I don't see what the big deal with. They were just asking, and as Stewart says they didn't even expect it to be picked up.

They're clearly still focused on Oddworld.

No. Metal Gear Solid.

Well I thought the open letter was kind of funny, and like I said, it sounded more like promotion for the work they did on oddworld than really wanting to work on MSG. The letter was funny and they should just have let it hang there without looking back on it.

For some reason it's only Stew's tweets that seemed a bit out of place, especially the last one, but that might simply be a question of timing.

Dude. Like, really. Just dude.

There was nothing funny about the letter. At all. The letter was not a joke. The letter may not have been exactly a job application, but if Kojimama had shown any interest in it, you would all be in talks to produce the remake right now. Just because it was half hearted, or half assed doesn't mean that they didn't want it to happen. I'm pretty good at spotting jokes, and then saying "Hey look. There's a joke." This wasn't a joke.

And for the record, if someone says "Ha. I don't have any intention of letting that happen," most people are going to think that means 'no', and then find the response of "yeah, we didn't really want to do it anyway" to be kind of silly. Just saying. Dude.

Regardless of what you think this letter was or wasn't, we were not considering it. You think, if we were, we'd write an open letter instead of approaching the relevant people directly?

And for the record, Kojima's words were "Well, if there's some creator or team in this world who has love and passion to remake "MGS1", so this notion of "saying no after being told no" remains very weird. Even if he had said no, we were still getting a lot of interest and had to set the record straight.

It is definitely a weird thing to do, I'll give you that. Definitely a weird thing to do.

OANST I understand your feeling here. The fact it was a joke should have been more obvious. But by rereading the open letter, knowing they meant it as a joke, I think you can see that they are not bullshitting us here.

But like I said, this whole communication afterwards still feels a bit odd.

Yes, they are. Yes, they so are. Or rather, they are being bullshitted, and passing the bullshit down. It wasn't a joke. They put out a laundry list of reasons why they are qualified to do it, and then said in the letter "We really, really want to do it." Where is the joke? Where is the funny section? Was it a half hearted attempt? Sure. Would they be working on MGS if Kojima had contacted them, and agreed to it? Yes. Yes, they would.

Here's the thing. I don't care. It doesn't make any difference to me what they work on. The only reason I posted it to begin with was to watch fanboys scratch their heads. But the bullshit is ridiculous. They meant what they said. It wasn't a joke.

Let's be clear. I always stick up for small businesses like this. It's insanely hard to keep a small business going, and I wish everyone the best of luck so that they can continue to put food on their family's tables, and hopefully make enough to actually enjoy their lives. But the dishonesty, man. The dishonesty. Say stupid shit. Fuck up. Make mistakes. Be a little too arrogant from time to time. But let's not hide behind cop outs.

Not a joke.

The only trouble is that no one's bullshitting you. I sit next to the people who came up with the idea and wrote the letter, I know what they said about it, I speak to the company directors every day, I know what we'd have done if we'd actually wanted to persue it as an option. It really, absolutely was not the philosophy behind it. It was a combination of "Hey, this is what we're good at" and "We love your stuff" coming from the people who do love MGS (I've never played it).

I'm not defending it in any way. I'm not saying slivers of hope hadn't crossed anyone's mind. And I'm not saying we wouldn't have at least considered a dialogue if anyone at Konami had contacted us. But no one was trying to achieve that with this letter. It was just something done quickly one morning after a news story had come out.

For what it's worth, this isn't me standing up for the company. If that were my only concern I'd have just kept my distance and let this die. For me, this is more about my relationship with the forums. I knew working at JAW would change it, but to be called a liar while being more honest than I ought... I would not lie on these forums, and I would not insist anything if I didn't know absolutely it were true. Your insistence otherwise hurts.

It isn't my intention to call you a liar. I saw it more as you being loyal to the Oddworld franchise, and your employer, and wanting to believe the best from them, and save them from any embarrassment. I don't even have an issue with them wanting to remake MGS. That would be so good for your company. Yes, a public letter of this kind was a misstep. One that was slightly funny. But the handling of it afterwards was just weird. I don't understand what they expected from posting the letter to begin with. Yes, I see that it's a response to a news post, and one that isn't entirely serious, or else I hope that, like you said, they would have conducted themselves more professionally in trying to acquire the license. But what came after was like "Ha ha. We were just kidding. April Fools, Kojima, you big stupid guy. We laugh at your money!" Clearly, there were niggles of hope that something new would come of it.

@OANST - If you really do care about what JAW say and how it affects their public image (even though you said you didn't, but that doesn't explain your 'passionate' behaviour), continuing to berate them and make a fuss here won't help very much, it's just lowering the tone here further and fraying fan/company relations for no reason. It's painful to watch. Please stop.

Another observation is that this whole thing wasn't such a big deal to begin with - It was only our speculation here that blew it far out of proportion and made it a mountain out of a molehill, and I'm sorry for saying what I said earlier without thinking about it very hard. JAW haven't done anything that badly wrong to warrant this kind of treatment. What happened was a bit odd, yes, but it wasn't actually that much of a bad thing.

Fuck your stop. How about that? This is a place for people to discuss topics related to Oddworld. Not to gently rub their genitals, and make sure that they know each and every one of us love the taste of their man juice rolling down our throats. It's a conversation. I disagreed with a few sentiments. I think the extraordinary nitpicking of other people's art that you bunch of weird little nerds do is far more ridiculous than discussing a public misstep by their pr department.

Edit: You guys really shouldn't engage me in conversation like this when I'm stressed out. Ignoring me is probably in everyone's best interest.

There's discussion and criticism, which is fine, I don't disagree with that - A lot of good can come out of that. But then there's nitpicking (which, yes, I admit I've done in the past) and taking criticism waaay too far to the point where you're insulting and upsetting others.

As I said earlier, I still don't understand why you're making such a fuss out of this - It's simply not worth it. Why not chill out, step away from the computer, and enjoy the sunshine for a bit? Have a beer or two.

What are you talking about? What exactly is being nitpicked?

While your intentions were probably innocent, that's the single most patronising thing I've ever heard you say.

People are people, and some of them deal with the public eye better than others. From what I gather, Gilray can be a little unpredictable at times. It's probably not the first time he's jokingly made a claim he had no intention of backing up.

As for OANST critcising JAW's insistence that it was just a joke, you have to be insistent when you're dealing with the internet at large.

I was agreeing with you that, yes, this is a place to discuss Oddworld related stuff no matter what ones opinions are, while I also was trying to say that I think what you're doing (taking it too far, being too acidic, IMO) is wrong for the same reasons as why you think "us bunch of nerds" nitpicking their artwork is bad. You're clearly aware of the similarities yourself.

Yeah, me being condescending without really meaning to is another thing I'm good at. Although I like how you don't comment on him swearing at me.

Meh whatever, there's no need to devolve this trainwreck of a thread further, and continue doing what I was trying to stop in the first place (and failing miserably), so I'll just leave it at that.

Also, I'm sorry if I somehow managed to tread on people's toes, but it just would be nice to see people to get on and not be too abrasive to one another over something which I think is relatively mundane. I shouldn't have got involved and kept my mouth shut like I normally do, really.

Back to lurking I go.

Many have tried to keep OANST civil, few have succeeded.

Yeah, I wasn't nitpicking. I was making a rebuttal. And I surely did swear. Yes, I surely did.

That’s fucking terrible.

Man, what a dick.

I think everyone here has said their piece.

*closes*