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133-521: PlatinumGames Inc. is a Japanese video game developer that was founded in October 2007 as result of a merger between two companies, Seeds Inc. and Odd Inc. Shinji Mikami , Atsushi Inaba , and Hideki Kamiya founded Seeds Inc. after the closure of Capcom 's Clover Studio , while Odd Inc. was founded by Tatsuya Minami. A year after the studio was founded, video game publisher Sega announced that it would be publishing four intellectual properties developed by

266-588: A database , Voice over IP , or add-in interface software; this is also known as middleware . Examples of this include SpeedTree and Havoc . Independents are software developers which are not owned by (or dependent on) a single publisher. Some of these developers self-publish their games, relying on the Internet and word of mouth for publicity. Without the large marketing budgets of mainstream publishers, their products may receive less recognition than those of larger publishers such as Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. With

399-461: A "Platinum taste". While the company developed an expertise in action games, Saito claimed that the studio learned from every project and will apply this knowledge to their new games and genres. The company also hopes to innovate by introducing new elements in both original titles or licensed games. According to PlatinumGames, a good action game should be "passive" and feature a "unique selling point"; replay value that allows players to hone their skills;

532-407: A 9/10 rating. IGN gave the game a 9/10, praising the style, gameplay, and music, but criticizing the camera and short length, though it mentions that the hard difficulty level lengthens the game and increases the challenge considerably. About.com felt the game was more flash than substance, giving it a 3/5 and stating: "Divorced of its unique graphics and over-the-top presentation, this is actually

665-496: A collision detection system and a complex system for how the blood would interact with Jack's clothing. Early builds of the game resulted in disorientation and eye strain due to the lack of colors. To avoid this, the developers limited the amount of on-screen movement and adjusted the game's textures to include more gradual changes from black to white. While some of MadWorld relies on the Havok engine for modeling physical interactions in

798-464: A comedic effect. Inaba played a variety of games, such as Manhunt 2 , to see how they portrayed serious violence and to avoid making those same choices with MadWorld . Nishikawa chose to focus entirely on combat, omitting extraneous puzzle-solving or collection elements, with the goal of making the game easy to play in short sessions. The game's motion controls were designed to be as intuitive as possible, with Inaba reflecting that "we've come to believe

931-452: A culture of "toxic geek masculinity" within the workplace. In addition, the conditions behind crunch time are far more discriminating towards women as this requires them to commit time exclusively to the company or to more personal activities like raising a family. These factors established conditions within some larger development studios where female developers have found themselves discriminated in workplace hiring and promotion, as well as

1064-453: A factor of realism, were modeled with particles in MadWorld , but using specially-designed images to retain the comic book style. To overcome the lighting issues, the main character of Jack was modeled with two different textures, one used when he was in a bright area, and second used in dark areas that highlighted the main lines of the character's face. Jack and other principal characters from

1197-571: A first-party company. As a balance to not being able to release their game for other platforms, second-party developers are usually offered higher royalty rates than third-party developers. These studios may have exclusive publishing agreements (or other business relationships) with the platform holder, but maintain independence so that upon completion or termination of their contracts, they are able to continue developing games for other publishers if they choose to. For example, while HAL Laboratory initially began developing games on personal computers like

1330-410: A fixed period and generally work similar hours as full-time staff members, assisting across all areas of video game development, but as contractors, do not get any benefits such as paid time-off or health care from the employer; they also are typically not credited on games that they work on for this reason. The practice itself is legal and common in other engineering and technology areas, and generally it

1463-523: A foe. The number of points for beating foes increases by increasing the foe's power or using more unusual methods of winning. For example, while the player could throw an enemy on a wall, the player will earn significantly more points if they had previously forced a tire around the enemy. The player controls Jack from a third-person perspective using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk attachment for attacks and movement, respectively. MadWorld does not make use of

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1596-403: A game on schedule. The complexity of workflow, reliance on third-party deliverables, and the intangibles of artistic and aesthetic demands in video game creation create difficulty in predicting milestones. The use of crunch time is also seen to be exploitative of the younger male-dominated workforce in video games, who have not had the time to establish a family and who were eager to advance within

1729-406: A game's profits. Current examples of first-party studios include PlayStation Studios for Sony, and Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Gaming . Second-party developer is a colloquial term often used by gaming enthusiasts and media to describe game studios that take development contracts from platform holders and develop games exclusive to that platform, i.e. a non-owned developer making games for

1862-399: A man with a chainsaw attached to his prosthetic arm, enters the games and manages to gain sponsorship from "Agent XIII" ( Jim Ward ). The game's organizers, led by Noa ( Dwight Schultz ), know Jack's motive is more than just to win, and learn that Jack works with someone on the outside. They come to learn that Jack was a former marine , police officer, and rogue agent, but now seems intent on

1995-443: A mission. Noa surmises that Jack is after Naomi Ann Boris ( Kate Higgins ), the mayor's daughter working in the city. While they plan to kill Jack, they realize he became an audience favorite, with many sponsors and viewers betting on his success. Meanwhile, Jack meets Leo Fallmont ( Danny Cooksey ), a hospital doctor who was unwittingly trapped in the city but managed to obtain the vaccine. After telling Leo to stay low, Jack continues

2128-437: A position in a medium to large video game company. An experienced game-development employee, depending on their expertise and experience, averaged roughly $ 73,000 in 2007. Indie game developers may only earn between $ 10,000 and $ 50,000 a year depending on how financially successful their titles are. In addition to being part of the software industry, game development is also within the entertainment industry; most sectors of

2261-541: A rather mediocre beat-em-up." Game Informer disagreed, praising the deep combat system and arguing: "for an amateur to become a talented executioner, you'll have to lash out creatively, prolonging your victim's death through multiple phases of pain. MadWorld runs the gamut in violence, taking an encyclopedic approach to its variety in kills. Some of the bloodletting will make you squirm uncomfortably." IGN opined: " MadWorld does not place emphasis on style over gameplay...there's plenty of fun, smart mechanics to back up

2394-624: A roundtable discussion with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the professional association for developers. Statements made by the IGDA's current executive director Jen MacLean relating to IGDA's activities had been seen by as anti-union, and Game Workers Unite desired to start a conversation to lay out the need for developers to unionize. In the wake of the sudden near-closure of Telltale Games in September 2018,

2527-529: A sequel to the game, served as the game's supervisor. Replacing Kamiya as the game's director is Yusuke Hashimoto. Hashimoto focused on refining the original's combat, and extending the game's replay value . Bayonetta 2 received critical acclaim on its launch, with several gaming publications awarding the game a perfect score. Though Nintendo did not comment on the game's sales, the title sold only 38,828 copies in Japan in its first week of release, faring much worse than

2660-407: A single publisher; one canceled game may devastate a small developer. Because of this, many small development companies are short-lived. A common exit strategy for a successful video game developer is to sell the company to a publisher, becoming an in-house developer. In-house development teams tend to have more freedom in game design and content than third-party developers. One reason is that since

2793-403: A strong STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) background for women at the secondary education level, but there are issues with tertiary education such as at colleges and universities, where game development programs tend to reflect the male-dominated demographics of the industry, a factor that may lead women with strong STEM backgrounds to choose other career goals. There

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2926-732: A strong leading character; and should not follow conventional design philosophy. Video game developer A developer may specialize in specific game engines or specific video game consoles , or may develop for several systems (including personal computers and mobile devices ). Some focus on porting games from one system to another, or translating games from one language to another. Less commonly, some do software development work in addition to games. Most video game publishers maintain development studios (such as Electronic Arts 's EA Canada , Square Enix 's studios, Activision 's Radical Entertainment , Nintendo EPD and Sony's Polyphony Digital and Naughty Dog ). However, since publishing

3059-484: A true Japanese style". At the request of Inaba, the music styles included hip hop and rock , taking inspirations from the mashup album Collision Course from Linkin Park and Jay-Z . Tanaka created the backtracks first using Cubase SX and ACID , then gave these, along with the general theme of the level associated with the music, to the artists for them to add lyrics and other performances. Tanaka received feedback from

3192-682: A unique case where nearly all parts of its labor force, including white-collar jobs such as video game development, may engage with labor unions under the Employment Protection Act often through collective bargaining agreements. Developer DICE had reached its union agreements in 2004. Paradox Interactive became one of the first major publishers to support unionization efforts in June 2020 with its own agreements to cover its Swedish employees within two labor unions Unionen and SACO . In Australia, video game developers could join other unions, but

3325-439: A unique style. Comic-book style text and sound effects are also used in the game. The main character, Jack, was designed to be "big and tough" rather than traditionally heroic, with an appearance that suggests he "has been worn down by the world." MadWorld was developed primarily for a Western audience, and the team extensively analyzed American pop culture in search of material that was so extreme and unrealistic it produced

3458-521: A website titled "Platinum 4", revolving around four announcements, which included: In addition to these announcements, the research and development side of Platinum had been developing a new in-house game engine named PlatinumEngine to power its new titles. Chief technology officer Wataru Ohmori said that the need for a custom engine over other existing solutions like Unreal or Unity was needed to give them better customization and control over their games, and to improve their performance. He said, "We came to

3591-558: A western audience and had a unique art style inspired by that of Sin City . The original story was written by Yasumi Matsuno , who had previously worked on Square Enix 's Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics , while PlatinumGames and Sega jointly localized the title for the West. The team created the game with a vision of bringing a unique game to the Wii . While the game received positive reviews, it

3724-512: Is "a lot easier to pick up." The game's use of over-the-top violence was intentional to add humor to it. The game's story was written by Yasumi Matsuno , famous for his design in the Ogre Battle series and a number of Square Enix titles. Matsuno was given two opposing guidelines to writing the scenario. While the development team ruled that violence should acceptable in the game's world, Inaba expressed his desire for violence to be "denied in

3857-485: Is a multi-platform title. According to executive producer Atsushi Inaba, the company worked with Sega to create the game's sequel. It was later cancelled in the middle of the game's development until Nintendo offered to work with the company to revive it and fund the project. Sega only served as the game's advisor. Inaba added that Nintendo did not actively interfere with the game's development, and compared its role to that of an observer. Kamiya, who originally did not expect

3990-516: Is a publisher which allows the team to have much creative control over their games. In 2011, PlatinumGames announced that they had extended their partnership with a new title called Max Anarchy . The game was released in western territories as Anarchy Reigns in 2013. The game serves as a sequel to MadWorld , but it does not feature the Sin City graphic style, though players assume control of MadWorld ' s protagonist Jack Cayman for most parts of

4123-473: Is also a significant gap in racial minorities within the video game industry; a 2019 IGDA survey found only 2% of developers considered themselves to be of African descent and 7% Hispanic, while 81% were Caucasian; in contrast, 2018 estimates from the United States Census estimate the U.S. population to be 13% of African descent and 18% Hispanic. In a 2014 and 2015 survey of job positions and salaries,

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4256-449: Is expected that this is meant to lead into a full-time position, or otherwise the end of the contract. But more recently, its use in the video game industry has been compared to Microsoft 's past use of " permatemp ", contract workers that were continually renewed and treated for all purposes as employees but received no benefits. While Microsoft has waned from the practice, the video game industry has adapted it more frequently. Around 10% of

4389-533: Is generally illegal, companies often target their oldest workers first during layoffs or other periods of reduction. Older developers with experience may find themselves too qualified for the types of positions that other game development companies seek given the salaries and compensations offered. Some of the larger video game developers and publishers have also engaged contract workers through agencies to help add manpower in game development in part to alleviate crunch time from employees. Contractors are brought on for

4522-494: Is still their primary activity they are generally described as "publishers" rather than "developers". Developers may be private as well. In the video game industry , a first-party developer is part of a company that manufactures a video game console and develops mainly for it. First-party developers may use the name of the company itself (such as Nintendo ), have a specific division name (such as Sony's Polyphony Digital ) or have been an independent studio before being acquired by

4655-403: Is the "Bloodbath Challenge", a time-limited minigame that rewards the player for completing a specific type of activity with additional points. For example, the player may need to attempt to swing a bat at foes to knock them into a giant dartboard to score points, or to ensure foes are trapped in front of a speeding train. Outside of these challenges, the player is awarded points for every defeat of

4788-474: Is usually conducted in a casual business environment, with t-shirts and sandals as common work attire. Many workers find this type of environment rewarding and pleasant professionally and personally. However, the industry also requires long working hours from its employees (sometimes to an extent seen as unsustainable). Employee burnout is not uncommon. An entry-level programmer can make, on average, over $ 66,000 annually only if they are successful in obtaining

4921-541: The Bayonetta series. The studio worked on creating new installments in other studios' franchises, with the studio taking primary development duties on Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance for Konami , Star Fox Zero for Nintendo, and Nier: Automata for Square Enix . PlatinumGames was founded by the merger of Seeds Inc. and Odd Inc. in October 2007. Seeds Inc. had been founded by Shinji Mikami , Atsushi Inaba , and Hideki Kamiya on August 1, 2006. Prior to establishing

5054-639: The AFL–CIO writing an open letter to video game developers encouraging them to unionize. In January 2020, Game Workers Unite and the Communications Workers of America established a new campaign to push for unionization of video game developers, the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE), in January 2020. Initial efforts for CODE were aimed to determine what approach to unionization would be best suited for

5187-456: The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), are conducting increasing discussions about the problem; they are concerned that working conditions in the industry cause a significant deterioration in employees' quality of life. Some video game developers and publishers have been accused of the excessive invocation of "crunch time". "Crunch time" is the point at which the team is thought to be failing to achieve milestones needed to launch

5320-508: The MSX , they became one of the earliest second-party developers for Nintendo, developing exclusively for Nintendo's consoles starting with the Famicom, though they would self-publish their mobile games. A third-party developer may also publish games, or work for a video game publisher to develop a title. Both publisher and developer have considerable input in the game's design and content. However,

5453-517: The Me Too movement and have tried to address the symptoms of these problems industry-wide, the video game industry has yet to have its Me Too-moment, even as late as 2021. There also tends to be pay-related discrimination against women in the industry. According to Gamasutra 's Game Developer Salary Survey 2014, women in the United States made 86 cents for every dollar men made. Game designing women had

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5586-504: The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) union doing work for video games struck several major publishers, demanding better royalty payments and provisions related to the safety of their vocal performances, when their union's standard contract was up for renewal. The voice actor strike lasted for over 300 days into 2017 before a new deal was made between SAG-AFTRA and

5719-550: The video game industry . He told the Los Angeles Times : "Someone who was part of the co-creation of that world and those characters isn't getting a credit or a nickel for the work they put into it. Maybe we need unions in the video game industry to be able to protect creators." MadWorld MadWorld is a beat 'em up hack and slash video game developed by PlatinumGames , published by Sega , produced by Atsushi Inaba , and directed by Shigenori Nishikawa. It

5852-524: The "highest level of unique interest" based on user input at IGN , ranks 41st in OTX's sales metric for all Wii titles. Sales of the game have reached 123,000 units in North America as of August 2009. MadWorld fared much poorer in Japan, where it debuted at number 33 on Japanese sales charts and only selling around 3,000 units during its release week. Despite low sales for both MadWorld and The House of

5985-592: The American branch of PlatinumGames to refine the music to get the Western style down. Music was then assigned for the various stages and boss battles, requiring some revision of the existing works to make the music more apt for that stage of the game. A total of 50 minutes of music was created for the game, and a soundtrack of the game's music was released along with the game in the United Kingdom and Australia. The soundtrack

6118-524: The Dead: Overkill , Sega stated that it would continue to explore mature games for the Wii, according to Gary Dunn, a director at Sega Europe, noting that such games have a long tail in sales as such games become more discounted. On January 4, 2010, it was announced that Sega would not publish any future M-rated video games for the Wii. However, PlatinumGames announced a few days later that they would like to do

6251-578: The DeathWatch games were created to cause the attack, but admits that this particular incarnation of the games is solely driven by someone's greed, and passes on the name of Springvale to Jack and the Agency, which quickly recognizes the name as a pharmaceutical company and that they were the silent hand that had built (in anticipation of DeathWatch) much of the sets for the games as soon as the Organizers had released

6384-446: The IGDA found that people of color were both underrepresented in senior management roles as well as underpaid in comparison to white developers. Further, because video game developers typically draw from personal experiences in building game characters, this diversity gap has led to few characters of racial minority to be featured as main characters within video games. Minority developers have also been harassed from external groups due to

6517-514: The Wii Remote's infrared sensor, as its developers found it unnecessary to pinpoint movements on the screen in order to attack. When certain special attacks are possible, the player is prompted to press a button or move the controllers in a specific fashion to complete the action. In boss fights, the player must trigger special finishing moves that engage their foe in a series of quick time events in order to weaken, dismember attached weapons or defeat

6650-513: The Wii controller is actually more intuitive and more relevant for action games." An emphasis was placed on earning high scores, while "Bloodbath Challenge" minigames were used to incorporate additional variety into the game's design. The game was developed using Softimage for creation of the game's art, and a custom engine built to handle the art aesthetic and limitations of the Wii's memory. The game's sets are completely modeled with complex lighting features, but only normal maps are used to draw

6783-487: The Wii, citing the disappointing sales of MadWorld as a contributing factor. However, PlatinumGames announced several days later that they would like to do a sequel to the game. The company's second game was Infinite Space . Announced as Infinite Line , it is a role-playing video game with real-time strategy , and space simulation elements. Inspired by the works of Arthur C. Clarke and Greg Egan , PlatinumGames collaborated closely with Nude Maker while developing

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6916-521: The acquisition of Activision Blizzard , stated it supported these unionization efforts. After this acquisition, the employees of Bethesda Game Studios , part of Zenimax under Microsoft, unionized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in July 2024. Over 500 employees within Blizzard Entertainment 's World of Warcraft division also unionized with CWA that same month. Sweden presents

7049-572: The advent of digital distribution of inexpensive games on game consoles, it is now possible for indie game developers to forge agreements with console manufacturers for broad distribution of their games. Other indie game developers create game software for a number of video-game publishers on several gaming platforms. In recent years this model has been in decline; larger publishers, such as Electronic Arts and Activision, increasingly turn to internal studios (usually former independent developers acquired for their development needs). Video game development

7182-440: The boss, called Power Struggles. These are possible against certain normal enemies. The game features extreme, over-the-top violence, but designer Shigenori Nishikawa intends it to be seen in a comical light despite the dark tone of the game. For example, in a minigame called "Man Darts", players must hit enemies onto a giant dart board with a baseball bat to score points. Because of the intended level of violence PlatinumGames

7315-431: The closest equity, making 96 cents for every dollar men made in the same job, while audio professional women had the largest gap, making 68% of what men in the same position made. Increasing the representation of women in the video game industry required breaking a feedback loop of the apparent lack of female representation in the production of video games and in the content of video games. Efforts have been made to provide

7448-646: The company values the idea of "change", and that "the people who are not looking for constant change are not necessarily welcome in what I think the company should be". According to Minami, PlatinumGames only made games that the development team were passionate about. Inaba described the studio as "loud", as every one on the development team is allowed to express their opinions on their projects and their visions will not be compromised. The studio also invites employees who are not involved in game design, such as artists and programmers, to provide creative input to their projects. Saito added that every game that company developed has

7581-468: The company with stability. Despite having a new focus, PlatinumGames retains their original vision of making games and the team hopes to become one of "the three top game studios in the world". While PlatinumGames is a Japanese development company, the development team also attempts to add elements to their games that will attract a large global audience. Minami says that the company is keen to work with both Japanese and Western publishers. According to Inaba,

7714-439: The company's management and administration, while Mikami, Inaba and Kamiya remained in the positions of director or producer. The company had not revealed anything about upcoming projects for a year, until 2008, when Sega announced that it would be publishing four PlatinumGames' titles. According to Minami, the titles were unique and creative, and it was courageous of Sega to publish these risky titles. Minami added further that

7847-505: The company, the three worked for Capcom , and were key members of the Osaka-based Clover Studio , which specialized in making new and creative intellectual properties. They worked closely together developing popular Capcom franchises including Resident Evil , Devil May Cry , Viewtiful Joe and Ōkami . Most of these titles received critical acclaim, but under-performed commercially, leading to Capcom's decision to close

7980-407: The company: MadWorld , Infinite Space , Bayonetta , and Vanquish . Their partnership later extended to include Anarchy Reigns . Most of these games were met with positive reception. Over the years, PlatinumGames had developed an expertise in action games and one of their key philosophies was that the team would not follow conventional game design concepts. While PlatinumGames' core goal

8113-416: The console manufacturer (such as Rare or Naughty Dog ). Whether by purchasing an independent studio or by founding a new team, the acquisition of a first-party developer involves a huge financial investment on the part of the console manufacturer, which is wasted if the developer fails to produce a hit game on time. However, using first-party developers saves the cost of having to make royalty payments on

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8246-503: The console. This established the use of licensing fees as a model for third-party development that persists into the present. The licensing fee approach was further enforced by Nintendo when it decided to allow other third-party developers to make games for the Famicom console, setting a 30% licensing fee that covered game cartridge manufacturing costs and development fees. The 30% licensing fee for third-party developers has also persisted to

8379-426: The core goal of the company is to make new and original intellectual property , and that taking risks is a crucial part of video game development . However, the company also worked on licensed titles later, as the team considered creating original titles "difficult", sometimes too risky, with sales that were unsatisfactory for the team. According to Minami, working on both licensed properties and original games provides

8512-483: The designers of Resident Evil 4 . The developers chose violence as the main theme of the title, but experimented with a variety of cartoon-like art styles to alleviate the violent content with a sense of humor, ultimately deciding upon a black-and-white aesthetic with splashes of red for blood. Inaba and Nishikawa acknowledged the influence of Frank Miller 's Sin City in the work, but also noted they borrowed from both Western and Japanese comic book styles to create

8645-444: The developer if the game is not meeting expectations. When each milestone is completed (and accepted), the publisher pays the developer an advance on royalties . Successful developers may maintain several teams working on different games for different publishers. Generally, however, third-party developers tend to be small, close-knit teams. Third-party game development is a volatile sector, since small developers may depend on income from

8778-417: The developers are the publisher's employees, their interests align with those of the publisher; the publisher may spend less effort ensuring that the developer's decisions do not enrich the developer at the publisher's expense. Activision in 1979 became the first third-party video game developer. When four Atari, Inc. programmers left the company following its sale to Warner Communications , partially over

8911-440: The effect of the virus as to blackmail anyone to pay for the vaccine under the outbreak. Leo admits that the company went bankrupt in the last presidential election and saw this route as the easiest way to recoup their losses. He is also at the games to be close to the action, fascinated by sports. Jack throws Leo off the tower to his death. While the announcers complain about the irrelevance, Jack leaves Varrigan City. MadWorld

9044-455: The end of the project's development. Inaba added that the game's development "nearly broke" PlatinumGames. The team's morale was restored after hearing players' positive opinions of the game. In addition, Inaba called the PlayStation 3 version of the game the company's "biggest failure", as the team did not have sufficient skills to develop that version of the game. More than 1.35 million units of

9177-496: The end" due to current views of violence in the video game industry. Matsuno combined the ideas for MadWorld ' s DeathWatch gameshow environment: violence is both accepted and required within the show, but not outside of it. Proops and DiMaggio, who had previously worked together on animated films such as Asterix and the Vikings and Kaena: The Prophecy , were both contacted by the voice cast director Jack Fletcher to play

9310-467: The entertainment industry (such as films and television ) require long working hours and dedication from their employees, such as willingness to relocate and/or required to develop games that do not appeal to their personal taste. The creative rewards of work in the entertainment business attracts labor to the industry, creating a competitive labor market that demands a high level of commitment and performance from employees. Industry communities, such as

9443-557: The first video game-specific union, Game Workers Unite Australia, was formed in December 2021 under Professionals Australia to become active in 2022. In Canada, in a historic move, video game workers in Edmonton unanimously voted to unionize for the first time in June 2022. In January 2023, after not being credited in The Last of Us HBO adaptation, Bruce Straley called for unionization of

9576-443: The frightening realization that if we don’t make our work more efficient, we’re simply not going to be able to keep making the games that we want to make as technology and expectations grow." For example, Bayonetta 3, one of the titles using the engine. On January 13, 2022, former CEO Kenichi Sato stepped down from the position after five years and eight months in the role, with studio head and co-founder Atsushi Inaba succeeding him in

9709-455: The game received critical acclaim and more than 2 million copies were sold. According to Kamiya, Taro "saved" PlatinumGames after the cancellation of Scalebound . The positive reception of Nier Automata had sparked public interest in Platinum's work once again. In May of the same year, Inaba announced the company was working on a new intellectual property . At The Game Awards 2017 , Bayonetta 3

9842-467: The game show DeathWatch . The player progresses through these levels in a linear fashion during the first playthrough, but can revisit any completed level to attempt to score more points or take on a harder challenge. Most levels are open environments, allowing the player to explore them freely, although some sections of the level may require the player to earn a number of points before it will be accessible. A few levels feature motorcycle-based combat where

9975-456: The game were redesigned with the black-and-white features adjusted numerous times to make sure they did not simply blend into the background as the lesser enemies in the game. Other characters were drawn and modeled to be as destructible as possible, with numerous versions of each character having missing limbs or other bodily harm. These were put together in 2000-frame animations that were then motion-captured; movement from one animation to another

10108-493: The game were shipped, but according to Minami, the company was disappointed with its sales, despite it being one of the most commercially successful games produced by the company. An animated film based on the game, called Bayonetta: Bloody Fate , was later released by Gonzo . The Sega-PlatinumGames original partnership announcement teased a mysterious fourth game from Mikami. The title was later revealed to be Vanquish . The team drew inspiration from Casshern when creating

10241-411: The game's event, the fictional Varrigan City became a target for a group of terrorists called "The Organizers", who severed the island city's transportation and communication ties with the rest of the world. They released a virus onto its population that would kill them in less than a day. However, the Organizers informed the populace that any person that killed another would receive the vaccine. The city

10374-425: The game's visuals. Mikami decided the game's third-person perspective through trial and error , and hoped that with it, the team could increase its gameplay pace. It was originally designed to be an open world game, but this idea was later abandoned and the game's direction shifted to become linear. On its release, the game was positively reviewed, with critics calling it innovative for introducing new elements into

10507-427: The game, avoiding the high-processing costs of light maps or layered textures. This allowed the game's artists to have finer control of visibility and color balance in the game. Though the developers attempted to add reflection mapping into the game, they found it did not fit well with the comic-book style and dropped it. Explosions and other effects, normally created in other games using particle effects to achieve

10640-451: The game, the developers found they had to resort to their own programs to capture some of the reactions and behaviors of the enemies for many of the unique killing methods. Comparisons have been drawn between the game and Inaba's last project, God Hand , a comedy beat 'em up for the PlayStation 2 . However, Inaba claims that while God Hand was developed for "hardcore" gamers, MadWorld

10773-581: The game. Produced by Inaba, the title was released in June 2009 in Japan, and its localized release for western territories was in March 2010. The game was a moderate success in Japan, but sales of the game in the West were unsatisfactory. PlatinumGames blamed Sega for not producing enough copies of the game, as the game "sold out instantly". "That's how games are. Teams kind of burn themselves out and then they get all that feedback and they get recharged and then people say that they're ready to do it again. And Bayonetta

10906-493: The game. The game received mixed reviews on its release, and it was a commercial failure. Anarchy Reigns is the last game developed by PlatinumGames to be published by Sega. In 2011, Hideo Kojima and his studio Kojima Productions were working on a new Metal Gear game focused on one of its main characters Raiden , a ninja equipped with swords. Unable to continue working on the game, Kojima contacted Minami to ask PlatinumGames to work on it. According to Kojima, PlatinumGames

11039-404: The gaming industry, while a 2017 IGDA survey found that the female demographic in game development had risen to about 20%. Taking into account that a 2017 ESA survey found 41% of video game players were female, this represented a significant gender gap in game development. The male-dominated industry, most who have grown up playing video games and are part of the video game culture , can create

11172-452: The industry by working long hours. Because crunch time tends to come from a combination of corporate practices as well as peer influence, the term "crunch culture" is often used to discuss video game development settings where crunch time may be seen as the norm rather than the exception. The use of crunch time as a workplace standard gained attention first in 2004, when Erin Hoffman exposed

11305-431: The lack of respect that the new management gave to programmers, they used their knowledge of how Atari VCS game cartridges were programmed to create their own games for the system, founding Activision in 1979 to sell these. Atari took legal action to try to block the sale of these games, but the companies ultimately settled, with Activision agreeing to pay a portion of their sales as a license fee to Atari for developing for

11438-442: The main character, Jack, is assaulted by foes as they race down a track or in a small arena. The player is challenged to beat the level's boss within a time limit, but in order to activate the boss fight, the player must accumulate enough points by defeating regular foes on the level. There are other challenges, bonuses, or mini-bosses that become active after the player accumulates enough points. A common feature of each of these levels

11571-604: The mission. When Jack finds Naomi, he learns that she is the one watching the games and not getting in crisis. Jack leaves and continues to solve the case about the city's abnormal situation. Meanwhile, the Organizers realize Jack as the reigning champ, who quit the games by signing on to the Chasers. As Jack nears the last battle against the reigning-feigning champ, the Black Baron ( Reno Wilson ), Agent XIII reveals himself to be Lord Gesser, an influential figure in politics and knows that

11704-551: The movement again called out for the industry to unionize. The movement argued that Telltale had not given any warning to its 250 employees let go, having hired additional staff as recently as a week prior, and left them without pensions or health-care options; it was further argued that the studio considered this a closure rather than layoffs, as to get around failure to notify required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 preceding layoffs. The situation

11837-448: The nature of the video game culture. The industry also is recognized to have an ageism issue, discriminating against the hiring and retention of older developers. A 2016 IGDA survey found only 3% of developers were over 50 years old, while at least two-thirds were between 20 and 34; these numbers show a far lower average age compared to the U.S. national average of about 41.9 that same year. While discrimination by age in hiring practices

11970-529: The news, there have typically been followup discussions towards the potential to form a union. A survey performed by the International Game Developers Association in 2014 found that more than half of the 2,200 developers surveyed favored unionization. A similar survey of over 4,000 game developers run by the Game Developers Conference in early 2019 found that 47% of respondents felt the video game industry should unionize. In 2016, voice actors in

12103-481: The original. It became the seventh best-selling retail game in the UK in its first week of release, but sales declined significantly in the second week. The company gradually developed more and more licensed titles based on existing properties. Their partners grant them creative freedom while creating these games' gameplay. Their second licensed title is The Legend of Korra (2014), based on Nickelodeon 's animated series of

12236-717: The overwhelmingly slick look and sound of the title." 1Up.com praised the motion controls stating, "The immersive combat (aided by shockingly-fun Wii Remote and Nunchuk controls) would not have been as enjoyable if played on a traditional gamepad." Sean Ratcliffe, Vice President of Marketing for Sega of America stated that, in terms of sales, "the first set of data for Madworld is very encouraging". The game sold around 66,000 copies in its first month of release in North America, according to The NPD Group . These sales numbers have been used by market research firm OTX Research to justify their assertion that hype and marketing do not translate into sales figures; MadWorld , while commanding

12369-406: The partnership with Sega allowed them to bring these titles to Western markets. The four games included MadWorld , Infinite Space , Bayonetta and Vanquish . Each was released in 2009. All the intellectual properties created by PlatinumGames as part of the partnership are owned by Sega. MadWorld was the first game to be released. Produced by Inaba, the game was designed to appeal to

12502-516: The parts of the announcers for the North American and European release. While most of their lines were already scripted, the two were able to ad-lib during recording, with some lines being retained in the final game. The music for the game was composed by Naoto Tanaka, PlatinumGames' in-house composer, along with four different local artists—Ox, Doujah Raze, Sick YG, and Bandy Leggz. Tanaka wanted to "write in American style music and tried to avoid

12635-694: The present, being a de facto rate used for most digital storefronts for third-party developers to offer their games on the platform. In recent years, larger publishers have acquired several third-party developers. While these development teams are now technically "in-house", they often continue to operate in an autonomous manner (with their own culture and work practices). For example, Activision acquired Raven (1997); Neversoft (1999), which merged with Infinity Ward in 2014; Z-Axis (2001); Treyarch (2001); Luxoflux (2002); Shaba (2002); Infinity Ward (2003) and Vicarious Visions (2005). All these developers continue operating much as they did before acquisition,

12768-414: The primary differences being exclusivity and financial details. Publishers tend to be more forgiving of their own development teams going over budget (or missing deadlines) than third-party developers. A developer may not be the primary entity creating a piece of software, usually providing an external software tool which helps organize (or use) information for the primary software product. Such tools may be

12901-588: The project, leaving Cygames to handle the rest of development. In 2017, Kamiya and his team were working on Scalebound for Microsoft Studios until it was cancelled in January 2017. Shortly after the cancellation, creative producer Jean-Pierre Kellams left the company, while Kamiya stopped working as a director, continuing his work at PlatinumGames as vice president . The studio collaborated with Square Enix and released Nier: Automata for PlayStation 4 and Windows in 2017, with an Xbox One version being released in 2018. Directed by Nier creator Yoko Taro ,

13034-429: The publisher's wishes generally override those of the developer. Work for hire studios solely execute the publishers vision. The business arrangement between the developer and publisher is governed by a contract, which specifies a list of milestones intended to be delivered over a period of time. By updating its milestones, the publisher verifies that work is progressing quickly enough to meet its deadline and can direct

13167-415: The publishers. While this had some effects on a few games within the industry, it brought to the forefront the question of whether video game developers should unionize. A grassroots movement, Game Workers Unite , was established around 2017 to discuss and debate issues related to unionization of game developers. The group came to the forefront during the March 2018 Game Developers Conference by holding

13300-430: The release of PlatinumGames' second game, The Wonderful 101 for the Wii U . While Kamiya was the game's director, Minami offered creative advice. According to Kamiya, inspiration was drawn from classic tokusatsu series like Super Sentai , and that the game was designed to appeal to all types of audiences. The game was originally planned for the Wii, and was set to feature classic Nintendo characters. However, as

13433-524: The role. On November 1, 2022, Platinum announced the opening of a third studio: PlatinumGames FUKUOKA. On September 25, 2023, Kamiya announced that he would be leaving the studio on October 12. "I'm not really interested in working for a studio that isn't kind of a noisy, loud, clanking machine of people bumping into each other and trying to do their best, so if it's just kind of a machine that's there to make money and there to make games efficiently, it's not something that interests me". According to Inaba,

13566-426: The same name . Published by Activision , the game's story was written by Tim Hedrick, the show writer. The game received a mixed reception when it was launched. Following The Legend of Korra is Transformers: Devastation , based on Hasbro 's Transformers: Generations . Directed by Saito, the game was designed to look and feel different from previous Transformers games. The title received favorable reviews when it

13699-406: The shooter genre. Sega added that the company was encouraged by the game's first and second-day sales. After its release, Mikami left PlatinumGames and formed a new company, Tango Gameworks . According to Minami, Mikami "always wanted to be his own man, and his own developer". In late 2010, PlatinumGames revealed that it was in discussions with Sega to extend their partnership. Inaba added that Sega

13832-457: The studio, one of which he described as "truly unlike anything else." Tencent Holdings supplied capital investment into Platinum in January 2020, which will allow the studio to self-publish its future titles. Platinum's CEO Kenichi Sato stated that the Tencent investment changed no aspect of Platinum's ownership and they remain an independent developer. On February 3, 2020, PlatinumGames launched

13965-596: The studio. Prior to the closure, the three founders had already left the studio to form their own company in mid-2006. In January 2006, the company expanded to 51 employees, including more former Capcom employees such as Masami Ueda, composer for the early Resident Evil games, and Mari Shimazaki, Ōkami ' s artist. Yusuke Hashimoto and Kenji Saito, who would eventually become PlatinumGames' directors, joined during its establishment period. The new company revealed its existence by launching its website in February 2007. Odd Ltd.

14098-545: The target of sexual harassment. This can be coupled from similar harassment from external groups, such as during the 2014 Gamergate controversy . Major investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct that went unchecked by management, as well as discrimination by employers, have been brought up against Riot Games , Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard in the late 2010s and early 2020s, alongside smaller studios and individual developers. However, while other entertainment industries have had similar exposure through

14231-414: The team found that it was difficult to use these characters creatively, the game was put on hold temporarily. Its development was restarted later, with 50 original characters being featured in the final game. Nintendo provided feedback during the game's development hoping that it would reach a larger audience. The game received critical acclaim. It was considered one of the best games in the Wii U library, and

14364-484: The toxic nature of the video game culture. This racial diversity issue has similar ties to the gender one, and similar methods to result both have been suggested, such as improving grade school education, developing games that appeal beyond the white, male gamer stereotype, and identifying toxic behavior in both video game workplaces and online communities that perpetuate discrimination against gender and race. In regards to LGBT and other gender or sexual orientations,

14497-458: The universe of their existing franchises such as Star Fox . Shigeru Miyamoto who produced Star Fox Zero expressed his desire to work with external developers so that the project can have a shorter development cycle. The team was asked to serve as the game's co-developer after Nintendo saw the Arwing stage of Bayonetta 2 . Zero , along with its spin-off tower defense game Star Fox Guard ,

14630-487: The use of crunch time at Electronic Arts , a situation known as the "EA Spouses" case. A similar "Rockstar Spouses" case gained further attention in 2010 over working conditions at Rockstar San Diego . Since then, there has generally been negative perception of crunch time from most of the industry as well as from its consumers and other media. Game development had generally been a predominately male workforce. In 1989, according to Variety , women constituted only 3% of

14763-504: The video game industry typically shares the same demographics as with the larger population based on a 2005 IGDA survey. Those in the LGBT community do not find workplace issues with their identity, though work to improve the representation of LGBT themes within video games in the same manner as with racial minorities. However, LGBT developers have also come under the same type of harassment from external groups like women and racial minorities due to

14896-678: The video game industry. Whereas some video game employees believe they should follow the craft-based model used by SAG-AFTRA which would unionize based on job function, others feel an industry-wide union, regardless of job position, would be better. Starting in 2021, several smaller game studios in the United States began efforts to unionize. These mostly involved teams doing quality assurance rather than developers. These studios included three QA studios under Blizzard Entertainment : Raven Software , Blizzard Albany , and Proletariat; and Zenimax Media 's QA team. Microsoft , which had previously acquired Zenimax and announced plans to acquire Blizzard via

15029-570: The violence is so very Tom and Jerry ... It really is hard to be offended... because it's just so ridiculous." On March 10, the National Institute on Media and the Family issued a press release expressing its disappointment in Nintendo for allowing MadWorld to be released on the Wii. MadWorld has received positive reviews from critics. In its April 2009 issue, Nintendo Power gave MadWorld

15162-417: The virus. After defeating the Black Baron at the end of the games, Jack blames Noa, who is shot and killed by Leo. After dealing with the armed forces, Jack disables the communication link with the Chasers and interrogates Leo. Leo tells Jack that his father was the president of Springvale Pharmaceuticals, who created both the virus and the vaccine, and was planning to use the televised DeathWatch event to show

15295-504: The workforce in video games is estimated to be from contract labor. Similar to other tech industries, video game developers are typically not unionized . This is a result of the industry being driven more by creativity and innovation rather than production, the lack of distinction between management and employees in the white-collar area, and the pace at which the industry moves that makes union actions difficult to plan out. However, when situations related to crunch time become prevalent in

15428-468: Was soft launched in some countries in 2018, but was pulled from storefronts the following year. Platinum then released World of Demons for Apple Arcade on April 2, 2021. Another game, Astral Chain , was released for the Nintendo Switch on August 30, 2019. In 2019, PlatinumGames studio head Atsushi Inaba revealed that the studio was working on two new unannounced intellectual properties owned by

15561-519: Was a commercial failure, despite Sega's heavy marketing. Though the game was a commercial failure, Sega felt that sales were "encouraging", and said that they would continue to make mature games for the Wii. They released the Welcome To Violence pack, which bundles MadWorld with House of the Dead: Overkill , and The Conduit , each of which were commercial failures. In 2010, Sega announced that they would cease publishing mature video games for

15694-476: Was a really, really strong example of that". The third game is Bayonetta , an action game "evolved" from the Devil May Cry series. The title was directed by Kamiya, who originally pitched several "casual" projects for the studio before starting the development of Bayonetta . The game features an original story, with inspirations drawn from Scandinavian mythology , while the design of the titular character

15827-660: Was argued to be "exploitive", as Telltale had been known to force its employees to frequently work under "crunch time" to deliver its games. By the end of 2018, a United Kingdom trade union, Game Workers Unite UK, an affiliate of the Game Workers Unite movement, had been legally established. Following Activision Blizzard 's financial report for the previous quarter in February 2019, the company said that they would be laying off around 775 employees (about 8% of their workforce) despite having record profits for that quarter. Further calls for unionization came from this news, including

15960-438: Was based on Kamiya's own vision of an "ideal woman". The development team was credited as "Team Little Angels", as opposed to Devil May Cry ' s "Team Little Devils". The game received critical acclaim on its release, with critics praising its action as "genre-topping", as well as its characters and innovation. However, according to Inaba, the team had set an overly high standard for themselves and became extremely frustrated by

16093-412: Was blended out with the use of Hermite interpolation . Blood spurts from each of the methods that Jack could use to kill a foe were each uniquely modeled to capture the appropriate trajectory for the type of injury, and often increasing the realistic amount of blood in order to make it stand out in the world. The spatters of blood on the walls, floor, and other characters was modeled within the game using

16226-404: Was created by PlatinumGames , a studio founded by former members of Capcom 's Clover Studio , in their attempt to make a game that would be "fun and attractive" for the Wii, but that would also have a high level of violence that would make it unique for the system. The game was produced by Atsushi Inaba , who had previously produced Viewtiful Joe , and directed by Shigenori Nishikawa, one of

16359-469: Was founded by Tatsuya Minami in February 2006, and later renamed Odd Inc. in July 2007. Like the founders of Clover Studio, Minami worked at Capcom prior to founding his own studio. He joined Capcom and for 20 years was involved in titles such as Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts and the Mega Man franchise. However, he decided to leave as he became tired of making sequels. Minami became the studio's head and focused on

16492-412: Was quickly transformed into the stage of a recurring game show called DeathWatch , with announcers Howard "Buckshot" Holmes ( Greg Proops ) and former DeathWatch fighter Kreese Kreeley ( John DiMaggio ). The remaining citizens of Varrigan City and new hopeful ones become the show's contestants, hoping to become the top-ranked fighter in the game and win a large cash prize. Jack Cayman ( Steve Blum ),

16625-781: Was released in 2015. The third licensed title, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan was released in May 2016. According to game designer Eiro Shirahama, the team watched the TMNT animated series and also played the old TMNT games for the Super Famicom while working on the game so as to understand the universe and the characters. The game garnered mixed reception when it was released. In 2013, Kamiya revealed that he would like to have an opportunity to continue PlatinumGames' partnership with Nintendo, creating new properties or working on extending

16758-487: Was released in April 2016 to mixed reception. By the end of March 2016, Minami stepped down from his position as president and CEO, with executive producer Kenichi Sato succeeding him. In August 2016, PlatinumGames was revealed to be in a collaboration with Cygames in the development of the action role-playing game Granblue Fantasy: Relink , but in February 2019 it was announced that PlatinumGames would no longer be involved in

16891-545: Was released in North America on June 30, 2009, by Sumthing Distribution . On August 19, 2008, Sega announced that MadWorld would not be released in Germany. Despite the fact that Australia is also known for strict video game classification, the game was released there unedited, with an MA15+ rating for "strong bloody violence and strong coarse language". In a preview, Eurogamer commented: "It's difficult to understand why there's so much controversy surrounding MadWorld when

17024-460: Was released worldwide for the Wii in March 2009, and in Japan in February 2010. Although a commercial failure , MadWorld received generally positive reviews from critics. A spiritual successor , Anarchy Reigns , was released in 2012 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 . MadWorld is divided into several levels representing different parts of Jefferson Island that have been converted into sets for

17157-635: Was revealed, which will be released for the Nintendo Switch . It was also announced that ports of the first two Bayonetta games would be released for the same platform two months later. At the ceremony, Nier: Automata also won in the Best Score/Music category. In April 2018, the company announced a partnership with DeNA for an action game that explores Japanese folklore for Android and iOS devices, titled World of Demons . Its development began in 2015 with 30 employees attached to it, including staff who had worked on Star Fox Zero and Bayonetta 2 ,

17290-439: Was the only studio capable of working on an action game with sword-based combat. The team added stealth elements to the game finding its system too boring and straightforward. Directed by Kenji Saito, the game, titled Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance , was released in 2013 and received generally positive reviews from critics, and was a commercial success. It also became the company's first licensed title. The same year also saw

17423-448: Was to create new and original intellectual property , the team previously also accepted several contract works from Activision on several licensed projects, most of which received mixed reviews. Since 2013, PlatinumGames has held a close relationship with Nintendo , who funded several of their original titles, including The Wonderful 101 and Astral Chain , and handled licensing between Sega that would allow PlatinumGames to continue

17556-450: Was unsure of whether or not the game would ultimately be released in Japan, stating, "In certain markets there are a lot of limitations on the amount of violence you can show, so we definitely have the Western market much more in mind." MadWorld features highly stylized graphics that use a limited color palette of high contrast black and white with red, partially inspired by Frank Miller 's Sin City graphic novels. Three days before

17689-404: Was voted one of community's Nintendo favorites. However, the game underperformed in Japan, and was outsold by Pikmin 3 , which had already been released before the launch of The Wonderful 101 . VG247 attributed the game's failure to the low sales of the Wii U . Their partnership continued with 2014's Bayonetta 2 , which sparked controversy for being a Wii U exclusive when its predecessor

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