6 coming to iOS, the maker of it creating another game for iOS, yes Capcom is in deep trouble.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well since this topic has 5 days til it hasn't been posted in in an entire month, I'm just going to palce this piece of news in here, rather than make my own topic. The creator of Street Fighter says that Capcom doesn't even have enough resources to port their biggest fighting game franchine to the PS4 and XBox One. I give Capcom 2 years at best.

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Wait, you mean they can't do it at all, or they'd have to choose only one of them? Although when I think about it, that latter option would bring another problem altogether...

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