Capcom outsourced production in an effort to attract Western audiences
Capcom's efforts to gain more of an insight into what overseas users wanted in its games led it to move toward more outsourced development, a move that eventually backfired and forced the developer to retreat back to its in-house teams.
Capcom's efforts to gain more of an insight into what overseas users wanted in its games led it to move toward more outsourced development, a move that eventually backfired and forced the developer to retreat back to its in-house teams.
When asked during a financials Q&A session why the company had started to rely more on third-party developers, Capcom said the idea was to "effectively develop titles that reflect the preferences of consumers in overseas markets. This is why we outsourced production activities to a number of prominent developers in Europe and North America." It said that it did not have enough internal development teams to support the number of titles it had wanted to release.
It was this misguided attempt to appeal to the mainstream audience that led to Resident Evil 6's change in direction, one that ultimately led to disappointing sales and forced Capcom to rethink the move.
As a result, Capcom will be reducing its focus on outsourcing, and will cancel some times. "There were a few titles scheduled for the current fiscal year," it said, "but most of the cancellations were for releases planned in the fiscal year ending March 2015, and subsequent fiscal years. No titles that had already been announced were canceled."
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replyJohn Keefer posted a new article, Capcom outsourced production in an effort to attract Western audiences.
Capcom's efforts to gain more of an insight into what overseas users wanted in its games led it to move toward more outsourced development, a move that eventually backfired and forced the developer to retreat back to its in-house teams.-
Had no idea that RE6 was outsourced; I know that the PC port was outsourced but didn't know that the actual game production was outsourced. No wonder it was an annoying clusterfuck of action and QTEs. I liked the story but the gameplay was a bunch of repetitive, uninspired sequences of clearing out an area and moving on. WANNA FIND THE THREE KEYS!? HERE, FEND OFF THESE ANNOYING UN-KILLABLE BOWs... EVERY SINGLE TIME. Such a load of cookie-cutter bullshit.
I really wanted to REALLY enjoy the game but there was no time to enjoy it, KILL EVERYTHING AND MOVE ON! -
RE6 wasn't outsourced. This is in reference to things like Operation Raccoon City from Slant Six, and Armature working on the cancelled MegaMan X shooter.
It's kinda funny, since I remember Jeff and Ryan in the 12-14-2010 Bombcast talking about this systemic problem with Japanese developers trying and failing to make Western-esque games (and this was in the middle of Jeff describing playing through Bayonetta):
Jeff: "I feel like you have too many Japanese developers that say that they're trying to cater to the Western audience, and then not nailing THAT either..."
Ryan: "...not knowing what the means!"
Jeff: "...or kind of cribbing the wrong stuff from popular Western games, and you end up with stuff like Lost Planet 2 or Quantum Theory, games that just don't get it. And I can't imagine that they're popular [in Japan] ... well, Lost Planet, probably, but Quantum Theory, no one in Japan's playing Quantum Theory either, right?"
This is on the Japanese publisher-side producers not being able to right the ship, considering that titles like RE6, RE:ORC, and all the Street Fighter re-releases had too much inertia to change direction. It's not merely because Capcom chose to have Western studios develop games (and remember that Dead Rising 2, made by Blue Castle in Vancouver, was highly regarded in late 2010); it's because the project direction had focus problems that are only now surfacing, because Capcom's financials are down because internally-developed RE6 sold far below excessively lofty expectations, and DmC made by Ninja Theory didn't set the world on fire. http://www.shacknews.com/article/78794/resident-evil-6-dmc-below-expectations-capcom-cites-excessive-outsourcing
The developer outsourcing thing is a scapegoat to deflect focus from Capcom's own organizational problems that have been brewing since 2008.-
excellent insights, Archvile. I wish we could get this kind of info more readily, more often, especially on non-Western publishers and developers but it is so often so hard to obtain.
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