Game Over For Mega Man?

Blue is the new color for shocking cancellations and an uncertain future. Mega Man lost his last life and the Game Over screen this time could very well be permanent. I’m not just talking about the Mega Man Legends 3 cancellation that was announced last week, but about the Blue Bomber in all his incarnations. Mega Man was a versatile contender in the gaming market with his legendary side-scrolling gameplay, action-RPGs and even arcade-styled fighting games. However, with the Blue Bomber’s less than stellar track record over the past decade and Keiji Inafune leaving Capcom last year, one must ask if Mega Man has been reduced to just an icon of our childhood. Alas, I must concede that Capcom recognized this much earlier than we did.

STAGE SELECT – SALES

Mega Man’s exploits in the market are mediocre at best and dubious at worst. Except for original games in the NES era, a few entries in the Battle Network series, the first two X games for the SNES and the retro-styled Mega Man 9, it is clear that the Blue Bomber’s games never sold like other Capcom IPs such as Street Fighter or Resident Evil. Capcom tried to remedy this with sequels, reboots and spinoff games, but Mega Man never seemed to reach that last stage of success. The Blue Bomber’s decline can be traced to the last decade alone by short-lived reboots and successors to the franchise.

Maverick Hunter X and Mega Man Powered Up, for example, were supposed to be complete reboots of the series for the PSP, but never made it past their first debuts. Mega Man ZX for the DS was supposed to be a continuation of the Zero series and stopped at Advent, even though Advent’s secret ending clearly pointed towards a sequel. And then there was the promising Mega Man Star Force series, the spiritual sequel to Capcom’s successful Battle Network games which went from yearly installments to two-year interludes to nothing at all.

Fans suspected the worst, and Capcom concluded that Mega Man was just not selling. 

 

*Source: gamrReview

**Note: Sales numbers are based on worldwide, lifetime totals.
***Mega Man Star Force 2 sales: 543,753

Mega Man’s only successes in the past decade were the two Star Force games and the two 8-bit reboots in 2007/2008 and 2008/2010 respectively. For the Star Force series, it was evidently in decline by the 400,000 sales margin difference on the second installment alone. Mega Man 9 sales are harder to track being a downloadable title, but Christian Svensson, Capcom’s VP of Strategic Planning, scored it as a financial success in 2009, “We’ve had the highest revenue-generating Xbox Live title, we’ve had the highest revenue-generating Wii title, [and] we’re definitely in the top three or four on the PlayStation network.”

Svensson, however, was cautious when asked about the performance of Mega Man 9 and 10 in a June 2011 interview with IGN: “Yes, we were pleased with the results. Let me also say don’t let the 8-bit nature of those games make you think that they didn’t cost much to make because they were not inexpensive. They were efforts, in many cases, larger than most of our other digital efforts in terms of budget. They are not small. We are modestly pleased with how 9 and 10 did.”

It’s striking how Capcom called Mega Man 9 its “highest revenue title” in 2009 and now downplays its success. Mega Man 10 in contrast had no such press, and instead is teamed with its predecessor a year later as a game that Capcom is “modestly pleased” with. Additionally, Svensson’s citing production costs, creator Keiji Inafune’s leave of Capcom and the cancellation of Mega Man Universe and Legends 3  are all alarming for the Blue Bomber’s future.   

LEVEL HAZARDS – INAFUNE, THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY & CAPCOM

Inafune made numerous headlines last year with his infamous prophecies of doom about the Japanese gaming industry being “finished” and his discontent at Capcom’s working environment, which all but foreshadowed his resignation. Inafune’s departure of Capcom should not have affected the likelihood of new Mega Man games, but serious questions on those prospects were raised when in March of 2011 Mega Man Universe was canned and Legends 3 shared the same fate in July. Capcom tried to address this concern in a FAQ posted along with the Legends 3 cancellation:   

Q. Is the cancellation of MML3 related to the departure of Inafune-san?
A. The cancellation of the MML3 project is in no way related to Inafune-san leaving the company.

Except Inafune revealed Capcom had a lot of new ideas rejected, and that he had to break rules in order to make new IPs like Dead Rising and Lost Planet. Andriasang reported that in a seminar at Ritsumeikan University, Inafune cited a policy from management that required 70 to 80% of game production to focus on sequels and the remaining 20% on new ideas. Inafune observed that most new ideas were rejected anyway.

Nevertheless, Inafune kept his teams working on titles like Dead Rising and Lost Planet, which ended up running 400% over their prototype budget; Inafune was approved to finish work on the games. Mega Man Universe being canceled made sense under this context: in an interview with 1UP Inafune noted that Universe “kind of started to cancel” as soon as he left Capcom and felt like he was the only one “pushing” for it. Inafune’s accounts strongly suggest that Legends 3 was a consequence of him leaving Capcom. 

And even with no new Mega Man game on the horizon, Capcom insists that the Blue Bomber is neither dead nor abandoned:

Q. This is the second Mega Man game cancelled this year, what does this mean for the future of the Mega Man Franchise?

A. Mega Man is still an important franchise within Capcom’s portfolio and we will continue to pursue opportunities to create new titles in the series.

MEGA MAN – CONTINUE?

Is it Game Over for Mega Man? For Capcom, the Blue Bomber might have missed his last jump over the spiked pit, but the Continue option remains uncertain. For the fans? The answer is fully charged, Mega Buster resounding: NO. Mega Man will endure in the form of fan made games, artists, musicians and in the memories of its fans.

Mega Man Perfect Harmony, a co-opt 4-player classic platformer showcases what could have been the next evolution of Mega Man’s gameplay. Artists on DeviantArt and book projects like UDON’s Mega Man Tribute illustrate how Mega Man inspires the imagination. Comics like Archie’s Mega Man or UDON’s localization of Hitoshi Ariga’s Mega Man Gigamix series are testament to the endless adventures that the Blue Bomber has outside of games. Capcom’s sound team is even on the action, with a September release on the horizon of the “We are ROCK-MEN”, a collection of arrangements and remixes on Mega Man music up to the X series. Additionally, musicians and composers at OverClocked ReMix have two album projects readied called “Maverick Rising” (based on the X series of music) and the “Mega Man 9 ReMix Project.” 

Mega Man might just be an icon of Capcom’s bygone days, but for gamers everywhere he is still blasting Robot Masters and storming Dr. Wily’s castle.