lunar why did they stop releasing this game?
By chinkz
@chinkz (79)
Philippines
2 responses
@theprogamer (10534)
• United States
1 Jul 08
Working Designs went broke making their games go to 11. That's the classic response on the net.
What happened was Working Designs tried to hard with a lot of things and they made some poor choices. Actually, Working Designs had it right, the gaming and ideas were just too esoteric and not as common as they are now. Don't get me wrong, the gaming was great and I was said to see Working Designs fall.
Working Designs spent plenty of time and effort on their games, but it was during a time when RPGs really weren't popular (save for Final Fantasy). Basically the games WD picked out were more niche type games (ironically, these type games are doing better in the present day). WD games were more expensive too, but this was due to "extras" that came with the games (posters, idols, keychains, artbooks)... and this is whats usually included with many Japanese releases of games. Ironically, this practice does show up again with some recent RPG games (Ar Tolenico, Persona 3). The games themselves were produced in low numbers making them AND most of the available ports collector items.
The platform of games was also a handicap to Working Designs. While games from its time of the early 90s were simple cartridge, Working Designs worked with the only available CD consoles: Turbografx/CD and Sega CD. This was both good and bad. For the good, it allowed for things like voice acting, animation intros, cutscenes and more storage for gaming. The bad was the consoles weren't popular at all. This mistake reared itself again when WD went to Sony to publish games but was refused due to the RPG popularity issue and citation of WDs non-effect on the SegaCD and Turbo consoles. First WD went to Sega Saturn and after the Sega Saturn was abandoned they switched to Sony (by this time Final Fantasy VII was released and RPGs looked viable).
Working Designs was completely diminished after work on games for PS2. Disagreements about the production resulted in serious debt and demise for the company.
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3146301
2 people like this
@MntlWard (878)
• United States
1 Jul 08
That's a pretty good summation. 
Although, I think the idea that there was a time when RPG's weren't popular was only in the heads of Sony's execs. Since RPG's were invented, they have always been popular to the people who like RPG's, and that's not a small group of people.
Although, I think the idea that there was a time when RPG's weren't popular was only in the heads of Sony's execs. Since RPG's were invented, they have always been popular to the people who like RPG's, and that's not a small group of people.@theprogamer (10534)
• United States
3 Jul 08
Mntlward you are preaching to the choir, but this mentality existed even before Playstation. Most gamers themselves were more interested in platformers, sports and action games. SquareEniX (for all its worth nowadays) also highlighted a lack of interest in RPGs that weren't Final Fantasy... that and cost-profit analysis of RPG translation projects. The US missed out on games like Front Mission 1, Seiken Densetsu 3(Secret of Mana 2... and a truly awesome game), Romancing Saga 3, Bahamut Lagoon (big loss...). This is just an example and there are others: Star Ocean, Tales of Phantasia. In Japan RPGs were big (still are to some extents), there's a reason why franchises had inconsistent or non releases outside of Japan, but had numerous titles as a whole.
C, thanks for the positive remarks.
@MntlWard (878)
• United States
30 Jun 08
Working Designs fell apart. That's one reason, I suppose.
There also seems to be an attitude in the gaming industry that "people don't like Japanese RPG's" unless they're named Final Fantasy.
I haven't even had a chance to play any of the Game Boy releases, but I loved the old Sega CD games. The PS1 versions added a couple of cosmetic things, but I think they were more fun and looked better on Sega.
