Watermelon Corp. have taken to calling Pier Solar and the Great Architects, their retro-inspired role-playing game and the subject of a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, "the biggest 16-bit RPG ever made." It sounds like hyperbole, but it's really a technical assessment: the game was first developed for the Sega Genesis a few years ago, using a custom, 64-megabit cartridge that dwarfed the traditional 12-Mb size.
The game -- about a young botanist on a quest to find the rare herbs to cure his father's mysterious illness -- fared well enough on the Genesis to prompt Pier Solar HD, a remake for Xbox Live Arcade, PC, Mac, Linux, and the Sega Dreamcast. Watermelon's Kickstarter promised a rich overhaul of the entire game with touched up sprites and HD backgrounds, made available on a wide range of platforms. The original pitched asked for $139,000 to cover development and licensing costs, beta testing, and production.
From systems that could keep your beer cool, to oddities trying to get in on the popularity of VHS and laserdisc, you’ve got some very, very weird video game consoles out there.
I had the LaserActive... it was a nice collectors piece but not very practical. Especially when it came to needing recapping. I think i paid all of about $50 for the floor model from an incredible Universe back in the day. I ended up selling it many years later for $300 at the time due to it needing a new laser and the aforementioned recapping.
An honorable mention not on the list would be the VM Labs Nuon. It basically looked like any regular DVD player but it had ports on it for controllers to play specific games. one of which is still exclusive to it with Tempest 3000. It also offered nuon enhanced DVD movies with extra content not accessible by regular players.
Retro-focused developer blames bots, political correctness, and "digital fart ownership" for the company's financial woes.
Replies(1)
"political correctness" - The excuse regularly given when someone doesn't want explain what actually went wrong.
Usually theres a positive market response when devs ignore the woke cult. Ghost of Tsushima being the most recent example.
This has nothing to do with "woke" anything. But if you want to go that route, being woke didn't hurt TLOU 2 sales.
Back on topic though, it would be nice of them to explain what political correct issue he's having. Because all I'm seeing is an angry con man that tried to use the blanket statement of "political correctness" to cover up the fact that his poor business practices got his funds locked and seized
"it would be nice of them to explain what political correct issue he's having"
That was my point. If the issue was simply "political correctness", there should be no issue. Being politically incorrect should have been a benefit to his games. It sounds like hes making excuses.
@NapalmSanctuary
I misread your comment. I initially though you were defending what Fonzie did. But then i went back and researched when you bought up Ghost of Tsushima.
So now I'm going to do something that MAJORITY of people on this site seem to have difficulty doing when they're wrong. And that's say I'm sorry, my bad.
For anyone seeing this, see how easy it is to admit when you make a mistake and/or are wrong rather than double down and argue knowing you're in the wrong.
Political correctness is the bane of the modern world. Having to watch every single thing you say in case you hurt someone's feelings. Hell, in the UK they're trying to make it an actual offence to have offended someone.
Seriously, when did the world become so...snowflake?
Political correctness has no bearing on the fact that Fonzie didn't send out products to his backers after they paid.
Political correctness has no bearing on his lack of communication to his customers
Political correctness has no bearing on the fact that he started taking money from backers on a new project while leaving his previous projects backers orders unresolved.
So again, instead of hiding behind the political correctness blanket statement, he should tell people the reason(s) for this poor business practices.
He literally did the same thing that Kenji Inafune did with Mighty NO 9. Which is why his company ended up being bought by Level 5.
These guys threw out the hot-potato "political correctness" scare phrase, with the hope that some hyper-political snowflake would run with it and help them distract from the true narrative ... that they're a bunch of conmen.
Predictably their tactic worked.
Seems like he used the term political correctness, because he knows that all it takes to get some people on his side, and jump to defend him.
Well, ya win some ya lose some, I guess. That's the cost of doing business. I pre-ordered a copy, it got cancelled, went on sale again and I couldnt even send them a payment. The game ended up launching without me even knowing or getting notified as they promised, so everyone got a copy, I didnt so I had to order another and twice the cost, that was supposed to ship in April and now theyre shut down again, I lose money and have to wait and wash rinse repeat. If they arent able to ship my item, then I lose my money and have to deal with scalpers now identifying rarity and trying to take even more money from me, thats just my luck. I put money in to Kickstart the really expensive Elysian Shadows over seven years ago and nothing has been done with that either, I just have that kind of luck. Kickstarters for video games are just bad investments, and honestly, its gonna ruin it for everyone else, its too bad.... Just buy from reputable dealers is the best you can do, dont trust people with giving them your money til the jobs done, thats how dishonest people have become and been.
Fonzie has always been a horrible businessmen. Blaming everyone but himself for his own lack of communication and transparency. PayPal's issuing refunds because consumers have gone ages without receiving their items and WMs communication is terrible to say the least.
The fact that Fonzie started taking preorders for WMs next project, when most people still hadn't received their copies of Paprium (even jacking up the price for new consumers on the WM site) speaks volumes of the company's philosophy and integrity.
A fool and his money are easily parted.
No offense, but stop being so trusting.
I learnt the hard way
Virtual Boy, Sega Nomad, Ouya and the other troubled game systems that nobody bought.
How has this article missed out Sega's Dreamcast and Nintendo's Wii U, two consoles that were actually superb devices in their own right, but were seen as failed due to lacklustre sales at the time of release?
Wonder how long before Stadia appears on the list surprised the Ngage is not on that list
Talk about a blast to the past.......I remember trying the virtual boy at Toy R Us and it was cool but I did feel slightly disoriented afterwards......good article.
ok sounds good bring on the games.
Whoa. You have my attention.
nice
I would have pledged $100 for a PS3 or Vita release. Every Kickstarter that's remotely interesting that includes Sony platforms gets that amount, and I wish more people would realize that Kickstarter is a potentially viable source for their "indie" or unfunded games.
idk man, morrowind was pretty big.