New Red Ash Deal Only Adds to Fans' Confusion

Keiji Inafune continues to push the line with his Kickstarter campaign for Red Ash, and Grab It discusses what the latest news means for fans as the game picks up a rookie publisher.

[SlappingOysters]

I've lost all faith in this whole project; it's just a mess. Like Mega Man was good, but it become a joke by the end. And just how involved was Inafune in Dead Rising and Lost Planet - they had big teams. (great games though)

[Macka1080]

So much of this mess could have been avoided with better communication. If the Kickstarter had been completely open about its goals and potential alternative sources of funding, then at least everyone would have known what they were getting themselves into.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

The heck is red ash? Isn't Keiji doing mighty no 9? Why is he doing another kickstarter for a game when MN9 isnt even released?

[Kalebninja]

think hes doing all this at ones to sprout a new company that will eventually be like the rest. i mean two games and a cartoon series? that's not something you just do to do.

[akiraburn]

Red Ash is essentially the same kind of game as Mega Man Legends. I would call it a spiritual sibling. Using the Beck character from MN9, but with a different model design, he's dropped into an action-RPG in an open-world kind of design.

As for why he's doing another Kickstarter, MN9 releases in September, and typically speaking companies like to get started planning and developing their next games immediately. Even if MN9 is a success, it simply wouldn't be enough funding to finances their own titles yet. Additionally, I believe that most of the MN9 team will still be working on that game, possibly for DLC, patches and updates, and/or a sequel. Meanwhile, a separate team of individuals will work on Red Ash.

Personally, I don't believe that the timing of the release is much of an issue. Quite a number of other companies have taken the same approach and it worked out well. The real problems are regarding the constant miscommunications, the poor timings for many things (including the launch timeframe for the project and several important updates coinciding with other events), and the initial constricted plans for release (initially only on Windows PC on Steam, no consoles, no other OS's, and no other distribution platforms).

I was a tremendous fan of Mega Man Legends and still own both games' original discs, and I am a current backer on the project, but there are many things I'm disappointed with on how he handled this.

I really think it would benefit him at this point to cancel the KS and re-launch it later with lower goals and a better team managing the entire campaign. With only two and a half days or so left, over $310K needed just to meet the base goal, and an equal amount of backers leaving to the amount that he's gaining, he won't be hitting that goal unless something unprecedented happens. Looking at MN9 and how that KS was handled compared to this, is like a night and day situation. There's so much that was done correctly back then, and so much that was approached wrong with this one.

[Macka1080]

Great comment. You've captured the essence of the situation perfectly.

[shipnabottle]

interesting development. I'm still amazed that some things even need a Kickstarter to get off the ground, given the support they get once the kickstarter is up and running I would have thought a lot of these projects surely could have secured funding without it.