Spring 2016 | ADES 5515 Logan McLaughlin

The Legend Never Dies, or Gets a Full Release: Mighty Number 9 and the Ethics of Kickstarter

On July 18th, 2011 Capcom disappointed many fans of their iconic Mega Man series by announcing the cancellation of the most recent installment in the series: Mega Man Legends 3. Legends 3 had been in development for less than a year and was apparently close to having a finished Alpha build, an early playable version of the game. More importantly, lead producer Keiji Inafune had approved an interesting design process by opening a multi-national development forum to solicit ideas from carefully selected fans. I was among those on the developer forums who took part in surveys and design sessions for various mechanics and design implementations. When the game was cancelled I, like many others, had to accept that the Mega Man series was officially dead.

Hope came in 2013 in the form of a Kickstarter for a new game developed independently from Capcom by Inafune himself under the banner of his new company Comcept LLC. What was promised to fans was a re-imagining of the classic 2D side scrolling Mega Man games so many had known and loved over the years. The title of this game was Mighty Number 9. The game reached its $900,000 USD target in two days, and by the end of the month-long Kickstarter campaign had raised a total of $3,845,170 USD. After the campaign, the game had a period of extended PayPal donations ultimately ending with a grand total of $4,046,579 USD raised. The development process involved a similar model to Legends 3, involving numerous fan polls on various design implementations, character designs and such as the poll seen in Figure 1 on the design of the character Call, the sidekick to the protagonist Beck (following the pun in the names of the Mega Man characters Rock and Roll).

The development team sported an all-star cast including original members of the Mega Man team who had left Capcom (Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter). However, the team was small, inexperienced, and worked independently. This is where the messy nature of Mighty No. 9’s development really begins. As of now, the game has yet to be released and has been delayed, ironically, nine times. For the purposes of this critique, I will be examining the development and funding process of Mighty No. 9, the lack of transparency, and the business models of . Furthermore, I will examine in greater detail issues of the crowdfunding business model and “buyer beware” mentality rampant in the gaming world right now.

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Figure 1 The poll sent to Kickstarter backers to decide on the design of the character Call

Kickstarting a Name Mighty No. 9 is not the first game, nor the last, to employ the basic crowdfunding model of the project lead being a developer or designer of a beloved game series. Other notable games funded by this model include Brian Fargo’s Wasteland 2 a sequel to the adventure game Wasteland on , which was met with some critical success, but largely underwhelmed consumers; the as yet Unreleased Shenmue 2 which made its funding goal twice over in less than 24 hours; and Psychonauts 2 designed by Tim Schafer, acclaimed developer of Day of the Tentacle and many Lucas Arts games, which also made its funding goal in less than a week.

All of these projects have one thing in common, they are sequels to games of a different era by directors or producers of some relative fame. They all employed similar tactics in their campaigns riding on a misconstrued notion that the modern gaming industry would not fund these games, but that they knew it was what the fans wanted. Kickstarter requires all campaigns to provide a short video introducing a campaign and its goals. The pitch for Mighty No. 9 opens with Keiji Inafune referencing his 23 years of experience at Capcom and explaining that when he departed Capcom he founded his own company to make “the games he wanted to make” (Kickstarter 2011). And the social capital of a man who had worked on so many Mega

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Man games gave fans a rallying point. By revving up a metaphorical “hype train,” a term used in gaming to refer to the effect of hyping up a game and selling people on an ideal rather than a physical existing product, and having Inafune at the helm Mighty No. 9 gained massive support from fans.

The Art of the Pitch: Building a Hype Train The Kickstarter page for Mighty No. 9 is high fidelity, it has numerous fully fleshed out pieces of concept art showcasing the game’s style and key designs for the main character, Beck (Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter). These concept images can be seen in Figure 2. The art and concepts depicted an art style obviously influenced by some of the scrapped designs from Legends 3.

Figure 2 Concept art from the Kickstarter page allegedly showing in engine sequences

The campaign promised a game with innovative mechanics building upon the original key mechanic of Mega Man, using the abilities of area bosses. Comcept planned on expanding this mechanic by allowing Beck to take on the abilities of certain basic enemies in the world as seen in Figure 2, a concept meant to be used in Legends 3. But this was not the only remnant of Legends 3 present in Mighty No. 9’s development. Inafune also promised to resurrect the design process of Legends in the form of official forums for Kickstarter backers. This not only renewed the hope of fans but garnered the campaign massive support. The stage was set for a successful campaign to deliver a spiritual successor to Capcom’s dead franchise. However, three years later, Mighty No. 9 is one of if not the flagship case in examining the state of Kickstarter in the gaming world.

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9 Delays and Two Demos Later Fast forward to now, on April 26th 2016 due to a listing on the Xbox store, Mighty No. 9 was confirmed to be delayed yet again, this time until December of this year. This is ironically the ninth delay in the game’s release and comes not as an official announcement but as an information leak. Prior to this the last official announcements from Inafune’s team were in January apologizing for yet another delay. Since then, all communication channels have been silent until May 2nd when an email went out saying the game would be released next month. Backers have heard very little about the final development process, having only received one widely distributed playable demo which no longer resembles the prototype. This demo, and presumably the final game, use the Unity development engine, a pre-built game engine independent developers can purchase as a foundation for their game. The demo also used unpolished 3D character models rather than the 2D style seen in the concept footage (Figure 3). The demo released in September of 2015 with only two completed levels out of a minimum of 12 the game would need to hold all the bosses proposed in the Kickstarter. Many of the features promised in the campaign and in many updates are not present. Overall the game seems subpar considering the demo is in a pre-built engine which should mean more of the focus could be devoted to mechanics and art direction.

Figure 3 The Mighty Number 9 "Special Demo Version" released to Backers in September 2015

Where does this leave the fans who invested anywhere between $5- 10,000+ USD in this project three years ago? Considering that Kickstarter has very loose rules regarding what makes a project complete, and guarantees no refunds for backers through Kickstarter, not much can be done. In most cases of investing in other industries and using other platforms either the FTC or Consumer Protection Act grant some rights to investors to prevent fraud (FTC.gov). This

4 Spring 2016 | ADES 5515 Logan McLaughlin however is not the case for Kickstarter. Thus the discussion really drifts away from whether or not the campaign of Mighty No. 9 and its proposed deliverable was a legal action as it technically meets the Kickstarter terms of service. What can be discussed is the ethics of this tactic.

Ethics in the Art of Hype Kickstarter as a concept comes down to similar methods as advertising. The consumer needs to be sold on an idea in order to fund it. In the case of Mighty No 9, this was accomplished by means of riding the cancellation of Legends 3 and utilizing members who had worked on Legends and other Mega Man games. This cultural capital mobilizes fans and also plays on their nostalgia for the original Mega Man and Mega Man X games by appealing to the sensibilities and design qualities of these classic side-scrollers, but what separated Mighty No. 9 in the eyes of fans was that based on those involved it was an official Mega Man game in spirit even if it was not one in name.

Four million is a lot of money to make a game of this size. A game of similar type funded through Kickstarter, Yacht Club games’ Shovel Knight delivered an experience similar to a classic Mega Man title for only $700,000 USD and in less time (Shovel Knight Kickstarter). Which begs the question: where is this money going?

In the case of most large development projects, companies are required to give a budget and account for where funds are allocated. This tends to be made transparent to investors. Kickstarter however, requires no such budgetary rigor. This is mostly due to the initial point of Kickstarter to fund small projects. But where do these fast and loose rules leave the consumer? High and dry, technically as of the demo release Mighty No. 9 has shown that work is being done and that the game is being produced. That’s good enough for Kickstarter to more or less declare the project out of their hands (Kickstarter Terms of Use). What’s more this wasn’t the only project Inafune started.

On July 5, 2015 Mighty No. 9 backers woke up to emails regarding a brand new project being launched by the Comcept. Red Ash was the name of the title and if Mighty No. 9 was meant to be a nod to classic Mega Man titles, Red Ash was meant to carry the mantle of Mega Man Legends (Figure 4).

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Figure 4 Key Visuals for Mega Man Legends (Left) and Red Ash (Right)

So with little progress and numerous delays Inafune launched a second project with a smaller budget but larger scope than Mighty No 9. The project failed to reach its $800,000 USD goal mostly due to negative press and lack of interest considering Comcept LLC’s failure to deliver on Mighty No. 9 (Red Ash Kickstarter). This caused more and more people to beg the question of what had happened to their money since Mighty No. 9 was being built on a pre-fab engine, the only work needed would be models, coding and design. These questions remain unanswered as Mighty No. 9 comes closer to its actual release.

Conclusion: Where Do We Go From Here? Many games don’t make it to completion; vaporware, , , all of these titles are reserved for games that may have existed in concept but never made it to market for one reason or another. What makes the case of Kickstarter games different is that there is no transparency or accountability to investors. Because those investors are not corporate and due to the nature of Kickstarter, backers are not protected by the Consumer Protection Act or the FTC. The current philosophy expressed to the gaming community in regard to these issues is “buyer beware” and this proved to work in the case of Red Ash. But when dealing with developers who have proven track records, it is hard to inspire that wariness, especially in the face of hype. The use of hype, and nostalgia plays the backer into investing in something that may never be delivered. For those who gave $20 to a project this is a small loss, but to others who invested hundreds or thousands in this process the financial hit means more.

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This critique is not meant to attack only Comcept LLC, nor is it meant strictly as an attack. The aim here is to critique that developers are using the ardor of their fan communities to fund massive projects that may never come to fruition. And if they do come to full release, the final product may be unpolished, bug ridden, and only resemble a pale shade of what was promised. On a fundamental level this tactic takes advantage of the consumer and may never result in a payoff. For all legal purposes it is technically fraud (LectLaw).

As of May 2nd, Mighty No. 9 is, allegedly, being released in a month, but many are skeptical of this announcement. Fans have been burned by the tactics employed by this project and still have no idea what a final product will look like or if it will even resemble what they were promised. Time will tell if the game was worth the wait or if it truly was a fraud, or if it truly is shovelware and the promise of release is another harbinger of further delay. Hype has long since died for this project, we can only assume the money has already been spent, and backers are still empty-handed. Kickstarter rewards guarantee most backers a free copy of the game for contributing to the campaign, but due to the nature of events sales may be poor at best. Mighty No 9 may very well fade into obscurity as a ghost of a once beloved series.

Works Cited “Fraud, to Defraud”. Lectlaw.com. http://www.lectlaw.com/def/f079.htm

“Kickstarter Terms of Use”. Kickstarter.com, last modified October 19, 2014. https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use?ref=footer

“Mighty No 9 by Comcept”. Kickstarter.com, last modified May 2, 2016. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/mighty-no- 9/description

“Red Ash- The Indelible Legend by Comcept”. Kickstarter.com, last modified August 3, 2015. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/red-ash-the- indelible-legend?token=0ac9a78f

“Shovel Knight by Yacht Club Games” Kickstarter.com, last modified September 17. 2015. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/yachtclubgames/shovel- knight/updates

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“Statutes Enforced by the FTC” FTC.gov. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/statutes

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