Breaking News
JAW officially sick of listening to Lorne Lanning's stupid voice:
http://www.destructoid.com/oddworld-...d-257116.phtml |
Looks like they weren’t entirely serious.
|
Despite JAWs abilities I wouldn't like the idea of all the guards I knock out having comical Z's above their heads or Solid Snake having an unsually awkward running animation.
|
I like how he says it's a no from him after Kojima says no. As if they would turn down the massive profits that would come from remaking MGS. Funny guy, that Gilray.
|
What an interesting story. Write an open letter stating you want to do something, then go on to cite several reasons as to why you are the perfect candiate, garner attention from the public, get turned down, claim you're not interested.
|
Kojima didn't really mean to develop MGS remake to begin with. Also, in my opinion JAW totally isn't capable of remaking such detailed and polished game like MGS
|
My advice to JAW reps on the forum, and in general. Don't spin this. Just wait until it dies. Any attempt on your parts to spin this to make it not look like what it was is just going to further amuse me, and everyone else who isn't blind.
|
It is nice to see Just Add Water gaining interests in other IPs. As much as I want Oddworld games, It would be great to see JAW work on something different.
|
IMO, I hope they learn from this and in future confer with each other before making something like that public. If they weren't serious about it, I wonder why they allowed it to be posted it on their blog.
Working on another big IP would've been good for them, yeah, but wouldn't they have had too much on their plate to be able to do such a huge task, anyway? |
The impression I get from this is that they'd fuck over Oddworld in favour of something undoubtedly more profitable. I'm happy to be proven wrong, however.
|
You're proven wrong? Kojima stated it was a mistranslation, and he isn't really searching for anybody... and then JAW deleted the letter and went back to whatever they were doing
|
That's so far from being proven wrong, it's basically being proven right.
|
Who's to say they would've dropped Oddworld for this, though? I'm sure they're capable of working on more than one thing at once, but probably at the cost of quality since they've already got a lot on their plate, as I said earlier. But then I don't know how game studios really work.
|
The cost of quality would be far too great and therefore they would not be capable of working on both. It's a simple lack of manpower.
|
I find it hard to believe Gilray took his pledge seriously. They've got nowhere near the resources required to take on a major franchise title.
|
I think they would have hired more people. It's not that hard.
|
Need money first to hire people and sustain their employment... Depends how well the Oddbox and Stranger HD sold, I guess.
|
I imagine if Kojima Productions hired JAW to remake their game they could afford to bankroll a few more people.
|
People really don't understand how these things work, apparently. It takes years to make games. Do people think that these small companies bank roll it themselves? They don't. That's the point of publishers. If this were greenlit, as Manco said, they would have the resources to hire the number of people necessary to make it.
|
Colonel, we've managed to avoid picking up a new project!
|
:
I second OANST's suggestion about letting this die. And I also propose Stewart Gilray for being the game industry's next Peter Molyneaux. |
I have this image in my head of Gilray being really happy with the letter until Lorne called and yelled at him.
|
Well, i'm pretty sure they would have hired more people to do MGS, they wouldn't just drop everything they've been doing for so long. I would have liked it actually, it would mean more moolah for them, more people working on everything and more popularity for Oddworld things. Hell, even if nothing came of this, i'm pretty sure that this whole affair brought attention to Oddworld by people who had never heard of it before and maybe even a small surge of new sales. Kudos to them!
|
:
When I saw the letter the first thing I thought was that this was going to create even more exposure for Oddworld, especially as this has been relayed by so many website. And yes, should they have been chosen I'm pretty sure they would have loved to do it and hired more people in order to make it happen. I just hope Wil is a MGS fan as well :p |
So they offer to take on the franchise, get turned down and then pretend to kindly decline the offer? Wut?
Please don't pretend you're one of the big guys, JAW... because you're not. |
:
I was working at the time this was cooked up obviously so im not clear on the details, but from what i overheard it was just a bit of fun done by our PR guy when he saw the news about MGS. My guess is that Stew ok'd it for the website because he thought it was funny, but i can assure you neither of them expected the response, nor actually meant anything serious by it. Now i'm not claiming to know what goes on in Stew's head, but im 99.9% sure there was no intention there to actually attempt a remake of MGS, the open letter was just a 'fun thing to do'. |
:
|
:
|
:
|
:
Also for the record, we were never turned down. Just to put that whole "saying no after being told no" weirdness to bed. |
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.
|