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Executive Meddling/Video Games: Difference between revisions
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* Developers for ''[[The Sims]] 2'' complained about how executives pressured the team to use more particle effects in the game so they could ''put that as a bullet point on the box''. So, we got people walking around with green smoke coming out of their arms when low on hygiene, green smoke coming out of food that had gone bad, and so forth. Unrealistic it may be, it at least came in handy as a visual aid.
** Ironically, many users find such effects "annoying" and there are multiple user-made hacks available to eliminate them.
* ''[[Star Fox Adventures]]'' is the result of this trope. Originally, the game was to be called ''Dinosaur Planet'' and had no ties whatsoever with the ''Star Fox'' franchise. Krystal and a male fox were the main characters. But since Nintendo was behind schedule with a ''Star Fox'' sequel, they forced [[Rare]] into changing the plot and characters around. The male fox was axed, Krystal was aged up and became the [[
** Well, Sabre, the character Fox replaced, is a reference to Sabrewulf (so he's a wolf) and Krystal was originally an orphaned cat back then. It was also supposed to be a [[Nintendo 64]] game.
* The end result from ''[[Inherit the Earth]]'' was ''defined'' by Executive Meddling. Originally intended to be a mature game, the publishers saw that the main character was a fox and forced the developers to cater to the 8-12 market at every turn (Because every [[Funny Animal]] story is kid-friendly, [[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?|right?]]). Then refused to let the developers create a sequel.
* The Sony [[
** And pretty well justified, since it would've been far [[Too Soon]].
* The story goes that one of the designers of ''[[Full Throttle]]'', a game about a biker who kicked the crap out of people and was investigating the brutal bludgeoning murder of an old man by a ruthless [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] who had also ordered the old man's daughter killed, and had further framed him and his gang for the foul deed, had an idea where the lead goes on a peyote-fueled quasi-dream sequence that took place inside his own head. The executives at [[Lucas Arts]] said no, as that would be inappropriate material. That designer nonetheless held onto the seed of the idea, and eventually created ''[[Psychonauts]]''.
* Whether it was a more executive decision or not is unknown, but apparently the 'Meat Flag' muliplayer game mode for ''[[Gears of War]] 2'' by [[Epic Games]] was renamed 'Submission' at the behest of the PR team at Microsoft.
* The notorious ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' and ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' games on the Phillips CD-i system were a result of several years' worth of Executive Meddling. During the early nineties, just as Sega was coming out with the Sega CD/Mega CD, Nintendo decided to develop [[SNESCDROM|a CD-based add-on of their own for the Super Nintendo]] with Sony, one that would be able to play new, 32-bit CD-based games in addition to the original SNES library. A while into their co-operation, however, Nintendo realized that letting just anyone develop games for the CD add-on meant that Nintendo would lose their absolute control over the games released on their systems, so they decided to give Sony the cold shoulder and, completely by surprise, announced that they were going to work with Phillips on the CD add-on from there on. Nintendo's CD add-on never saw the light of day, and to compensate for their hard work, they gave Phillips the right to publish games based on four or five Nintendo characters. The worst part for Nintendo? Sony continued the project by themselves, creating the Sony [[
** Both this specific event and [[Executive Meddling]] in general have everything to do with [[Square]]'s falling out with Nintendo, as well. Square was a ''huge'' supporter of the CD peripheral, had plans to use it, and loudly criticized Nintendo deciding to drop the project. Nintendo punished Square for its vocal criticism by refusing to allow expanded memory carts from some of their ambitious projects late in the SFC's life cycle, like ''[[Bahamut Lagoon]]'' or ''[[Rudra no Hihou]].'' Further, the failure of the Sega CD and the inability of their own CD add-on to ever get off the ground convinced Nintendo that disc-based game systems were a dead end, leading to the cartridge-based N64 -- Square quickly realized the N64 and its cartridges weren't capable of running the games they wanted to make and went over to developing for Sony systems.
* ''[[Command and Conquer|Tiberium]]'' was to be the second FPS set in the C&C universe. It had a solid, original concept at its heart: you play as a GDI Forward Battle Commander, actively leading your AI-controlled troops from the front lines. It had a terrific art style; everything in the game world had a realistic, hard sci-fi look to it. It had the fans of the series salivating with anticipation... and then was suddenly canceled with no reasoning cited other than "failing to meet quality standards." Shortly after the game's cancellation, several disillusioned developers of the game [http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20462 began posting on Gamasutra], and from these testimonies comes a rather depressing tale. It seems that the project was doomed by its leadership, or lack thereof. According to the posters at Gamasutra, many of the lead producers (and there were apparently several) were less experienced than many of their subordinates and were only recently promoted to their positions. There was much jockeying for power, with each producer trying to outdo or replace the work done by their predecessors (including gutting the FPS/RTS mechanic at its core). At least one poster claims these managers were actively trying to sabotage the project and thus save face rather than have a broken game released with their names attached. Even if only half of it is true, it's a fact that this game was in development for a good 5 years, getting nowhere, and no one seemed to want to save it.
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** Interestingly, the game's director has said on occasion that he actually likes ''Indigo Prophecy'' better as a title, and wishes every region carried it (not to mention the fact that the game continuously uses ''centigrade'' to signify temperature). As for the sex scenes compared to the violence...well that's a case of [[Values Dissonance]].
** The apparent reason for the game's story taking a nosedive into [[Gainax Ending|Crazyland]] is that the developers ran out of time and money before the could finish it the way they wanted.
* ''[[Super Mario Bros. 2]]'' came into being because Nintendo of America didn't think [[Super Mario Bros the Lost Levels|the original Japanese game of that name]] was different enough from the first one as well as considering it [[Platform Hell|too hard for US audiences.]]
** That should count as positive meddling. [[Super Mario Bros. 2]] was certainly very different from the original Mario game and most of its sequels - no pipes leading to subterranean treasure rooms, no jumping-on-heads-to-kill-baddies mechanic, no power-up mushrooms - but it was still great. Shy-Guys, Bob-Ombs and Birdo, all originally [[SMB 2]]-specific characters, have since become staples of the Marioverse ensemble.
* When the trailers for ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'' featured a white man mowing down a sea of black Majini (zombies), cries of [[Unfortunate Implications|racism]] ensued, led by ''Newsweek'' game reviewer N'Gai Croal. Producer Jun Takeuchi and Capcom claimed not to be influenced by the moral panic, but the following trailer depicted racially diverse zombies, including Arab (if it's North Africa, fine) Majini, and later a new female African sidekick was unveiled.
** In the actual game, you fight spear throwing savages, so at least you can't fault them for being overly sensitive. Strange, though, considering that no-one minds if you gun down insane Spaniards out for your blood yet insane Africans out for your blood cause a riot.
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** And despite all of this, Arika is very stingy about fans making clones of their games to counteract the lack of a proper console ''TGM'' port. If you decide to upload a video of yourself playing the clones ''Heboris'' or ''Texmaster'' on [[YouTube]], prepare to remove all references to TGM and either game's title unless you want Arika to have your video taken down. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDJQP1xg5EY&fmt=18 This video] sums up Arika's and the TTC's meddling, and, as a [[Take That]] to said meddling, showcases a variety of ''Tetris'' clones in a [[Ear Worm|catchy]] music video. Ironically, people playing ''Tetris'' clones have since then put [http://tinyurl.com/tgmFLAGGED "this fan game video will be flagged"] in their videos' tags as a [[Shout-Out]] to that video and as a secret handshake to other fans looking for ''TGM'' videos.
*** [[It Gets Worse]] in May of 2009: Arika is now asking [[YouTube]] to wipe out videos of ''Lockjaw'', another ''Tetris'' clone. Even if said videos are of people playing the "40 Lines" mode, which has almost NOTHING to do with Arika or TGM. Cue the Wall Banging!
* ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' had some meddling in its early life. After the huge success of the first ''Tomb Raider'' game, producers wanted to make Lara Croft [[Most Gamers Are Male|more appealing to the male demographic.]] Toby Gard, the game and character's creator, hated the idea of changing Lara just to [[Pandering to the Base|appeal to the fans]] and he felt like he had less control over his creative ideas. His only other option Edios gave him was to port the first Tomb Raider game to the Nintendo64, which Toby did not agree with either. He wound up leaving Core in disgust, which may explain the series' decline over the [[
** And then he returned to aid in the development of ''Legend'' and ''Anniversary'', both of which saw drastic modification in Lara's character from the previous games. [[Your Mileage May Vary|Your mileage will vary]] regarding whether or not this has had a positive effect on the series, as well as regarding the "decline" seen in the [[
** ''Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation'' was supposed to be the final game in the series, signified by Lara's supposed death in the collapsing tomb at the end of the game. Core Design was done with the series, but Edios still saw the series as a moneymaker and pushed Core to pump out another Tomb Raider game afterwards called ''Tomb Raider Chronicles''. This may explain why the appearance of [[Those Two Bad Guys|Larson and Pierre]] and the time period they appeared in with Lara confused many fans on the continuity.
* Microsoft requires all Xbox 360 games to have a list of achievements for the players to unlock. This may explain why some achievements are a waste of time or are super easy to get. In addition, any out-of-the-box game has to have exactly 1000 gamer points. Add-on content can up this.
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* As many gamers and reviewers have noted, the title of ''[[Beyond Good & Evil (video game)|Beyond Good and Evil]]'' has little to do with the actual game (in which good and evil are pretty obviously defined, and there's nary a [[Nietzsche Wannabe|dying god or abyss gazing also]] in sight). The title, however, was a result of meddling. The game was originally announced as "''Project BG&E''", with the "BG&E" standing for "''Between'' Good and Evil". The title was originally meant to be a reference to the way a [[First-Person Snapshooter|photograph]] can fall anywhere on the sliding scale of [[Character Alignment|Character Alignments]]. The higher-ups didn't like it, and the Nietchze reference was shoehorned in.
** The actual gameplay got meddled, too. The game was trapped in a mild [[Development Hell]], and was originally intended to be ''much'' longer. It was intended to stretch to cover other planets, instead of the one (and the moon) in the final game. Concerns over development time cut the whole game short, so that [[Screwed by the Network|the brand-new IP that no one knew how to handle could be released right alongside the highly-anticipated return of the]] ''[[Prince of Persia]]'' series.
* ''[[Perfect Dark|Perfect Dark Zero]]'' started out on the [[Game Cube]], then [[Microsoft]] bought [[Rare|Rareware]] from [[Nintendo]] in 2002 so they had to restart the development of the game for the [[
* ''[[DJMAX]]'' games from ''DJMAX Portable Black Square'' onwards (save for ''DJMAX Technika'') have an "auto-correct" feature that will hit the correct note for you if you hit the wrong button. It's speculated that Pentavision implemented this feature to avoid legal issues with [[Beatmania|Konami]].
* At some point after releasing ''[[Tales of Eternia]]'', Namco (and after the merge, Bandai Namco) decided not to localize any other 2D Tales game. For that reason, many great [[Tales (series)]] games never got to America (except for ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]'' due to special reasons), such as ''[[Tales of Destiny]] 2'', ''[[Tales of Rebirth]]'', and ''[[Tales of Hearts]]''. ''[[Tales of Eternia]]'' even got a PSP port in 2005, but despite the fact that said port was released in Europe no American version is in sight.
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*** ''Tales of Vesperia'' itself is likely a major source of a lot of meddling, when the [[PlayStation 3]] version was announced, even BEFORE the European version for the 360 was released, with ABNORMALLY high amounts of new content, a lot of japanese fans decided to poke about the DVD and discovered traces of these "added" contents were present in the code already. Then there is the ingame remarks like [http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/09/21/bandai-namco-shamelessly-lied-to-xbox-testers/ this]....and the new character having identifying marks all over the 360 source code. All fingers are pointing at Sony and Namco for this one.
** Regarding ''[[Tales of Eternia]]'', there's actually a different reason for that -- It was originally changed to "Tales of Destiny II" because of potential copyright infringements with ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'' toy lines. Some have suspected this was the reason for the PSP port not getting an American release, but on the plus side, at least the PSP is region-free; and it's possible to get an English version.
* For a game that was ''born'' from [[Executive Meddling]], we have the ''[[Spyro the Dragon]]'' franchise in all its glory. In order to compete with the companies of [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]] and [[Sonic the Hedgehog]], Sony realized that they needed to appeal to the "kids market" in gaming, considering most of the games in the late 90s for the [[
* Sony America has a bad history of refusing to localize [[Video Game Remake|Video Game Remakes]] and [[Updated Rerelease|Updated Rereleases]] unless they have a certain amount of new content added. Such was the case of the PSP version of ''[[Breath of Fire]] 3''.
** For those of you wondering how bad this is, there is a ''full English version'' of the game, but it was released only in Europe.
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** Speaking of ''Mortal Kombat'', while the game was still under their control, [[Midway Games]] was hellbent on turning it into a [[Franchise Zombie]], eventually announcing plans for a new MK game ''every year''. Likely, that led to the poor quality of both ''[[Mortal Kombat Armageddon]]'' and ''[[Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe]]'', and led to their bankruptcy and MK being sold to the more patient [[Warner Bros]].
** ''[[Mortal Kombat 9]]'' has an example of executive meddling that turned out to be positive influence (through YMMV; some see it as unwanted/unnecessary character shilling) - Sony didn't want [[God of War (series)|Kratos]], who is a [[Guest Fighter]] in the game, to look weak, so he keeps his famous angry look on his face even when [[Defiant to the End|being at the receiving end of fatalities]]. It looks very cool.
* The above ''Sonic''-based examples are becoming just the tip of the iceberg, for those in the US and Europe: the recent (as of Jan 2010) cancellation of ''[[Phantasy Star Online|Phantasy Star Universe]]'' for the PC and [[
** For an example of how bad this got: First off, "adding new content" for the US/International server was months behind the Japanese server... when all of the content already existed on the game's disk. Secondly, Sega of Japan had to approve every thing Sega of America did with the server, including vital technical fixes. When the billing server went haywire in the middle of a major, limited-time event and started locking players out, Sega of America immediately put out a notice saying "don't worry, we'll fix the billing server and extend the event to make up for it!" because of course they'd get quick permission to fix such a huge issue, right? Wrong. Due to SoJ taking their time giving SoA the thumbs-up to take action, about a month went by (and the event ended) before fixing even began, and the fix was "just turn the billing server off and let anyone play for free." Only months later was the billing issue truly fixed and the promo event re-run so finally everyone got to play.
* Turns out this is why the ''[[Dynasty Warriors]]'' (and in fact all of the KOEI Warriors games) have their infamous voice acting; the localizations have to be done on schedule regardless of quality, and the international subsidiaries need the permission of KOEI Japan to use the original voice acting; that hasn't been the case in America since ''[[Samurai Warriors]]'' in 2004, and ''Dynasty Warriors 3'' before it.
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