Mainstream is the opposite of originality nowadays.
Personally, anyone who views making games as nothing more than a business will earn no respect from me, but those who see game development as more than a mere business will never find themselves suffering from a shortage of it.
So, you have no problems with companies who see games as a form of art/entertainment as a means to conduct business? 
There’s no winning with you, is there? >:)
Losing is not in my programming 
When you think about it Sega has got a mainstream appeal now with the Sammy games under their wing both here and japan. Sega never invested in 2D fighters and now they will publish two of the decent ones to come out in the last three years. Also Sammy happens to have a few popular manga licenses that people here would go BERSERK over.
Sega going mainstream again already started a long time ago. THE MATRIX ONLINE is basically an attempt to get mainstream attention and so is getting the license to make the Nintendo only versions of the popular manga BLEACH.
If Sammy can get Sega to release more of Sega’s japanese games over here like the SAKURA TAISEN games,then Sega will be mainstream in the sense that they will finaly have games that appeal to everyone. But we will have to wait and see if this truly happens.
Regarding THE CONDEMNED however this game could back fire on Sega.
If all the enemies on the game are human beings then its only going to take one jackass to start condemning THE CONDEMNED and a whole media campaign to get it banned.
Actually maybe that’s not a bad thing. It will certainly be mainstream. 
[quote=“Goonboy Panzer”]Regarding THE CONDEMNED however this game could back fire on Sega.
If all the enemies on the game are human beings then its only going to take one jackass to start condemning THE CONDEMNED and a whole media campaign to get it banned.[/quote]
Heh, most of the time these kind of media campaigns result in free advertising for the game, so that would be a good thing for Sega (unless they actually manage to get it banned). I think this game has potential. It’s a next-generation title so it’ll get enough attention, and Monolith has already proven that they can make great games. This might be exactly what Sega needs.
I agree with D-Unit, if Manhunt didn’t get banned this won’t either.
Manhunt was banned over here (and in Australia is I’m not mistaken). I played it anyway though, and it didn’t seem that bad from the first level, although obviously not something you should let your kids play
You’re right I forgot it was banned over there. Also in the U.K. apparentely one couple is accusing the video game Manhunt led their 13 year old to murder and I think they sued Sony and Rockstar games.
People come on now, were talking about Sega here a company who has some extraordinary bad luck. For one thing Capcom has a similar game called the Demento which could work against it because your regular punter will say Sega is ripping Capcom off especially if this game is a launch title for the Xbox2.
This type of game may be out of fashion for a casual gamer by the time it comes out.
Lastly it could happen that it gets banned especially in this climate of christian morality that the western(English anglo saxon) world has suddenly rediscovered.
i downloaded the game to see what the fuss was about… Its ok for the first hour or so… after that it just gets boring…
-
Sammy games are anything but mainstream. 2D fighters are not mainstream. They’re amongst some of the most hardcore games out there. 3D fighters sell in the hundreds of thousands of units. 2D fighters are lucky if they get 75k in sales.
-
Unfortunately, Berserk really isn’t all that big in the US. It’s pretty popular in Japan, but nowhere near the popularity of Naruto, One Piece, etc.
-
There are plenty of games with human opponents: MGS, Tenchu, Splinter Cell, etc. No reason why this game should get banned. The reason why there was such a fuss over Manhunt was the sheer brutality of the game, not the fact that you were killing humans. In fact, mainstream gamers prefer human opponents (or at least, opponents that look vaguely human and act human) over completely bizarre alien-types.
[quote=“Abadd”]1) Sammy games are anything but mainstream. 2D fighters are not mainstream. They’re amongst some of the most hardcore games out there. 3D fighters sell in the hundreds of thousands of units. 2D fighters are lucky if they get 75k in sales.
-
Unfortunately, Berserk really isn’t all that big in the US. It’s pretty popular in Japan, but nowhere near the popularity of Naruto, One Piece, etc.
-
There are plenty of games with human opponents: MGS, Tenchu, Splinter Cell, etc. No reason why this game should get banned. The reason why there was such a fuss over Manhunt was the sheer brutality of the game, not the fact that you were killing humans. In fact, mainstream gamers prefer human opponents (or at least, opponents that look vaguely human and act human) over completely bizarre alien-types.[/quote]
Well from judging the pics of the game it looks like it could go the brutal way. Also it seems as though it’s set in a mental asylum or something and it’s a horror game. That’s more than enough for Tony Banks to start squawking over.
For some reason if it’s a game set in a military or type of game seems to get away with it but not all of them are that graphic.
As for 2D games. They may be going underground of late but I would say that this genre still attract a lot of players or the STREETFIGHTER name did.
Sometimes I mean as a whole world aspect IE:Japan america and europe and not to any specific region when i’m going on about certain games that appeal to the mainstream. BERSERK may not be a big seller but it will attract people to the Sega cause who may try other Sega games out.(wishful thinking)
Has Berserk ever appered in the U.S. in it’s anime form or manga original?
Berserk is being released in manga form right now, though I don’t know how far into the series they are. The anime (or all they made of it… it only covers up until issue 13 of the manga) has been released in the US. The animation/sound quality sucks, so as a fan of the manga, I was quite disappointed with the anime, seeing as what I wanted to see was a high production version of the manga =\
Does Condemned look any more brutal than, say, RE4? Splinter Cell? Tenchu? In the previous Tenchu game, you could break someone’s neck, and the guards’ heads would actually go all floppy. Pretty brutal if you ask me. I highly doubt this will get any attention in that respect (primarily because of the horror element… I assume it’s going to have little elements of science fiction in there or something, given the artwork). The times when you have problems are when the games become more and more realistic, or offer realistic settings. Manhunt got nowhere near the media attention that GTA did, and that is most likely because of the difference in setting.
As for 2D, Streetfighter is really the only one that sells. And when you think of the popularity it used to have, sales have dropped tremendously. Streetfighter was, at one point, the best selling game in the industry. It still does well, but nowhere even near top 20 status. But, I’m sure Capcom is okay with that, because their dev costs are probably extremely low. They haven’t upgraded their sprites since the 90’s…