Is Capcom on its last legs?

[Invadergray]

Just gonna pull the conversation away from Skyrim for a bit to talk about a company that has been with me all my life, Capcom (the relevance is namely that I've been playing a lot of UMVC3 lately). Now I love Capcom. Sure their writers are grade A retarded, and they like to drag the occasional series out waaaaay beyond it's natural stopping point, but they still make fun games, dammit. The original Megaman Legends is still in my top 5 games of all time, Resident Evil was my first shooter, and Dead Rising is so much fun. SO MUCH FUN! Also I play UMVC3 and the occasional Street Fighter IV.

They have been getting some ire lately. What with the racism thing, their completely idiotic business practices particularly when it comes to DLC and RE-RELEASING FIGHTING GAMES OVER AND OVER AND OVER, the entire Megaman department blowing up and WHEN ARE YOU MAKING ANOTHER DARKSTALKERS? Their game development has gone a bit downhill too. I admittedly liked Dead Rising 2 but everything else was just liquid crap. Resident Evil 5, that... golden thing they added to it, Okami (sorry I really didn't have fun with that game), Devil may cry 4, Bionic Commando (the new one), Monster Hunter Tri, and that Final Fight... thing (Streetwise. It's kind of old, but damn I hated it).

The only solution I could see would be to start some new series and hope they take off. Most of the others have been beaten to death (especially Resident Evil). Maybe they could get away with a Dead Rising 3 but that's only putting a band-aid on the problem.

So is the old girl dying? This is still the company that revolutionized fighting games and brought us Megaman, but it seems to be falling apart a bit. Is their pile of small, yet stupid decisions piling on top of them to the point of suffocation? Is there still hope? And if they do die, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

 

[Dandark]

I don't know if they are dying or not, they still have plenty of fans.

All I can say is, Are they dying? God I hope so.

 

[CountChopula]

http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/stock/stockquote.html

From last year Capcom's stock value went from 1275 yen to 2275 yen, and is now at 1975 yen. Sure has no signs that the company is dying or anything of that nature.

Or are you just making crap up because you dislike certain practices they are doing which so far has shown to be financially beneficial to them?

 

[Fappy]

I don't know if they are dying or not, they still have plenty of fans.

All I can say is, Are they dying? God I hope so.

This would come from a man with a Hakuman avatar

Don't worry, I'm with you. Capcom has turned into a rabid dog that needs to be put down.

 

[gigastar]

Incoming Megaman fans...

My opinion? Far from it. Capcom is about as well rooted in Japan as Nintendo is, and the immense success of Monster Hunter there shows it.

 

[DracoSuave]

Apparently, looking at decades old franchises is the best way to judge a company's fortunes.

I, on the other hand, prefer to look at shit they've been up to lately. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Hunter]

I hear certain, more recent franchises, are printing money. WHO KNEW!

ninja'd!

As for the rehashing fighting game thing; they've been doing that longer than every game you've mentioned, including Street Fighter 4. And they don't just rehash for consoles; THEY REHASH IN ARCADES.

Which, by the way, I hear is very lucrative for them. Has been for more than a decade. You should probably pay more attention.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Eh, not really.
They've taken some hits to be sure (Lost Planet wasn't as successful as they'd have liked; UMvC3 says some unpleasant things about what they think of the original, or their confidence in it), and one can argue endlessly about whether the loss of Inafune is a fork in the eye or out of the thigh (butchered metaphor count for the day: 1).

Personally, I don't care either way: The only franchises of theirs I'm even remotely interested in at this point are Breath of Fire (which is essentially dead), and Monster Hunter (which I'm taking with a grain of salt at this point just due to the crippling amounts of grind in those games).

Though if they get desperate, they can always sell the Megaman franchise back to Inafune, just to piss in his cheerios one last time (as revenge for him pissing in theirs this last year).

 

[zehydra]

The guy who created megaman left Capcom, so the only franchise of theirs that I played is gone.

So they're pretty much done for me.

 

[Fleetfiend]

I certainly hope not.

But I do agree with the fact that they have been quite idiotic lately. Capcom has developed several of my favorite games, and though I would hate for them to go "kaput"... but if they don't stop being ridiculous and start listening to their fans a bit more, they may just fizzle out. Eventually. If it wasn't for their gigantic fanbase and extremely popular titles.

In short:

Capcom, please stop being stupid so I don't have to stop liking you.
Thanks.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I doubt it, they're making quite a bit of money remaking Dead Rising 2 and MVC3.

The fact that they made the Ace Attorney games gives them a free pass as far as i'm concerned...

Speaking of Ace Attorney, hurry up and localise Investigations 2 dammit!

Probably gonna go buy Okami some point next year as well, i feel like i shouldn't have Amaterasu in my UMVC3 team without playing the game she's originally from...

 

[The Rascal King]

Hey, hi there. Here's this:


Also, Capcom has been milking the hell out of it's franchises since Street Fighter 2. You don't have to take a business/finance class to find out they make a shit-ton of money by slapping on "super" or "hyper" in front of beloved titles. They are a company trying to stay afloat in a world where piracy and tough competition are shaking the foundation of traditional game companies. They are not dying, they're adapting to survive.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

As long as they keep making good fighting games, I honestly couldn't care about their buisness practices. Plus, I happen to like Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Okami, and a bunch of their other franchises. Heck, even Mega Man won't stay dead. Trust me. Capcom is pretty much my favorite Japanese game company, or at the very least has made the most games I enjoy.

Though I do find it kind of funny that, before the whole Infaune thing, people would have pitched a fit if they had made another Mega Man game, calling "rehash" and "printing money" before it even saw shelves. Then they cancel it, and suddenly Mega Man has been the best franchise in memory and they've committed some sort of sin.