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[Ghost of Caelid]

Theres a ton of great anime out there, from beserk to cowboy bebop that if given the proper attention and money could make superb video games and stories. But we get stuck with asset flips from bandai namco with low budgets and rushed development. Being that some of the biggest property in one of the largest gaming markets is anime why don't we get AAA anime adaptations in the same way we get AAA comic book adaptations in the west. I doubt it, but with Sony now owning crunchyroll I hope that we can get them to invest in a AAA anime game.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Perhaps they think they don't need to make that kinda effort since the license of the anime may be enough to guarantee a good number of sales.

Which saddens me. I'd love more proper anime based games instead of arena brawler #572528.

 

[TexMex]

Because they don’t put AAA effort into their own product.

 

[saintjules]

A AAA Berserk game would be nuts to see, let alone Cowboy Bebop. We can dream.

 

[LazyParrot]

Because the primary market for anime games will always be Japan, and people there game on Switch and mobile, which categorically rules out any games with state-of-the-art AAA production values (i.e. the kind you'd need an XSX, PS5 or PC for).

 

[BennyBlanco]

Because the primary market for anime games will always be Japan, and people there game on Switch and mobile, which categorically rules out any games with state-of-the-art AAA production values (i.e. the kind you'd need an XSX, PS5 or PC for).

Depends on the anime I guess. DBZ was hugely popular when I was a kid.

I got that Kakarot game on the Steam summer sale and refunded after like 1 hour. What an awful game. Arena fighters are the worst genre.

I feel like a huge AAA DBZ or Naruto game would sell a ton. DBZF did really well.

 

[Bragr]

Because most people don't watch anime after they turn 15 years old, the games would have a very limited appeal.

 

[kiphalfton]

If you see Bandai-Namco seal of quality on the corner of the box art, may as well just skip it.

Depends on the anime I guess. DBZ was hugely popular when I was a kid.

I got that Kakarot game on the Steam summer sale and refunded after like 1 hour. What an awful game. Arena fighters are the worst genre.

I feel like a huge AAA DBZ or Naruto game would sell a ton. DBZF did really well.

It's a truly awful game. I LOVE dragon ball z, but it was a bad game. And this is from somebody who hadn't played a DBZ game since Xenoverse (so I wasn't exactly experience "DBZ fatigue", since almost all the games go over the same sagas, and it had been awhile since I had last played a DBZ game).

- Awful side quests
- Pointless orb collecting
- Recycled enemies / lack of of enemy variety
- RPG elements to pad the game out
- Lots of grinding
- Bad animations
- Disjointed world design (should have been completely open world)
- Ugly graphics
- Voicework / # of lines is reused over and over (i.e. Gohan saying "I think I can handle this")

 

[Magic Carpet]

Dr Stone. Taletale game where you help out Senku and the village with science tasks.

 

[Fbh]

Yeah it's shame we don't get any. A proper AAA One Piece, Attack on Titan, Berserk or FMA game could be awesome.
My guess is they don't think it's worth the risk when they know these lower budget AA titles always turn a profit based on the license alone. If I'm not wrong even absolutely terrible stuff like Jump Force sold quite well so why risk spending 10X as much on a game when you aren't certain it will make 10X as much money.

Because most people don't watch anime after they turn 15 years old, the games would have a very limited appeal.

And even fewer people read comics. But Disney has built a massively popular movie franchise with them

A AAA Berserk game would be nuts to see, let alone Cowboy Bebop. We can dream.

Sadly, for some reason Berserk can't even get a decent modern anime adaptation

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Cuz Niche.

 

[acm2000]

because for the most part, only japan cares, and right now japan doesnt really care about consoles, only handhelds.

AAA is way too much budget for a single market

 

[Fuz]

A AAA Berserk game would be nuts to see, let alone Cowboy Bebop. We can dream.

It's called "Dark Souls".

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Now that I'm playing Zelda Breath of the wild, in my opinion it's a game that requires a lot of dedication and development.

It is noted that Nintendo gave an expensive and complete development, the physics, the graphic engine, the side quest and the ost.

I at least see Zelda BOTW as an AAA development by Nintendo.

 

[CaptainSlayAHo]

Limited appeal for a time consuming product, on top of dealing with the licensing

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

I want a Triple AAA Made In Abyss game

 

[lachesis]

Because they have to take out a lot of money for licensing itself - leaving much less money for dev fund.
Then devs have to go thru all the stuff that they can and cannot do - defined by rights and clearances... meaning, they have to play safe to appease the license holders.

I use to think it's the incompetence of the devs - and partially it's true... that why so many Anime/Manga games are so shitty... (like a lot of Movie adaptations, or any sort of adaptations in general)... but seeing so many twisted licensing deals (Macross, anyone?) harming the franchise itself - I am more inclined to think the legal matters are indeed harming the final product.

Like so many people wants to piss in, and devs have to please them all... and by doing so, pleasing no customers.
That's why often the original IPs work better as the devs can do whatever they want with those to their intent - and also those are built from ground up specifically for the game's purpose.

 

[kiphalfton]

It's called "Dark Souls".

I don't get this comment. Maybe the setting... but in Dark Souls you die with a couple hits and generally you're only fighting a small group of enemies (if not just one enemy). Guts is way overpowered in comparison.

 

[Kataploom]

Because Japaneses are smart enough to avoid putting enormous amount of money into a single game most of the time. Their current budgets are well measured to avoid bleeding money "for the progress".

BTW there's a re-skin Yakuza game with Hokuto no Ken theme that never came to west, it's not AAA but a very good vision of how a higher budget manga game could look.

 

[Pagusas]

because even the best video game story is still pure garbage compared to other industries. You don’t give a b-tier script AAA production money, and video game scripts often are no better than X-tier porn parody scripts, and at least those have the benefit of being self aware.

The industries biggest talent hole is in its writers, well beyond any other holes in the industry.

 

[Shifty]

Now that I'm playing Zelda Breath of the wild, in my opinion it's a game that requires a lot of dedication and development.

It is noted that Nintendo gave an expensive and complete development, the physics, the graphic engine, the side quest and the ost.

I at least see Zelda BOTW as an AAA development by Nintendo.

Stealth EverydayBeast post.

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

because even the best video game story is still pure garbage compared to other industries. You don’t give a b-tier script AAA production money, and video game scripts often are no better than X-tier porn parody scripts, and at least those have the benefit of being self aware.

The industries biggest talent hole is in its writers, well beyond any other holes in the industry.

I do agree, that video games in trying to emulate movies tend to do it just worse. A game like the witcher which is praised for its story still comes up short in many way. Which is why i think lore based games do it better. But a good adaptation can help alot. Take an anime like magi, you can tell a good story just in the enviornment , exploration, magic stystems etc. It doesnt have to be a direct telling like other mediums do it. Expand on the parts of the world we dont see.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Many Anime and Cartoon adaptions don't sell enough to warrant major investment. Some may be popular enough to sell pretty well with above average investment, but like say a Trigun game or something with a major budget, which the license alone is money, or a major budget for a Scooby-Doo game.

Do you see such games selling 5-8 million units? no.

Dragon Ball needed years and a lot of circumstances for the sales of Xenoverse 2 and Fighter Z to reach where they are, but neither are exactly in the AAA range you're thinking of. Media, new show, movies, new manga, new merch, off-screen stuff, events etc. etc. were needed, as well as lower than regular retail prce for the typical game, and these are A AA titles.

A slow burn game would be a disaster with a AAA budget, as it may sell well enough eventually, but you'd lose a crap ton of money upfront and have to deal with new marketing and price cuts, just like with what happened to Street Fighter V, which for years was doomed to fail, until circumstances led to a new wave of consumers going back and buying it post 2018.

Generally for even modest games to do well based off anime adaptions, the name has to be a major draw. Naruto used to have to not so much now, but Dragon Ball has it, Yugioh also has it but the concept of the series makes it very hard to justify a AAA game.

You'd actually have a better bet adapting from movies for those high sales, Live action have proven to be big hti adaptions, so have comics, and certain book series, an Anime adaption from a movie would likely have a better chance of getting a AAA budget and doing well, than from what I see implied in your posts(s) from a TV series.

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

Many Anime and Cartoon adaptions don't sell enough to warrant major investment. Some may be popular enough to sell pretty well with above average investment, but like say a Trigun game or something with a major budget, which the license alone is money, or a major budget for a Scooby-Doo game.

Do you see such games selling 5-8 million units? no.

Dragon Ball needed years and a lot of circumstances for the sales of Xenoverse 2 and Fighter Z to reach where they are, but neither are exactly in the AAA range you're thinking of. Media, new show, movies, new manga, new merch, off-screen stuff, events etc. etc. were needed, as well as lower than regular retail prce for the typical game, and these are A AA titles.

A slow burn game would be a disaster with a AAA budget, as it may sell well enough eventually, but you'd lose a crap ton of money upfront and have to deal with new marketing and price cuts, just like with what happened to Street Fighter V, which for years was doomed to fail, until circumstances led to a new wave of consumers going back and buying it post 2018.

Generally for even modest games to do well based off anime adaptions, the name has to be a major draw. Naruto used to have to not so much now, but Dragon Ball has it, Yugioh also has it but the concept of the series makes it very hard to justify a AAA game.

You'd actually have a better bet adapting from movies for those high sales, Live action have proven to be big hti adaptions, so have comics, and certain book series, an Anime adaption from a movie would likely have a better chance of getting a AAA budget and doing well, than from what I see implied in your posts(s) from a TV series.

I think quality sells not just IP. A game with an IP like guardians did worse than GOT...if an anime that pretty popular like MHA got a quality anime game from a studio like atlus it would do well imo. Not just because of the ip but word of mouth, reviews, streamers etc. Its not like 2012 where IP is what mattered the most. Thats kind of where telltale faltered thinking throwing a popular ip on something means it will do gangbusters.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I think quality sells not just IP. A game with an IP like guardians did worse than GOT...if an anime that pretty popular like MHA got a quality anime game from a studio like atlus it would do well imo. Not just because of the ip but word of mouth, reviews, streamers etc. Its not like 2012 where IP is what mattered the most. Thats kind of where telltale faltered thinking throwing a popular ip on something means it will do gangbusters.

With Anime adaptations specifically quality is a 50/50 flip. There's a reason why the MTX riddled games with lower budgets do so well, and that's not even touching mobile. it's about catering the fan, giving them digital thingys, collecting things, and other nonsense, in Japan, there's a much higher abundance of what one would call scams or "nickle and diming" then over here (for now). No one is acting like Anime fans or japanese people do with Anime Adaption games based off syphoning cash, with Cartoon adaption games over here.

A sudden high quality AA or AAA anime adaption has a high chance of flopping in comparison.

 

[Poplin]

honest answer from a AAA publishing perspective, to get a game with a AAA budget green lit the market case has to be there. Its hard to get the level of investment required for a AAA game without market data to back it up.

If there hasnt been a AAA license anime game, its likely partiall because the market case isnt there. The other reason likely is that the licenses are a nightmare, and any publisher that would invest the amount needed for a AAA game would rather not invest in someone else's IP. All comes down to the economics of it, and likely the math just doesnt work out.

 

[Ezquimacore]

I want an Attack on Titan game by Monolith Soft

 

[CamHostage]

For one thing... Berserk, Cowboy Bebop? Those are good shows, but this is one of the tough things, that "anime fans" tend to be stuck in the anime they watched decades ago, while modern titles like Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer will take a while before they reach ubiquity, if they ever get there. There's been the rare Attack on Titan or One-Punch Man that immediately captured the world (and fewer still are evergreens like Dragon Ball or One Piece) but you won't find many international blockbuster anime titles which garner the massive, expansive audience to spawn a AAA game. (And also, that game will probably will take several years of development, so not only does that franchise need to be hot, it needs to stick at the top all that time in order to pay off when the game finally launches.)

A more serious aspect of the challenge of adapting anime specifically is that anime are made by Production Committees, which are tightly controlled and incredibly convoluted monetary units formed by companies and/or investors, made for profiting off of the TV show and its ancillaries. Production Committees are complicated monsters, but the main thing about them is they are not generally living things; they exist to make a show, and then they seek to cash out. Production Committees often fuck up the business they fund (lots of times when a show gets delisted/pulled from shelves and disappears, it's because there's disputes or conflicts in the Production Committee,) and if you think the Hollywood system of counting profits is complicated you can imagine how tough it gets when it's not just one company funding Mission Impossible or Top Gun, but like 8 different companies taking different slices of the pie.



(...BTW, the OP said "we get AAA comic book adaptations in the west"... do we still get those? How many Superman or Flash games have you played? How many Thor or Doctor Strange games? Black Adam and The Flash and The Marvels and Black Panther are coming out with movies soon, are they all getting AAA games? No, right. Even though superheroes are rampant in theaters and TV, they're only selectively found today in games. Batman is a franchise, so is Spider-Man, and Marvel Games has been actively soliciting studios to produce AAA games for a select number of its brands, but we probably get more anime games than we get comic book games, and the anime games are generally not as good only because we're not getting the quickie comic book adaptations like Sega's Thor/Captain America like we did back in the day. Really, we don't get nearly as many franchise adaptations in games as we used to; game companies are trying to own their own successes, even if that means more failures than slapping a hit name on the box might bring.)

 

[Werewolf Jones]

I want a Triple AAA Made In Abyss game

With perma death.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

With perma death.

That should be the only difficulty option

 

[derrickchase]

Because the primary market for anime games will always be Japan, and people there game on Switch and mobile, which categorically rules out any games with state-of-the-art AAA production values (i.e. the kind you'd need an XSX, PS5 or PC for).

It's this. Most Americans are basically art hating barbarians. They're such simpletons that they'll dismiss something just because they don't recognize it as something culturally familiar to them.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[CitizenZ]

They usually release at $60 so they already are there.

 

[CamHostage]

It's this. Most Americans are basically art hating barbarians. They're such simpletons that they'll dismiss something just because they don't recognize it as something culturally familiar to them.

Ahem. There are other places in the world besides the United States, and they are not getting or funding anime games either.

Also... go screw with this Anime Superiority Complex. You can enjoy your fandom and fetishes without denigrating other people's interests. (And BTW, when anime and anime games were massively mainstream and abundant in the PS2/PS3 era, it was the same countries funding it that are not as interested now, including art-hating Americans.)

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Because most people don't watch anime after they turn 15 years old, the games would have a very limited appeal.

 

[CaptainSlayAHo]

It's this. Most Americans are basically art hating barbarians. They're such simpletons that they'll dismiss something just because they don't recognize it as something culturally familiar to them.

Oh, is that why American games, TV shows, movies, sports, music, standup comedies etc are shown all over the fucking world?

What a stupid comment

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Anime games were always low/mid budget. Easier and quicker to make, you could make one quick if one certain anime was getting popular and just keep churning out more at a fast pace if the anime stayed popular. There were tons of anime games on all platforms before development shifted to HD and budgets ballooned, and you could find some real gems among them before devs were forced to get on the safer side of things due to increased development times and costs. Most were confined to Japan though, because the market simply wasn’t there anywhere else, and by the time anime really took off in the west, only the biggest IPs could get significant representation in gaming anymore.

 

[derrickchase]

Ahem. There are other places in the world besides the United States, and they are not getting or funding anime games either.

Also... go screw with this Anime Superiority Complex. You can enjoy your fandom and fetishes without denigrating other people's interests. (And BTW, when anime and anime games were massively mainstream and abundant in the PS2/PS3 era, it was the same countries funding it that are not as interested now, including art-hating Americans.)

Who said anything about superiority? I never claimed anime is better or worse than anything else.

 

[8BiTw0LF]

Most Americans are basically art hating barbarians.

 

[derrickchase]

Remember when Wind Waker was announced and 90% of American gamers were OUTRAGED because of the art? We've got a bunch of tards up in here.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Remember when Wind Waker was announced and 90% of American gamers were OUTRAGED because of the art? We've got a bunch of tards up in here.

You were on board from day 1 though right? Where is this highly sophisticated place that you live?

 

[Holammer]

It's popular yes, but not mass market AAA budget popular.

 

[derrickchase]

You were on board from day 1 though right?

 

[bender]

I want a AAA extreme sports badminton game featuring the cast of Ranma 1/2.

 

[CaptainSlayAHo]

Remember when Wind Waker was announced and 90% of American gamers were OUTRAGED because of the art? We've got a bunch of tards up in here.

Remember when Disney hasn't been popular in Japan?

Yeah me neither, you are making some wildly broad claims lol

 

[Putonahappyface]

I can dream atleast.

 

[Aion002]

Niche and also because they wouldn't own the ip.

For example: why would Square-Enix spend a main FF type of budget making a Dragon Ball RPG if they don't own the series? It's just better to make their own ips.

Anime games are just quick cash grabs, same thing as most other adaptations from tv shows, movies and books (there are exceptions... but they're quite rare).

 

[SmokedMeat]

And even fewer people read comics. But Disney has built a massively popular movie franchise with them

You don’t need to read comics to be familiar with the Marvel characters that have been around for the last 60yrs.

Decades of cartoons, coloring books, and toys. Their parents knew them as did their parent’s parents.

 

[NanaMiku]

Because they have to take out a lot of money for licensing itself - leaving much less money for dev fund.
Then devs have to go thru all the stuff that they can and cannot do - defined by rights and clearances... meaning, they have to play safe to appease the license holders.

I use to think it's the incompetence of the devs - and partially it's true... that why so many Anime/Manga games are so shitty... (like a lot of Movie adaptations, or any sort of adaptations in general)... but seeing so many twisted licensing deals (Macross, anyone?) harming the franchise itself - I am more inclined to think the legal matters are indeed harming the final product.

Like so many people wants to piss in, and devs have to please them all... and by doing so, pleasing no customers.
That's why often the original IPs work better as the devs can do whatever they want with those to their intent - and also those are built from ground up specifically for the game's purpose.

Still waiting the day Project Aces/Bandai Namco Aces to make a macross game.

 

[Rest]

Because you don't make big budget games out of garbage properties.