China calls bullshit: headlines that angered Chinese gamers this year
The past six months have been tough for some Chinese gamers—with cancellations, misunderstandings, and shaky rumours leading to bitter disappointment. Below are the five that have hit home the hardest in China this year so far.
Monster Hunter Online 2
Since the death of the Playstation Portable, Monster Hunter Online has become China’s preferred way to get its hunt on.
The rumour first broke when a job posting at a Capcom subsidiary in South Korea was reported to include confirmation of Monster Hunter Online 2. The rumor was quickly quashed when Capcom claimed that the job postings were in fact for Monster Hunter Frontier G.
(See: Gamers can vote for a new Monster Hunter Online monster at ChinaJoy)
Although this appears to have been an innocent mistake, it still left a bitter taste in many people’s mouths. One editor at Duowan took the opportunity to lash out at Capcom, saying he felt like everyone was thinking that “Capcom… just lazily exploit the same franchises, using overseas companies and squeezing out Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, and Onimusha games.” In the West, that latter entry might come as a bit of a surprise—wasn’t the last Onimusha game for PS2? But the browser game Onimusha Soul has been going strong in Asia since 2012, receiving a Playstation 3 port earlier this year, even if it remains mostly alien to Western audiences. “They’re just resting on their laurels,” the editor remarked, “…disgusting.”
TERA 2
TERA is new enough that many Chinese gamers have yet to try it out—would a sequel so soon really be necessary anyway?
Korean media outlets believed they had a scoop when they reported that a sequel to TERA, tentatively titled TERA 2, would release later in 2014. Details were unclear as to how exactly this new game would differ from the first. However, when the CEO of TERA developer Bluehole Studio Kim Gang-Seok spoke to the Chinese media in recent weeks, he firmly denied the development of a sequel to TERA: “At this time, Bluehole Studio has no plans at all for a TERA sequel.”
Instead, he stated, Bluehole Studio was “in the middle of developing two new projects, with the working titles Project W and Project EXA. These titles will be western fantasy themed like TERA, but won’t be the same at all in terms of style and gameplay.” Here, Chinese media sources were more upbeat: “From the tiny clues Bluehole Studio’s CEO let slip, they’re not just doing a retread—which is getting people’s hopes up, even though we don’t know exactly what kind of gameplay innovations they’re working on.”
Torchlight 3
More Diablo than Diablo? Chinese gamers seem to think so.
The next entry on the list, a fully online and potentially MMO-ish Torchlight 3. It appears to have been a rumour based on age-old comments by the developer that the original Torchlight was intended to be the first game in the universe. One where it eventually planned to set a fully-fledged MMO. This never panned out, however.
The general feeling amongst Chinese gamers, despite thinking the original just an imitation of the Diablo games, felt that Torchlight 2 was the true spiritual successor to the franchise’s hallowed reputation. Some going so far as saying that it, rather than Diablo 3, is the better sequel to Diablo 2. Dissatisfaction with Diablo 3 is apparently widespread on both sides of the Pacific! But the development studio has kept fairly quiet recently, and with co-founders Travis Baldree and Erich Schaefer having left the company, it’s anyone’s guess as to what the studio is actually working on now.
Harry Potter Online
Maybe if this work had been put into reading up on licensing laws…
The phrase “too good to be true” comes to mind when recalling the Harry Potter Online debacle, which comes in at number four. The developers at Bio-hazard Games apparently decided to forgo the usual contract and licensing negotiation stage of starting a project based on a popular franchise. Instead the studio went ahead with an announcement trailer. It was full of mock-ups and early 3D models—without getting the go ahead from Warner Bros., who hold the license to make Harry Potter games. So it should have come as no surprise when the project was canned only a matter of days later, when WB refused to sign off on it. But for the fans who wanted to believe (on either side of the Pacific), the disappointment cut deep nonetheless. As an editor at Duowan put it, the whole episode was “a farce.”
Mabinogi II: Arena
Korea has changed in the past decade. Mobile spinoffs now make more sense than MMO sequels.
The final entry is reserved for Mabinogi II: Arena. Mabinogi is a South Korean MMO that has, since its release over a decade ago, been released all over the world. The second game in the franchise was previewed back in 2012, but was finally confirmed to be cancelled in January of this year. This one’s not “bullshit” in that it’s false, but in that it’s upsetting to the loyal fans across Asia. Instead, a mobile-only spinoff card game “Mabinogi Girls” is on the way soon… not exactly what the fans had been hoping for.
(Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
(via Duowan)
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The post China calls bullshit: headlines that angered Chinese gamers this year appeared first on Games in Asia.
