Keiji Inafune's Comcept, the studio behind Mighty No. 9 and Red Ash, has been acquired by Level-5 (Professor Layton, Yo-Kai Watch, etc.), according to this week's Famitsu. Rechristened as "Level-5 Comcept", the new subsidiary will work directly with Level-5 president Akihiro Hino to develop new games, combining the philosophies of both companies.
Keiji Inafune says Comcept - in its current form - will close down. However, the company will continue its responsibility to develop a title currently in production (not specified but presumably Red Ash). Their first game as Level-5 Comcept is scheduled to debut in 2018, a mobile RPG called Dragon Colonies. The game will feature player vs. player gameplay set in a world with various races and gigantic beasts.
Unfortunately, there's no word on what will become of the Mighty No. 9 franchise. It remains to be seen what will happen with the unreleased 3DS and Vita versions, too, not to mention missing physical backer rewards. I imagine we'll be hearing more on this acquisition soon. I'll keep you posted.
Source: http://blog.esuteru.com/archives/20014836.html
I bet they're crying like an anime fan on prom night.
ReplyDeleteHuuueeee. Well played
DeleteTouche
DeleteNo hope for the remaining rewards, no hope.
ReplyDeleteA class-action lawsuit is actually within the bounds of KickStarter rules of engagement.
DeleteOver 30,000 people did not receive their complete backer rewards from COMCEPT, which could be a huge lawsuit.
The problem now is: can backers get their sh*t together in-time to sue a company which has just been acquired? (I personally think a lawsuit like this should have happened last year...)
Stave of Washington vs. Altius Management ruled in-favor of disenfranchised backers who supported the Asylum card game; that game received just over $25,000, and Altius was ordered to pay $1,000 per backer, and all related legal fees. Imagine what this could look like for a $3.8 million KickStarter.
On the bright side: Comcept's acquisition might be sufficient evidence to signal that they have no intention of delivering additional rewards to backers.
This should be a multi-million-dollar lawsuit, people.
The FTC has also been involved in suing failed KickStarter campaigns, so as of right now I am filing a complaint with the FTC; I would suggest the rest of you do the same, and we'll see what happens. If anyone wants to take initiative and find a lawyer who wants to take a class-action suit worth a few million dollars: that would probably make some waves, at least. Mighty No. 9 was one of the most-funded KickStarter games of all time; this is like free international advertising for any law firm.
File a complaint with the FTC right now; you can do it on-line in a couple of minutes.
One year later, and people are still bitter about Mighty No. 9 and Kenji Inafune. Seriously, it's time to calm down and chill the hell out.
DeleteThings like this happen. But do you honestly think people will band together to sue a company that failed to deliver promises? No. There has been rare cases of people suing game companies for stuff they were wronged of.
Plus, there hasn't been any news sites of people suing Comcept. Do you know the reason why? Because the MegaMan fanbase is constantly complaining about everything and this site is no exception. The commentors here always complained about the unfairness of their beloved franchise (MegaMan) like a fricken cult.
And before anyone asks, I am not trolling. Just stating the reality of it all.
Plus, you need a lot of money to sue a game company. Plus, the commenters of this blog claim they are boycotting Capcom because of how they are treating MegaMan. Did it worked? Nope. As long as the MegaMan fanbase continued to complain. Nothing will change.
Give MN9 to inti creates. Best sprites makers ever!
ReplyDeleteIt's true!
DeleteThe sprites from MM Zero are especially fabulous.
Did the poor saps that backed $10K for a dinner with Inafune ever get that reward?
ReplyDeleteProbably, and Inafune didn't even cover the tip.
DeleteI guess it's not impossible that L5 will still fulfill those rewards, but as with any Kickstarter, you should always back with the idea in the back of your mind that you may just be donating your money. Kickstarter is not a storefront where you purchase something, it is a donation with benefits that may or may not be fulfilled.
ReplyDeleteI actually think this is a good thing, if anyone can revive Beck, it'd be L5, but they may let him sleep with all the bad press the game got.
Welp.
ReplyDeleteJust give MN9 to Inticreates. They know what to do with it.
It's hard to not be spiteful here. But Mighty No 9 was just bad. No other way to put it.
ReplyDeleteAt least the world will be spared the atrocity of an anime version of it.
what? if there is someone with a habit of making things into animated, it clearly IS level 5.
Deletethat's how they advertised two of their major franchise (inazuma eleven and youkai watch) and the third got a animated movie (proffessor Layton). they tend to go multimedia all the way.
we might even see this thing in Manga !
...will depend on how much they will "adopt" comcept and comcept games. and how much they're willing to bet on it.
Great start for comcept's E3 for 2017. :/
ReplyDeletei like level-5 and they somehow know how to build a franchise. don't konw if they can do action-plateformer, though. we'll see. i'm not that invested in mighty n°9 anyway.
ReplyDeleteStill waiting for those backer rewards, but like En Vogue, I know I'm never gonna get it. Never ever gonna get it.
ReplyDeleteWell thats went how i expected like word for word how i expected it. Hopefully level 5 fullfils the backer stuff nd the 3ds version of the game along with vita because people supported that and never got anything
ReplyDeleteIt's just not going to happen.
DeleteWhy would they develop a port for a game and essentially give it away for free?
The KickStarter had nothing to do with Level 5, and M#9 received such bad press that -- after they literally give away all the backer games to fulfill Comcept's obligation -- they cannot possibly sell enough additional copies to make-up for the hours they spent on the port.
It's a dead, and the backers (including myself) have been totally screwed.
I'll tell you what's going to happen to those missing Mighty No. 9 releases and the missing backer rewards. They're going to be liquidated as a part of property of a company "which no longer exists."
ReplyDeleteI'd love to be proved wrong, of course, but after all this time...?
Aw so here we go!!!! Keiji goes back to inti creates after stealing 3.8 million and purpousely never bringing up backer rewards cuz lol fuck those investors. Scumbag
ReplyDeleteThat's focked up. How can the MN9 dev team sleep with themselves?
DeleteCorrection, all those people gave Concept all that money without hesitation. Granted not much came out of it, but cut the crap. There's a difference between giving and stealing. All those people had a choice in not giving Concept a dime when first shown, but nope, they made the choice. No amount of immaturity will change that fact. I'm not defending the guy, but I wish some people own up to the actions they've made. Steal, my rear end, those guys gave their money straight up, and I was watching...
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI consider it stealing money when you sell people on what they are getting and never give them what they paid for. The entire point of the begging for cash was to not get a publisher, then they got a publisher. They showed concept work of waht the game would look like...and then changed it (shit like this happens oh well). But as far as litterally selling people physcal goods then never acknowledging or attempting to even bring up the goods they falsely promised in hopes of getting more money that's theft.
DeleteYour right no one put a gun to my head and said give keiji inafune money for a mega man inspired game (I should have seen how bad this would be coming back then with how shit mega man was after 9 anyway). He and comcept were the ones that said you get this if you pay this. That was on purpose and as far as im concerned they never intended to give any of those higher priced rewards, thats why they sent out t shirts and a fucking cube with arms taped to it first. Keiji's a fucking scumbag, and his ever growing irrelevance is a great thing.
This is actually pretty unfortunate. I feel bad for them. Of course, everyone will blame them and say it's solely their fault--Inafune's fault. But all they have to do is look in the mirror for the truth.
ReplyDeleteMighty No.9 got unjustly trashed by everyone because of the "memefied" bandwagon mentality of today's world and it honestly makes me embarrassed to be a Mega Man fan and gamer in general sometimes. It is NOT a bad game. It's just the company bit off more than they could chew with all the different releases. People can quote the 3.8 million+ price all they want, but that's not a lot of runway in the grand scheme of things.
Overall, it's a crying shame that a budding company is now unable to stand on its own two feet. Granted, Level-5 is a great parent for it. They were one of my choices for a potential Legends 3 developer since they have the likes of Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy under their belt. I can only hope for the best.
I was certainly crying like an anime fan on prom night when I got my first look at the finished Mighty No. 9. Waka-waka!
DeleteKidding aside, it's all apples-and-oranges, my friend; don't be ashamed to be a Mega Man fan. Mighty No. 9 isn't Mega Man. It tried to emulate Mega Man (I still say it felt like a "Mega Man X9" but with the classic series backstory), but it was honestly not the good old "jump and shoot" game we grew up with. Honestly, I'm not even sure what they were aiming for beyond the initial "let's bank on nostalgia" style promotion. It's a bit of a head-scratcher. It was also pretty darn mediocre. Which is actually kind of worse than being bad. But, if there's one thing I can take away from the game, it's this...
Jump. Holding. Jump. Error.
Definitely agree. Comcept really tried to deliver on EVERY promise they made to their backers and THAT was the problem. The people who backed mn9 turned toxic, quick. It was awful to watch. I too backed the game and long before the internet and the gaming journalists started crapping on the game, it was the whiny, toxic backers who led the charge. They asked for the moon and then complained when it was delivered quickly enough. They DEMANDED the game be ported to handhelds and wii u (why), threw a shit fit at the idea of the game not being on the last generation of consoles, and then when comcept was spread far too thin giving into their unrealistic demands, had the nerve to act surprised when the finished product lacked polish. They didn't have time to polish it because they were porting it to six different systems. All Mighty No.9 proved is that you shouldn't worry about giving "fans" what they want because they themselves don't actually know what that is.
DeleteTyler, get your facts straight.
DeleteCOMCEPT "confirmed" development for Vita and 3DS in October 2013, as it was one of their stretch goals. Let's be clear: COMCEPT listed those ports as stretch goals to entice people to contribute MORE MONEY. Please tell us all how it was the fans' fault that COMCEPT was spread too thin when it was COMCEPT that offered additional console ports at specific fund-raising tiers.
COMCEPT sold a game and merchandise on a pre-sale basis to consumers -- like an autographed, hard-cover art book, among other things -- and has not delivered. People pledge at higher tiers because they are told that they are buying the items offered at those tiers.
KickStarter is not a charity; it's a pre-sale business model. If you pledge and don't get what you paid for -- as many US court rulings have decided, along with cooperation from the FTC -- that constitutes FRAUD.
Wii u was still coming out at the time, it wasn't even on shelves yet. No one wanted to wait another year for a wii port (hilarious when it took another 2 years form that anyway). Those "demands" could have easily been ignored by an actual manager, but no keiji saw more money and said oh yeah we can do that 2. Get real man, this was a quick cash grab as it was intended to be, the writing was on the wall when they said they need those 2 kickstarters for red ashe right away because mighty no 9 is already finished and we'd just be paying people to sit around........the kickstarter goes to shit and we get a delay because the game wasn't done and once again keiji got caught in a lie.
DeleteMighty no 9 showed us alot. Keiji likes to speak negativly on the japanese business culture yet it was that exact culture that made him anything. The refusal to speak to fans, the refusal to do any sort of quality control on the product it's self. Capcom sheilded him from getting all of the blame for those business practices because he could say "eh it's japanese business culture and capcom not me" When in reality he's a shady businessman and nothing more.
Mighty No. 9 was a step in the right direction to me.
DeleteSee, I personally didn't like how MegaMan and X ended.
MegaMan classic series had MM8, and its overly cartoony style totally put me off. As did the music and level design in this game. It's no surprise they tried to mimick the NES games after this, even though MM8 inexplicably has so many fans!
MegaMan X7 and X8 were both very lame, with X8 being the less lame of the 2.
Mighty No. 9, at the very least, got better visuals than all these games combined!
And as if that wasn't enough, it was much more fun to play through than MM8 and MMX8, so I think it got the run and gun MegaMan feel back on track after that mess.
So sad that all this happened!
Maybe it's better like that. They'll give the structure the studio needs. it's a creative and CONCEPT focused studio anyway
ReplyDeleteI dont know why Level 5 would do this deal. Inafune is not a good creator and hes a terrible business man.
ReplyDeleteThey probably saw potential in the Red Ash IP, but otherwise I agree.
DeleteLevel 5 made a wrong move doing this. COMCEPT has a bad reputation now and that will make things worse for Level 5. I don't know what they were thinking. As for the damn rewards I never got any of it except for the stupid download code... I was suppose to get the PC CD in a cart USB port or something? I honestly forget now. I was lucky enough to get the Signature Edition when it came out. The only thing of worth is the 5 inch figure which does look cool.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure the reasoning from L5's side, but it's probably a good thing for Comcept. Let's be honest, they never had their shit together from the start.
ReplyDelete