Sean Wade Research Portfolio: 2012

How Capcom has affected the audience and industry

Capcom have released a huge range of video games aimed at audiences form platformers to fighting games. Capcom have managed to create popular titles for various genres of games, their games are as well known as the company itself. the Resident Evil game series dominated the competition in the horror genre of games, the Street fighter fighting game series is the most known and played fighting game title out there almost everyone has heard of it at some point and the Devil May Cry series is doing quite well I the action game genre.

Capcom is also very active in interacting with their fans to find out what the fans want and they usually deliver everything based on he fans. With this we can see why Capcom games are so popular in almost every game genre that they make games for. Although sometimes and more recently Capcom have been doing the exact opposite and the fans have reacted badly.

Because Capcom is usually the top in whatever game genre its games are in other games must compete against them, and many newer games find it had to do well when a title such as street fighter is so popular.

When Street fighter 3 was released only the other popular games of the genre such as Guilty ear and Marvel vs Capcom 2 which was also a Capcom game was able to compete and these where the 3 top games of the time and are still regarded at the best 3 of the genre. These games where also popular for tournaments, because they were so competitive and popular.

Further effect on the media, industry and the people

People’s lives have changed because of Capcom’s popular fighting game series Street fighter. People quit their jobs and earn their keep by participating in tournaments.

Here is a interview with a man that goes by the name Triforce, he is a professional street fighter player who runs he’s own team he calls empire arcadia aka. The ARC and they all win tournaments to pay the rent and to pay for their food.

Professional player Triforce and hes team in an interview

The best street fighter player Daigo Umehara has been crowded the best at street fighter countless times over the last few years. Daigo Umehara goes by the nickname “The Beast” because he’s level of skill is levels above even the professionals. He’s famous enough to have he’s own merchandise and to be admired to the point where people will ask him to sign their items. He’s got a sponsorship with MadCatz and travels all over the world to take on the best for the experience of fighting new warriors and for the well earned cash prizes.

Here is Daigo Umehara’s personal website

http://daigothebeast.com/

Daigo Umehara

Daigo Umehara with a $10,000.00 cash prize that he won at a tournament

Tournaments

EVO Championship series

This is where the people who play professional train to end up at the end of each year, just to qualify to enter a player must win a number of tournaments. In the end there are still thousands of people entering for the cash prizes of around 20,000-10,000 dollars for first place depending on the games.

Here is a video that will show the sheer numbers of professionals that gather just for one of the 2 tournaments they have running

Here is a link that shows Daigo performing an extremely difficult series of moves and turning the situation around completely. See how the large community reacts.

Link to the Evo Championship series website for more information on the event

http://evo2k.com/

Rise of Crapcom

The fans have dubbed Capcom as “Crapcom” because of their poor performance recently. Recently they have cancelled the long anticipated release of the next Megaman game, Megaman Legends 3 and not only that but blaming the fans for it.

Here is a post on a popular games forum with some comments by the community

http://n-europe.com/news.php?nid=15938

And here is the twitter post done by Capcom themselves

http://twitter.com/#!/CapcomEuro/status/93720826087620608

Here is AlphaOmegaSin a YouTube game reviewer who posted a video informing people of what’s happened along with he’s thoughts on the matter, he’s videos get over 24,000 views and is very trusted by the gaming community.

AlphaOmegaSin on Capcom cancelling Megaman

I think that Capcom is trying to get rid of the franchise by not featuring the character in any of their titles and the community thinks the same.

Megaman fan sharing the news and hes thoughts

Another thing that Capcom has done is outsourcing their famous game series Devil May Cry to Ninja Theory a western game company that hasn’t done well in the genre. Ninja theory have completely changed the character and some fans call it ruining the game.

Here is EventStatus another very popular YouTube game reviewer and general new podcast. In this video he dubbed (fans may cry) he brings about the discussion that every Devil May Cry fan has been talking about, which is the changes for the series.

EventStatus on NinjaTheory and new Devil May Cry

We can see by the comments that the people don’t really seem to like the new design and would prefer the old design for the character main Dante.

Dante(Left) and Ninja theory version Dante(right)

People have also gone as far as to make videos complaining about it, this one musician that goes by the name GodsImmortalGauntlet made a YouTube music video ranting about the game.

GodsImmortalGauntlet's ranting music video

Another recent thing that Capcom has done to frustrate their fans is releasing a sequel to the game Marvel vs Capcom 3 and calling it Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 after only a few months of the original being released. The changed the interface, added 12 new characters and re balanced the game.

Here is one fan from YouTube expressing he’s feelings

Here is a video by Eventstatus talking about how one of their best men Keiji Inafune leaving Capcom because of the way they treat their workers. Keiji Inafune is the creator and genius behind most of Capcom’s successful games.

Sean Wade Research Portfolio

Thursday, 19 January 2012

Reference

How Capcom has affected the audience and industry.