It was.
Mass Effect Mass Effect general thread
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prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
"I don't gotta say shit to C-Sec!"
"Threatening Interrogative: Give us a name, unless you want our Taurian friend outside to come into the room and take over? Sincere Warning: He will hurt you."
"G'arnhas'dfhuiow. His name is G'arnhas'dfhuiow."
"Blarsky! This one does not approve of the measures taken to obtain a suspect's identification!"
"With brash lack of concern: It works, chief."
Blarsky & Stotch, coming this Fall!
Yes, I was including that plucky little plumber as a "mascot character" lol. Really Nintendo is an anomaly with the sheer amount of spin offs they've made using Mario and other characters. I was asking about franchises more directly comparable to Mass Effect, which is why I mentioned Halo and Gears by name.
Yes it was in the original edition of ME1. It's really not a reference to the Leviathan DLC, it's just a Reaper wreckage that happened to be called "Leviathan".
Pocky Balboa
Well-known member
No, that was planned. I recall Miyamoto saying in an Iwata Asks (and now I made myself sad) that Mario by design was supposed to be able to slot into any sort of role for various types of games, hence one of Mario's planned names being Mr. Video.
Sure. Nintendo milking Mario for all he's worth is obviously intentional. I meant that Nintendo is an anomaly when compared to the rest of the video game industry in how it make makes so many spin offs using its characters and franchises. Like, the only character that even comes close is Sonic, who was specifically made as Sega's answer to Mario.
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Aaron Fox
Well-known member
The sad thing is, from what I can gather (in general) gamers fucking hate spinoffs. Like with a fury of a few million suns levels here.
Take one of my favorite gaming IPs Front Mission, for example, the fans would actually unperson any game that isn't a TRPG outside of one RTT. It also doesn't help that the IP owner has almost exclusive rights (and has a history of trying to fuck with any spinoff project! Fun fact, Front Mission: Evolved was fucked over because the IP owner withheld funds, leaving us with the game we got!) to the IP with Square only being able to have distribution rights (for the most part), hence why they created games like Front Mission: Evolved and Left Behind. They couldn't work around that control and thus went with spinoffs.
... spinoffs that the fandom would not give a chance.
Hell, Fallout had a civil war just by going from Isometric to 3D for Christ's sake! To. 3. D.
On the other hand, Halo Wars and Spartan Assault were well received for what they were. There was some backlash, but not nearly as loud as the fanrage over core features like dual wielding and sprint.
I think there are two things to consider in a spinoff:
-Is the gameplay shifting from a niche genre to a more accessible/popular genre? If so, fans will complain because what they liked about the game is getting tossed out in favor of something generic.
-Is the game a cash grab or a dolled up installment? Halo Wars was well-received, but it had three years of polish. The original plan was to drop Halo models into an Age of Mythology prototype and ship it in six months, which would have been a terrible game. Fans can sense when the name of a popular franchise is just a sticker to sell an unrelated game, and they rightfully object.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
While those are a factor, there is the fact that some fandoms are just simply that hateful of spinoffs, with Front Mission being one of them. From what I can tell, the older the franchise, the worse the 'no spinoffs' mentality is...
Vargas Fan
Head over heels in love :)
God I remember the carry on when Fallout 3 was due, there were two main Fallout 'fan' sites that were bitching about it, No Mutants Allowed was one, but I can't remember the other.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Yeah, I remember that clusterfuck... and Fallout 3 was my introduction to the franchise (and got me to buy Tactics).
Well no, in the case of Left Alive, they completely dropped the ball and put out a shitty game.
It doesn't help that with Front Mission, Square Enix doesn't just go "We can't make Front Mission anymore due to rights issues with the original IP owners," which is the main reason they're doing the spinoffs to begin with.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Eh, from what I've watched of Left Alive, it's a simplified Metal Gear V mod. In addition, the IP owner has a tendency to screw games over like with what happened to Evolved... and Left Alive shares the same signs of having that problem.
EDIT: it should also be noted that the gaming industry has become almost completely binary: only AAA games and Indie/Small games.
There is no gradient between the two. No AA games, no A games, no B games, etc. Left Alive fits the profile of an A-class game...
It all depends. If something feels like an obvious cash grab, fans won't like it. If you get a spinoff when there hasn't been a new mainline game for the franchise in a while, fans won't like it - eg Metroid Prime Federation Force. I can't speak for Front Mission, but with Fallout 3 that wasn't even a spinoff. The issue some fans had was changing the main series from one gameplay style to another, which is a whole other can of worms.
Gamers like spin offs when they're well made games in their own right, don't detract from the main series, and are a genre that fits the franchise setting. Like I mentioned, Halo Wars seemed like a successful spin off, and more recently Gears Tactics was fairly well received.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
That... isn't the case from what I can see. Halo Wars and Gears Tactics are exceptions that prove the rule.
That... isn't the case from what I can see. Halo Wars and Gears Tactics are exceptions that prove the rule.
And your examples seemed to involve different circumstances than just gamers not wanting spinoffs. Do you have other examples?
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Hm, let's see, off the top of my head there are all of Fallout's spinoffs (one getting clobbered rightly for how shitty it was and another because, well, it was one of the original dividing points of the fandom), the ARMA 2 RTS got screwed over, and that's off the top of my head at the moment.
Again, Fallout 3 wasn't a spinoff. It was sold as the third game in the main Fallout series. And if a different Fallout spinoff got clobbered for just being a bad game...you're not contradicting my point. Gamers are cool with spinoffs if they're decent games in their own right, they don't interfere with the main series of games in the franchise, and they're not obvious cash grabs. You haven't provided any examples of gamers in general somehow hating spinoffs even when those conditions are met.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Fallout -before 3- had two spinoffs: Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel. One was using the same engine as the first two games and severely divided the fandom, and everyone agrees that the latter was a shitty game.
Ok. Fallout Tactics came out 3 years after Fallout 2, right? I would argue that the feeling of getting Tactics instead of a proper new Fallout game added to some fans being unhappy with the game. Veers into what I said about spinoffs interfering with the main series of games. You say my examples are "exceptions that prove the rule", but you're not really showing the rule exists to begin with. Halo and Gears of War are more recent and relevant examples, and bigger franchises (at least bigger than Fallout was at the time Tactics came out).