And its for largely the same issues, marketing. FighterZ is a one-off licensing of the Dragonball IP by Arc System Works published by Bandai Namco(who have had the Dragonball IP for video games basically forever)
In mid-February Bandai Namco is releasing a new game (Jump Force) which will contain some of the more famous dragonball characters, and suddenly FighterZ is barred from EVO Japan.
FighterZ is widely considered the best fighting game to come out in 2018, and is getting a bit of best game -full stop- consideration, and its competitive scene may die on the vine in the hope the next project will be just as good.
Worse still, this is incredibly short sighted by the publisher. while the general public won't know most of the information in the proceeding paragraphs, you can bet the FGC(fighting game community) does. They'll be well aware how they were jerked around by Namco Bandai and it will be much harder for them to get top billing(and all that free advertisement) in future events after these kind of games.
The FGC is all about complete mastery of one game, these are the kinds of people still playing smash bros. melee 17 years after it came out, and playing Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo edition 24! years after its release. If they'e worried that within a year of a games release its going to be competitively banned, they'll never even pick it up to begin with. And its been shown multiple times, if the FGC doesn't bother with your game, sales just won't happen (see: marvel:infinite).
And if the narrative of "Jump Force killed the FighterZ competitive scene" spreads enough you might not just see indifference(which the strength of the IP might overcome) but actual negativity. That'll completely torpedo the product. Imagine if instead of ignoring that other shoe companies exist, Lebron James was out there saying Addidas was an example of everything wrong with basketball shoes. That's how bad this could get for Bandai Namco.
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Re: Dragon Ball FighterZ is another example
In mid-February Bandai Namco is releasing a new game (Jump Force) which will contain some of the more famous dragonball characters, and suddenly FighterZ is barred from EVO Japan.
FighterZ is widely considered the best fighting game to come out in 2018, and is getting a bit of best game -full stop- consideration, and its competitive scene may die on the vine in the hope the next project will be just as good.
Worse still, this is incredibly short sighted by the publisher. while the general public won't know most of the information in the proceeding paragraphs, you can bet the FGC(fighting game community) does. They'll be well aware how they were jerked around by Namco Bandai and it will be much harder for them to get top billing(and all that free advertisement) in future events after these kind of games.
The FGC is all about complete mastery of one game, these are the kinds of people still playing smash bros. melee 17 years after it came out, and playing Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo edition 24! years after its release. If they'e worried that within a year of a games release its going to be competitively banned, they'll never even pick it up to begin with. And its been shown multiple times, if the FGC doesn't bother with your game, sales just won't happen (see: marvel:infinite).
And if the narrative of "Jump Force killed the FighterZ competitive scene" spreads enough you might not just see indifference(which the strength of the IP might overcome) but actual negativity. That'll completely torpedo the product. Imagine if instead of ignoring that other shoe companies exist, Lebron James was out there saying Addidas was an example of everything wrong with basketball shoes. That's how bad this could get for Bandai Namco.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Steven.
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