Working Designs is gone...

[Ganelon]

http://www.workingdesigns.com/forum/sho ... p?t=118916

Known among our community for localizing PS (and a PS2) shooters:
Raystorm
Raycrisis
Thunder Force V (also known for saying the visuals were better than the SS version and talking about a nonexistent extra stage)
Silpheed TLP

Also infamous for licensing but never releasing 3 SS shooter packs to the US due to SOA calling the system a "stillborn" and trivializing WD:
Thunder Force Gold Pack 1 and Hyper Duel
Thunder Force Gold Pack 2 and Blast Wind
Thunder Force V

Perhaps even more infamous for planning to release Soukyugurentai but reneging based on the same reason.

A sad day for US RPG fans...

[Ramus]

MOTHER FUCKER! That was my favorite RPG company. This sucks!

[Turrican]

Hmm. This is bad. Victor Ireland and his company were around since, what, Mega-CD and Turbografx days. It was an institution.

It sucks. And he mentions somewhere that basically it's all Sony's doing: I bet that they refused to accept one or two "semi-2D" titles that WD had in its sleeve, and for a small publisher this leads to death.

You're bad, Sony.

[D]

*points at own fist and says to Sony: "I die you with this".*






Sony PlayInfestation 3

[CIT]

Known among our community for localizing PS (and a PS2) shooters:
Raystorm
Raycrisis
Thunder Force V
Silpheed TLP

And let's not forget Magical Chase for Turbo Grafx!

Re: Topic:

[jp]

Dreamcast fans and probably Xbox fans alike would have loved to have had Working Designs bringing out import RPGs.


This is their own doing.

[Pshooter]

and don't forget one of the most (if not the most) innovative and sleek light gun games ever:

[Neo Rasa]

I'm not going to miss them to be honest. Outside of those shooters they've done nothing worthwhile besides getting Growlanser out here which, while awesome, is too little too late. I felt their translations on the re-releases of the Lunar games were pretty awful compared to the originals, and their demise isn't going to affect Game Arts, Treasure, or any of the other developers that actually made the Lunar/etc. games that Working Designs published.

My problems with Working Designs aside, their demise is also mostly Sony's doing because they hate 2D games. It's retarded how much of a hard time they gave SNK and Working Designs over this. SNK was just big enough that they could afford to say fuck you and put all their stuff on the XBox instead (which is ironic, if you told me two years ago that I'd absolutely want an XBox this generation if I want more 2D fighters I'd have laughed at you) but not Working Designs. It always sucks to see a company like this disappear even if I'm not the biggest fan of them.

It's also notable that thanks to Fire Emblem and Advance Wars being such big hits on the GBA a few years ago, many more console RPGs and TBS games are coming out here by the major publishers anyways. When this fades out again another Working Designs-like company will rise up.

[metallica_tyler]

SNK was just big enough that they could afford to say fuck you and put all their stuff on the XBox instead

Awesomely said!

[Jon]

Good riddance to poor translations and a sad goodbye to pretty awesome packaging.

[Acid King]

Good riddance to poor translations and a sad goodbye to pretty awesome packaging.

They didn't mess around with Arc the Lad's translation.

[sethsez]

Oh no, now where will I get my second-tier RPGs with totally generic, interchangable character designs?

Oh... wait... there are plenty of companies doing that now.

...

But do they have dated pop culture references? Huh? HUH?!

In all seriousness, for every good game they brought out they released four pieces of crap, and this entire generation has been a wash. As for Vic, that man burned bridges as fast as he could cross them, and completely refused to work for anyone other than Sony (including MS, who would have welcomed him with open arms since they were trying to cater to as many varied fanbases as possible by allowing far more than Sony ever did). By sticking to Sony, everyone saw the writing on the wall years ago except him.

[Moogs]

MOTHER FUCKER! That was my favorite RPG company. This sucks!

What? It's not like Working Designs actually developed games.

[kyle d.]

they were working on a goemon game, this makes me sad. . .

[Moogs]

they were working on a goemon game, this makes me sad. . .

Yeah, and it was over five years old. I'm not surprised that SCEA wouldn't approve it.

[Turrican]

In all seriousness, for every good game they brought out they released four pieces of crap, and this entire generation has been a wash. As for Vic, that man burned bridges as fast as he could cross them, and completely refused to work for anyone other than Sony (including MS, who would have welcomed him with open arms since they were trying to cater to as many varied fanbases as possible by allowing far more than Sony ever did). By sticking to Sony, everyone saw the writing on the wall years ago except him.

Yes, but some hidden gems came to west thanks to them. Alundra, to name a game I especially enjoyed to play in english.

And yes, the latest PS2 period was quite lame for them, but then again,. they were a publisher: good old Vic could translate, invent dialogues, add twenty six useless bonus crap in a special edition... But he couldn't probably realize an xbox port of a PS2 game with his staff.
But I understand what you mean... They could have focused on xbox and ngc import-only titles... Not a very crowded category, though.

[Specineff]

In all seriousness, for every good game they brought out they released four pieces of crap, and this entire generation has been a wash. As for Vic, that man burned bridges as fast as he could cross them, and completely refused to work for anyone other than Sony (including MS, who would have welcomed him with open arms since they were trying to cater to as many varied fanbases as possible by allowing far more than Sony ever did). By sticking to Sony, everyone saw the writing on the wall years ago except him.

QFT.

Watch as the original Lunars for SCD and Rayearth for Saturn go through the roof on evilbay. (Thank God for those french sites hosting the ISOs, heh)

[Fighter17]

http://www.workingdesigns.com/forum/sho ... p?t=118916

Known among our community for localizing PS (and a PS2) shooters:
Raystorm
Raycrisis
Thunder Force V (also known for saying the visuals were better than the SS version and talking about a nonexistent extra stage)
Silpheed TLP

Also infamous for licensing but never releasing 3 SS shooter packs to the US due to SOA calling the system a "stillborn" and trivializing WD:
Thunder Force Gold Pack 1 and Hyper Duel
Thunder Force Gold Pack 2 and Blast Wind
Thunder Force V

Perhaps even more infamous for planning to release Soukyugurentai but reneging based on the same reason.

A sad day for US RPG fans...

I own Raystorm and Raycrisis and I love them both to death, thanks WD. I still don't get it about why the TF games wasn't release for the Saturn, when you mean trivialiing, do you mean that: "You are not going to get any money because the Saturn is dead!" right?

[superhitachi4]

Very sad news indeed. Working Designs was great. This part really pisses me off, because you know it's true: "I know many of you will have lots of questions, and there will be some I can answer, and some I can't. Sony has made it clear that they do not want the details of their dealings with any publisher made public. Suffice to say that you would buy what we wanted to sell if we could sell it." Sony's destroying gaming, and they don't care. I'm definitely no Microsoft fan, but I'm starting to really hope the 360 kicks the crap out of PS3. (Revolution too, but that awful controller...) I was considering *maybe* getting a PS3 eventually, but now I just don't know. Too much crap like this. At least Microsoft allowed games like Samurai Shodown V, and Metal Slug 3 on XBOX in the U.S. To Sony: *MIDDLE FINGER*

[Ganelon]

I still don't get it about why the TF games wasn't release for the Saturn, when you mean trivialiing, do you mean that: "You are not going to get any money because the Saturn is dead!" right?

Not really. SOA's then President Bernie Stolar said that the SS was "stillborn" and was not Sega's future while MKR still had yet to be released, prompting WD's anger that they were killing off their own system when there could've been life left for WD to continue releasing games if Sega continued its support for the SS.

Also, Sega put WD in a corner booth in some game expo and basically told them they didn't really matter (despite WD having localized some of the best RPGs on the system). And that's why WD immediately decided to stop its SS productions and not deal with Sega anymore.

The first point is understandable since SS software support essentially died after that comment. The second point is perhaps petty but that's how WD has always been: easy to hold grudges.

[sethsez]

Sony's destroying gaming

However, I wouldn't be surprised if there was more to this story. Victor is notorious for being petty, egotistical and just generally having all the negotiating ability of a two year old. Working Designs' back had been up against the wall for ages because Vic had no idea how business relations work, and it wouldn't surprise me one iota if he managed to royally piss off someone at Sony.

[Specineff]

Yeah, what kept them from publishing for the Xbox? Or the Cube? Nintendo was so starved for games that it would have welcomed them with open arms. Baten Kaitos and Tales of Whatever sold ok on the Cube, so I'm sure there would have been a market for the kind of games they liked to bring over. But nooooooo... it had to be Sony.

That mentality reminds me of the wife who doesn't divorce an abusive husband because "he loves them in the end and provides them with the food they eat and the clothes they dress."

[Moogs]

I also find it funny that the man who called Magna Carta crap (even though it is) is the same man who published dreck like Vanguard Bandits.

[Turrican]

Tales of Whatever

LOL, man! Awesome

I'll address any game in that spawning series like that from now on!

[llabnip]

Yeah, what kept them from publishing for the Xbox? Or the Cube?

I think it's mostly because the PS1/PS2 (and soon PS3) are the defacto consoles for RPGs for the past decade. I got an XBOX early on and soon realized that most good Japanese RPGs were not coming to the system. My nephews discovered the same things about the NCG. So I got a PS2 (used, very cheap) just to play RPGs (the phenomenal shooters were just a bonus) and suddently there were a ton of new Japanese-y RPGs to play. Working Designs isn't so much about creating new RPGs - they localize (translate, update, dub, debatably improve, etc) great games that might othewise not make it to these shores. I was never a fan of the topical-but-quickly-dated humor they injected into the games, but I never faulted them for the most admirable effort of bringing these amazing games to our shores. I loved the Lunars (Mega CD, PSX) and Arc the Lad Collection (PSX) and Alundra (PSX). Elemental Gearbolt (PSX) is a blast. Magic Knight Rayearth and Albert Odessey are two of my all-time favoraite Saturn games - but Sega (at that time) was not working well with Working Designs and so many should-have-been releases never made it to the US.

In any event, I suspect the XBOX and Cube were simply not strong possibilities for WD. It sounds like Vic may try to work with the XBOX-360 in the future but nothing is certian. The market for RPGs is virtually owned by the Playstation. A small company like Working Designs would probalby sink quickly if they jumped off the modern RPG-console-king (I actually prefer the SNES as my console of choice for RPGs but there isn't much money to be had there for a modern company).

I think the same thing could be said for shooters (the XBOX and Cube certianly have a few shooters but modern shooter fans generally are Playstation oriented which gives releases a wide audience).

[Nemo]

In all seriousness, for every good game they brought out they released four pieces of crap, and this entire generation has been a wash. As for Vic, that man burned bridges as fast as he could cross them, and completely refused to work for anyone other than Sony (including MS, who would have welcomed him with open arms since they were trying to cater to as many varied fanbases as possible by allowing far more than Sony ever did). By sticking to Sony, everyone saw the writing on the wall years ago except him.

Because the Xbox was just brimming with JRpgs, especially good ones. I do agree he could have done some stuff with the GC, but when most good Rpgs are being made for the PS2 in Japan, I have to cut him some slack. And the reason all their post 32-bit games sucked (sans Growlanser 2), had to do with every game they really wanted to do was getting rejected. If they could have sustained themselves till next generation, they probably could have thrived on the Xbox 360 since it appears it will be getting a lot more support and the PS3 doesn't own the industry. Anyways, it's easy to kick WD now because they've been down for so long, but anyone knows games knows how much WD did for us in 16-bit and 32-bit eras and should be nothing but respectful to them for that.

[sethsez]

Working Designs didn't just do RPGs. It's what they were known for, yes, but they also did plenty of action games. I mean, they probably could have brought over Metal Wolf Chaos for relatively little and made a tidy profit on it, for example.

And yes, the PS2 has plenty of good JRPGs. Which were mostly being brought over by better, fast, more competent companies. Let's not kid ourselves, it didn't take them ages to bring games over due to having to do multiple ones at the same time because they took just as long for, say, the Lunar remakes (and a good chunk of the translations in both of them were taken from the original games anyway, especially EB).

However, the biggest issue comes down to one thing: they were dealing with whatever scraps they could pick up that other companies didn't have yet. The Goemon game they were planning on bringing over is, frankly, not good (one of the worst entries in the series), and for the games they did bring over, Growlanser is decent enough but nothing great, Gungriffon is meh, and Silpheed is just plain terrible. With more companies bringing over JRPGs than ever before, Working Designs didn't bother to adapt one iota. When I look at the games Atlus has been bringing over, for example, I just can't look at Working Designs and say that it's all Sony's fault.

[llabnip]

With more companies bringing over JRPGs than ever before, Working Designs didn't bother to adapt one iota.

I agree with most of what you said. However, I also feel comfortable saying that the effort to bring out good RPGs in beautiful packages (complete with lots of Japanese artwork) to the US shores was partially pioneered by Working Designs. They may not be all that necessary in 2005. They were very necessary (and welcome!) in 1995 and it is in no small measure to those efforts that we have a reasonably thriving (well, that might be pushing it) console RPG market in the US. I'm sad to see them gone. They brought over some great games.

[Nemo]

Working Designs didn't just do RPGs. It's what they were known for, yes, but they also did plenty of action games. I mean, they probably could have brought over Metal Wolf Chaos for relatively little and made a tidy profit on it, for example.

And yes, the PS2 has plenty of good JRPGs. Which were mostly being brought over by better, fast, more competent companies. Let's not kid ourselves, it didn't take them ages to bring games over due to having to do multiple ones at the same time because they took just as long for, say, the Lunar remakes (and a good chunk of the translations in both of them were taken from the original games anyway, especially EB).

However, the biggest issue comes down to one thing: they were dealing with whatever scraps they could pick up that other companies didn't have yet. The Goemon game they were planning on bringing over is, frankly, not good (one of the worst entries in the series), and for the games they did bring over, Growlanser is decent enough but nothing great, Gungriffon is meh, and Silpheed is just plain terrible. With more companies bringing over JRPGs than ever before, Working Designs didn't bother to adapt one iota. When I look at the games Atlus has been bringing over, for example, I just can't look at Working Designs and say that it's all Sony's fault.

True it's not all Sony's fault they are extinct because they were also a casualty of video game politics in general. Once WD became lost in a crowd of many, they could no longer compete with the other companies that had the staffs to put out games quickly and had the party affiliations to get the games they wanted and get them passed. But the bottom line is that once they did find a project they wanted to do, it was SCEA that was barring them from being successful and surviving. The whole Growlanser fiasco was the final nail in the coffin as it stole a good 2 years of productivity from a small company that was already fading.

[sethsez]

There were also plenty of GBA games they could have done as well. Why not any of those?

The end result is that even when they didn't have Sony breathing down their necks, WD took longer to translate the games than it took the developers to make them. In 1995 they served a useful purpose, but in 2005 they were obsolete.