Your sadistic options are...

[Neurotic Void Melody]

This is why only fools are heroes. Because you never know when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice...

Thankyou, William Dafoe, couldn't have said it better myself. Now get back in your box of needly torment!

*Ahem* Hello, pitiful humans and overzealous interferers of ingenious design, I am your cartoonishly operatically evil, filthy rich video-game publisher, [small]for we are many,[/small] and we grace you today with a small mercy, a gift for your unquestioning obedience...a choice to free what you love the dearest.

Wheel out the subjects, my beautiful (and definitely not imprisoned) assistant!

On your left... you will see your favourite developer, malnourished and unkempt, skittery yet full of empty, distant stares caused by years of overworked, stressful demands on projects they no longer have creative control over. They are mine to pull and twist the strings as I make them dance to the clumsy whims of faceless shareholders, their souls fading into obscurity as they snap anxiously at each other trying to decide the next justification for microtransactions.

On your right... you will see your favourite IP withering away, barely recognisable through the corporate meddling that has left festering wounds of loot-boxes, day one DLC, parceled out content for future profitable sales...oh I have great plans for this sweet darling, should it be the episodic scalpel or the online-only F2P bone-saw I introduce gently next? Decisions desquisions...

...

Now over to you, dearest 'hero,' you can only free one, to do as they wish for the rest of their existence; for I am merciful.
The other must remain in my iron-grip clutches as they sing to my every indulgent tune; for I am not really merciful at all, haha!!

Who and what are your choices? Whom will you save and why?
Will it be your esteemed developer, stripped of all their IPs, but creatively free (more or less)?
Orrr will it be your darling IP, unchained and released to be given to whomever you desire (more or less)?

[small]*They don't have to be related to each other, but it would add to the bittersweet drama if so.[/small]

 

[DefunctTheory]

I'll take the developer. Good developers can do produce good game, create new IPs, or just 'spit out' good solo games with variety to sate any need.

While IPs often outlive their usefulness anyway. Even if you 'save' it from the worst of gaming practices, the IP will still eventually get tired, stale, and need to take a break or die.

 

[American Tanker]

Yeah, the logical choice is to save the dev rather than the IP. The IP can be replaced. It's what we call a "spiritual successor".

The dev, though, can't be replaced. Each one has their own style, their own identity. If we lose the dev, we lose their unique touch.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Get your filthy dick-beaters off my DEVELOPER, vile fiend!!!

Great IPs come and go, but the minds they are born from, those are the real treasure. My favorite developer is Playdead Studios; they?ve only got Limbo and Inside to their credit so far, but those two games (particularly the latter) are evidence of the kind of brilliance and dedication to craft that makes me confident they?ve much, much more to offer.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Where?s the option to feed greedy publishers to the fully-grown-but-still-incredibly-hungry-adolescent pterodactyls? Nobody considers their needs. I think if we could keep their bellies full of pub stew we wouldn?t have to choose between the left or right.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Where?s the option to feed greedy publishers to the fully-grown-but-still-incredibly-hungry-adolescent pterodactyls? Nobody considers their needs. I think if we could keep their bellies full of pub stew we wouldn?t have to choose between the left or right.

I keep my adolescent pterodactyls well fed with the bountiful number of homeless children I helped create through relentless gentrification, thankyou very much. Their needs are not your concern, citizen!

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Have to agree with the majority here. The obvious and logical choice is to save the developer.
An IP is just an IP, alone. Most will let you down in the end.
While a free dev can create any number of new games to become your new favorite IP (and the next one after that).

 

[DeffoNotAnAltAccount]

IPs are nothing without a vision and a vision is something only a person can have. Metal Gear Solid is already dead to everybody because Konami has taken it away from Hideo Kojima and given it to people who don't give a damn. In a few years Konami will be making zero videogames a year while Kojima will still be making videogames with his unique sensibilities.

 

[Worgen]

Save the dev. An IP is just an IP, if it goes on long enough it will get stale no matter how good it started out, but a good dev can usually make at least a few more good things.

 

[Asita]

...Dude, have you seen my avatar? I am no stranger to butchered IPs.

I save the dev.

 

[DefunctTheory]

...Dude, have you seen my avatar? I am no stranger to butchered IPs.

Pfft. Mass Effect isn't butchered, it's just had its feathers ruffled a bit. If you want to see a butchered IP, look at my avatar.

 

[DeffoNotAnAltAccount]

...Dude, have you seen my avatar? I am no stranger to butchered IPs.

Pfft. Mass Effect isn't butchered, it's just had its feathers ruffled a bit. If you want to see a butchered IP, look at my avatar.

Not exactly a fair comparison when a major reason for the issues an IP faces is a legal contest over the various contents of the IP itself. Harmony Gold is like a hawk with giant fighting robots.

 

[DefunctTheory]

...Dude, have you seen my avatar? I am no stranger to butchered IPs.

Pfft. Mass Effect isn't butchered, it's just had its feathers ruffled a bit. If you want to see a butchered IP, look at my avatar.

Not exactly a fair comparison when a major reason for the issues an IP faces is a legal contest over the various contents of the IP itself. Harmony Gold is like a hawk with giant fighting robots.

Oh, it's not just that. The 'primary' IP is split between two companies (Neither of which care about the property). The movie rights have been sold, forever, to a holding company owned by a Disney executive. Three concurrent and separately owned sub-license are being worked (PGI, HBS, CGL). PGI is in a perpetual fight with their own fanbase, CGL is run by buffoons that can't even ship product half the time, and HBS is probably just swinging through like they did for Shadowrun (Which is fine).

And they keep getting sued (Partially because of a fan base that just will not shut the hell up unless the Battletech/Mechwarrior series is baiting a lawsuit with designs everyone knows they shouldn't touch with 20 foot poll).

It's a mess.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Neither. Screw 'em both. Let new people come up with new IP.

That's the problem with the gaming industry. A lustful reverence for the weirdly incestuous relationship between developers and their IPs. Like Ow Wow, Hideo Kojima is attached to the project! That must make it good, 'cause he made that one game that one time!

They're just dudes and if we were truly honest with ourselves we'd realize there isn't a good IP out there, just individually good games set in an IP filled with lackluster titles.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I'd sell somebody else's soul for a proper Final Fantasy Tactics franchise,

 

[Asita]

...Dude, have you seen my avatar? I am no stranger to butchered IPs.

Pfft. Mass Effect isn't butchered, it's just had its feathers ruffled a bit. If you want to see a butchered IP, look at my avatar.

Not to diminish your own heartache, but let's review. Cannibalized through the sale of relatively important (but not critically important) main story elements for Day 1 DLC? Check (From Ashes). Ending so bad upon release that a significant chunk of the playerbase balked at it and another large chunk chose to believe that it couldn't be real and that the publishers had really released a Trojan horse of an ending and would release the actual ending some months later? Splitting dev focus by arbitrarily adding a multiplayer campaign to the workload for their single player IP because that's the 'in' thing (see also doing the same thing with Dragon Age: Inquisition)? Said multiplayer being dominated by trying to acquire loot-boxes for new weapons/characters? Microtransactions to speed up the acquisition of said loot boxes? Andromeda's various issues including the ever amusing scuttle? (WhoopWhoopWhoopWhoop)? Announcing five months after release that they would no longer be patching the single player campaign but would continue to work on the multiplayer campaign?

At what point does it get the "I went to the butcher shop and all I got was this greasy t-shirt" souvenir?

 

[FalloutJack]

I think I probably snap yonder sadist's neck and do what I want with both of them, because I am The Man Behind The Man. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheManBehindTheMan]

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

My initial intention was to entice people to explain their favourites of either choice and maybe how they are so, and we'd all have fun and laugh and it would've been a wonderful jolly outing for the day, instead of people just selecting the most logical option and leaving it at that. Maybe I was too subtle with wording. Or...not wording properly.

Heroes are no fun, missing the point all the time. It sure gets lonely at the top of the supervillain chain, and when you do try to make a bonding exercise out of lifelong imprisonment and torture of their loved ones, they don't even stay long enough to notice the extravagant buffet you prepare for them! [small]They're doing it all wrong!! How will I ever extract this useful information now?[/small]


Alcohol please!

I...forgot the alcohol. :/

 

[the December King]

...

Fuck it, I choose to save my IP.

The devs who were behind it fucked off to make shitty new content (read:company got dissolved), so whatever. Besides, new devs that are passionate can make innovations and improve a thing, too (they don't always smear poop on an IP... right?).