Cuphead Studio Director on Delays And Long Development: ‘Who Cares?’

Maja Moldenhauer explains why taking care of the team’s mental health was so important, even if it added years to Cuphead’s development.

[monkey602]

Love the attitude in fairness. They're only video games at the end of the day and delays won't hurt anyone. Once they've played it they'll forget about the delays anyway.

There are some other views here too though. Rockstars neglect of the GTA series in favour of cash-in multiplayer. Or Bethesda taking decades to make a new game that looks like every other game they made prior with none of the industry tech leaps made between those games.

[frostypants]

Yeah, the sense of entitlement by some gamers is nuts. If the dev doesn't have their money, the dev owes them nothing.

[no_more_heroes]

More companies need to take this approach. There's already far too many games to play now anyway and I'm sure a lot of us have a backlog of games that are like Mt. Everest - breathtakingly big and continuously growing.

[Minute Man 721]

Yup, , I have close to 100 games from last gen and 150 more from the PS3/360 era that I didn't even get to pkaybyet

[mandf]

I have the same shame log

[VenomCarnage89]

Agreed, companies need to chill out on worrying about delaying things. But at the same time, if they're worried because they announced an announcement of their game 5 years too soon, and had cgi trailers going on 2 years before they even had their own visuals to show off, they earned their panick when people are starting to get impatient and move on with their lives.

If you don't announce way too early, you afford yourself so much more time down the line when you need it

[MadLad]

Tomorrow's headlines

"Cuphead creators hate gamers and their hobby".

[Angyobangyo]

Wow, it’s almost like you didn’t even read the article.

[MadLad]

No. It's like most people don't understand blatant sarcasm directed at sensationalist game journalists.

[CrimsonWing69]

Well… I mean, maybe don’t announce them that early then?

You can’t get upset when people are disappointed. It’s human nature. Take for example, someone saying they’ll take you on an awesome and amazing trip next year. Then that time comes and they delay it to next year, you kinda have to understand the thought process from the other perspective. I don’t think the attitude of, “Who cares?” as being a fair way to look at it, honestly.

I’d say to not announce or release any kind of reveal until you’re at a point where you won’t get hit with a delay.

[rlow1]

It’s not that people don’t deserve to express their disappointment. It’s the extreme attacks that are the problem. The Death threats and hate people throw at developers is way over the top. These are just games at the end of the day and nobody deserve the hate they receive from a bunch of anonymous people.

[CrimsonWing69]

That’s with anything. My point still stands that publishers shouldn’t announce or show a game until it’s about a year out for release. It just helps with things like what you’re mentioning. There’s always going to be extremists, but I don’t think the whole, “Who cares?” Approach is the way to go about it.

[MrBaskerville]

Unfortunately you have to announce it, atleast if you are an indie developer. You need to get people interested to get funding.

[gold_drake]

they have to announce things because of investors. trailers are not specifically for us, but for them investors.

but i get what you're saying. it is frustrating at times.

[BrainSyphoned]

Xbox has stood behind that statement for two decades. Who Cares.

[Profchaos]

I'd say yes but within reason.

Look at avatar the James.cameron movie the sequel has taken more than a decade to produce and the anticipation is minimal I seriously don't see that movie surpassing the original despite all the time it's had to breathe. Or in gaming respects you get dnf

Games should be given time to be created look at what happens when you give something enough time we get rdr 2 a game that despite being a last gen game looks better than most games releasing today in many respects

What happens when games get rushed out the door you get sonic 06

[MrBaskerville]

Wasn't the Avatar 2 trailer the most viewed trailer in history? Or something like that, there's interest.

[CaptainHenry916]

Someone care

[gold_drake]

i think there are alot of things to consider.

a simple "they are right" or "they are wrong" just isnt the right approach really.

while i think that fans care about delays and long development, you should never send out death threats etc. because u feel frustrated. thats just stupid.

yea its frustrating to see trailers and then have to wait years for it to come out; trailers are not for us, or not specifically. they are for investors. so i kinda understand why they do it.

i also saw alot of people mention crunch times, i have had alot of overtime in my working life, its not exclusively to the gaming industry, so thats not really a solid argument to make, many people do that.

but to simply say "who cares?", i mean, thats a really stupid thing to put out lol. just say it cant be helped ha.

[EazyC]

Greatness takes time. Cuphead is surely the embodiment of that philosophy.

[Lifexline]

That’s good to hear but you can’t win with gamers online they will find something to complaint about. Whatever is best for the game and the team then who cares delay it. I’ll find something else to do.

[KyRo]

Off topic but I'm still gutted that the TV series didn't use the same animated style as the game. Went from full Disney to Cartoon Network. I felt the artstyle is what made so many people fall in love with the game