How about you think before you speak before pulling the needy and entitled fanbase argument dumbass.

that argument annoys me especially when its coming from someone on GB, a site that has lived and got picked up by CBS a large part cause of the paying Subscriber base (the Staff has said numerous times its because of the subscribers is why this site is still around) people including subscribers bitched about the wednesday show and the views decreased each week, and lo and behold no more wednesday show, its now a monthly show. thats just the most recent example.

but back to DmC,

vgchartz the closest estimate we the public will see shows that both gows and xcom still overall sold better than DmC

(and according to 2k, you know the publisher of Xcom, said that Xcom exceeded expectations and was very profitable) Just cause Square enix had insane expectations for their western stuff doesnt mean everyone was the same way (if tomb raider is where you basing your generalization from, the devs have said that even though it didnt meet expectations, that doesnt mean it sold well or was a failure, and also Square has said sleeping dogs was profitable as well) , and this DmC was the worst selling game in the series, (heres DMC4's numbers for comparison )

Vg Chartz may not be the definitive numbers, but its a good estimate to what we will ever get to see.

DmC's numbers

Xcom's Numbers

God of war ascension's numbers.

Gears of war Judgement's numbers

I dont disagree that overall there is a slump in sales, but to say the vocal fans/people that didnt like the new character design wasnt a factor in this game's sales is foolish and show you dont know how business works and the a relationship with your brand's audience works

Selfishly, I hope this doesn't prevent future Monster Hunter games from coming to the West.

Same people who will make the "quality over quantity" when their favorite niche game doesn't sell.

Shame that this game is getting the "Prince of Persia: SoT" treatment. Minus the possible sequel.

Seriously, that's what has people so angry? Friggin' A. I've seen the fans utter WAY worse stuff, at a much higher frequency and without a second thought. But, whatever, that's the way it works apparently. Fans can say whatever they want, be as hateful as they want, as demanding as they want. If developers say anything remotely negative, they get crucified. Dumb. What they said was about the lightest level of what I've seen from the more angry folk.

Anyway, shame to hear about their sales. However, I think when it comes to them talking about quality and such, it's far more likely they mean stuff like Operation Raccoon City, which was critically panned, as well as in the fan base. Though it did sell decent. Point is, it's ridiculous to make this entire chart about DmC. It's only one factor of it.

@mrfluke: I have to admit, half of my argument is based on the fact that I don't want it to be true. Think about it: the ONLY TIME (to my knowledge) when people were angry enough to boycote a game would be with DmC. Using something called logic, I thought, hey, no way there were enough people in love with the old dante and his story that never went anywhere to seriously harm sales of a game for the first time in history. No way those people will spite on one of the rare games that's actually good and caters to their tastes at the same time, right? RIGHT?

I still stand by that logic and I prefer to think the internet has made the DMC hardcore fans look much more numorous than they actally are. The alternative is way too depressing.

Part of it is alienating old fans, and part of it is not doing enough to attract new fans. At the end of the day, Capcom didn't market the game well enough, and Ninja Theory helped no one with their antics.

The only other thing I can really say is that, as a fan of Other M, I think I understand how DmC fans feel now. Well, except that Team Ninja didn't go out of its way at any point to antagonize Metroid fans.

<p>&lt;p&gt;I really liked DMC, but I wonder about a possible explanation for its sales that I haven't heard of before. The original DMC titles were very popular in the home market, and seemed to have an Eastern flavour that happened to catch on with many western gamers. This new one's style seemed very culturally western in its references and story beats. Is it possible that Eastern sales were far less for this game, which could have contributed to the decline?&lt;/p&gt;</p>

Exactly, You sir at the end of the day get it.

And as a non fan of other M I can start to maybe see their point as well. What turned me off that game was the story and character that looked soooo bad. I guess DMC fans can make the same argument with DmC. To bad they try to rope in ''shallow gameplay'' and ''bad game'' as arguments too which makes them sound like whining brats every time.

How did the DMC HD collection do?

I don't give a *fuck all* about the new DmC but I kinda like the old ones. Awesome.

Only thing thats keeping them around is letting others do a better job then they can.

Who knows, maybe they should have made his hair white!

@taku128 said:

I fail to see how these projects being cancelled is awesome? Chances are there's probably just not going to be any new DMC games for a long while now. Everyone loses in this situation. :/

I remember hearing it sold a lot. I've never seen specific numbers.

The Devil May Cry series was one of the few bastions of two things that are becoming increasingly scarce in video games: games that are actually challenging, and games that are Japanese in a good way. Throwing both of those away for no good reason is depressing to me.

DmC failing makes bringing the original DMC back more likely, even if it's only a minuscule chance. Video game franchises don't stay dead forever and the old Devil May Cry games never sold poorly, just not Call of Duty levels of sales. If Capcom ever realizes that not every game can do COD sales then Devil May Cry will return, and if they don't they're a doomed company anyways so it doesn't matter.

Edit: Also after all the antagonizing game journos and people at Team Ninja did I'm happy to see it blow up in their faces. And also everything gameplay-wise people liked about DmC is stuff that DMC3 did better, but nobody who raves about DmC has actually played any of the old games so they just attribute it to the reboot.

@barrock the majority of the antagonizers on this board that love to see old DMC fans upset (and bitterly love to throw widespread generalizing stereotypes around without taking the time or the energy to research and understand the passion for the OG series and why NT was met with scorn) aren't going to be too thrilled to hear this, but if online sources and numbers are to be believed, the HD collection very likely actually outsold the reboot

I followed the development of DmC pretty closely and the only "antagonizing" that seemed to be coming out of NT was failing to acquiesce to unreasonable demands by "fans".

@mrfluke said:

I don't know anything about you, and I'm not taking a side on anything DmC related (personally, I've never played the old games and didn't play this one), but you've got to stop waving VGchartz around (even with that disclaimer) as any sort of proof or data or....anything. They know nothing. Absolutely zero. Their best guess is as good as anyone's guess. They are as widely inaccurate or as close to the mark as luck will have it, and nothing more. Don't believe me? Let's look at their "methodology" pulled right from their page of the same name:

First off, they spelled "proprietary" wrong. But that's besides the point. Let's go through this one by one.

1. "Passively" polling? What the fuck does that even mean in this context? Crowd sourcing through Twitter or Facebook? Regardless, their first data point boils down to asking people what they are buying. Not exactly direct manufacturer data, is it? And "passively" might imply they aren't even summoning enough effort to poll anyone themselves.
2. Again, what the fuck is this? So they ask Gamestop if they have game X, and that's a data point? I mean, it's too much to hope that they'd actually get a number from a company like that (and even more so that they would disclose said number to the public), so I have to assume, since they aren't being specific, that it's the first case.
3. "Statistical trend fitting and historical data", also known as guessing.
4. "Studying resell prices?" What bearing does that have on a new game? Even if we are talking about an old game, getting a concrete number based on the idea that "higher resell value = more demand" is impossible.
5. This is the only one that even vaguely qualifies as a relevant statistic, and only in the sense that (if they even release those numbers to a site like this) it determines the maximum physical sales a game can have. Shipped != sold, after all.

Now, you might say that I'm being too hard on them, and that some of their nebulous bullshit might actually lead to semi-relevant data. Well put their theory into practice. If you look at games like the new Fire Emblem or Luigi's Mansion, you'll notice that they're off by nearly 20% in some cases, and that's with Nintendo telling people exactly how many US copies they sold. In cases like that, they shouldn't be off by one! Nintendo is saying, quite clearly, that "we've sold X copies up to this date", and yet if you check the sales history for those games, VGchartz has their own bullshit numbers in place of direct, first party data. That alone should blow up their relevancy, but when you add the fact that they extrapolate both regions that usually release little in the way of sales figures, and have the gall to break down sales per platform (when no such granular data exists), it blows my mind that anyone takes them even slightly seriously.

NPD gave up publishing actual figures for their sales data. Without that regular source, any sales estimations have little basis in fact. You can't estimate a sales trend based on your own, unfounded estimations, and pretend that any accuracy is going to be anything other than pure luck.

As far as I'm concerned, their only usage is the compilation of direct, first party data (games sales or consoles) into handy charts. As I don't know if they ever go back and adjust their bullshit once hard numbers are released, I don't even use them for that.

Your point is only made weaker by using them.

Maybe I'm missing something but are many game series for any publisher actually selling well?

The way I interpret these numbers, and Square's and Nintendo's disastrous WiiU launch and Ea's is not they "didn't listen to fans" but there is a rapidly shrinking gaming market in general. It's not like game companies haven't thumbed their nose at fans before, but I've never seen it this bad since the Atari days. This is even worse when you consider that THQ is now gone, so there is competition out there for those titles.

I suspect the bigger cause in DMC's under-performance is the current gaming market that any perceived slights to the hardcore fans. There seems to be rapidly shrinking demand for all AAA console games across the board. I'm not sure why. My suspicion is that several years of record high unemployment for people under the age of 25 is taking its' toll on the gaming business with possible long term repercussions.

It's a little frightening to be honest to see all these games miss their targets and so badly, I'm beginning to think the next console war could be a bloodbath where everybody loses.

Not quite as pathetic as the press dickriding NT and feeding their egos thinking everything they make is solid gold storywise.

@starvinggamer: Still, NT could have been a little nicer to them. Not submissive, but nice enough to at least attempt to understand why fans are upset.

@nettacki: Because they're children? Don't get me wrong, there were legitimate concerns before the games release about the quality of the combat, but 99.9% of the naysayers were boohooing about the stupidest shit.

Also I've never played Kung Fu Chaos, but their other games have been near the top of the pack in terms of storytelling IMO.

Well it's not like the fans were acting in the most reasonable fashion. I imagine it must be annoying to be working on a game and loads of people are already shitting on it before they've even played it.

Also, it's a damn shame if God of War: Ascension did sell more than DmC because it definitely didn't deserve to in my eyes.

Well, gee, I wonder why that is? Maybe it has something to do with marketing campaigns like this:

I mean, seriously? This is just juvenile drivel.

I'll be honest. I enjoyed DmC for what it was - a well-presented action game with some interesting art design. But, as a long-time fan of the series, I was severely underwhelmed by the lack of gameplay depth. Jump cancelling has virtually been reduced to mindless button-mashing and the demon weapons are thoroughly boring with their complete lack of combo-ability. I could not give two shits about the story and characterisation in either DmC or the original series - as far as I am concerned, both are b-movie garbage which just serve as justification for the combat.

I liked DmC. Especially on PC.

That's a gross overexaggeration, and you know it. Unless concerns about gameplay, storyline, the portrayal of Dante and the rest of the characters, and whether or not NT/Capcom has any real respect for the series are considered the "stupidest shit." In which case that's probably accurate.

@crysack: Technically, those aren't marketing campaigns. Those are just random presentation pics attempting to show what NT was going for. But I get your point.

@nettacki: Like I said, quality of combat was a legitimate concern. But those comments were almost nonexistent. The entire crux of the anti-DmC movement was the kneejerk reaction to the initial snippets of footage shown off by NT. Boo hoo black hair boo hoo emo is what carried the conversation all the way from announcement to release. For every 1000-post thread where one guy would say, "You know NT games have had really lackluster combat" and one other guy would say, "Yeah but hopefully Capcom will help them with that side of things", every other post would be people shouting "New Dante looks dumb!" "Old Dante looked dumber!" back and forth.

That's what informed NT's reaction, the knowledge that the only people who could be so vehemently opposed to something in an absolute vacuum of tangible information are children or adults with the reasoning skills of children. There's no negotiating to be done with these sorts of people, no middle ground to be reached. If they don't get their way they're going to kick and scream and roll around the floor of the grocery store until you give in. They made up their mind to hate DmC before there was enough information about the game for them to know what they were hating.

@starvinggamer: Oh, I have no doubt that there were many stupid, irrational fans on both sides that made it difficult/near impossible to reach a middle ground with them. That doesn't give NT/Capcom the permission to throw everyone else who's skeptical of the game under the same group that contains those fans and piss them off. Keep in mind, as time went on, more and more fans got over the hair thing and the brunt of the complaints became more focused on everything else. Very few, if any, of those legitimate complaints were taken seriously by the publisher and developer, let alone the rest of the press who proceeded to give this game high scores and shit on the fanbase in the process.

I can understand NT being impatient towards the fans that are never satisfied, but those fans always exist, and they're not that large in comparison to the rest of the fanbase. What I do have a problem with is NT taking their impatience out towards ALL fans of the series, not just the ones who complain pointlessly. When talking about the old series in comparison to the new one, one of the worst things a new dev of an established series could do is put down the old games in some way and claim their new game will show what Dante is really like, or some similar thing. Those same old games are enjoyed by millions of people like you and me, which means by extension NT has pretty much considered the preferences of a lot of people as irrelevant to their "vision."

The existence of stupid, irrational fans does not negate the existence of the more rational fans with legit beefs with the new DmC, and NT's failure to realize this and answer back in a more professional way has led to many fans seeing them (or at least Tameem) as arrogant douchebags. They could have easily quelled the anger of the fanbase by at least saying they have their concerns in mind, or something. Anything to answer the fans' most burning questions about why it looks so different from the games they know and love, and so soon after the last game too. But they didn't, and instead they, Capcom, and several journalists fanned the flames of this stupid flame war in ways that harmed the game' reputation in the end.

On a related note, I gotta ask you: Why do you consider the things said in this thread as a "shitshow?" Okay, admittedly some of those may be out of date considering it was made in 2011, but surely some of them ring true and are understandable. If you want to see a more up-to-date critique by someone who's actually played it, see this link.

@nettacki: The problem is that the stupid, irrational ones dominated the conversation from beginning to end. NT couldn't make a move this way or that without being bombarded by people screaming the most insipid bile possible at them in droves. But I wouldn't classify them as "taking their impatience out" on anyone. Yes, they did some gentle ribbing in the direction of the whiners, but while they didn't go out of their way to address the more reasonable concerns they also didn't do anything to aggravate the people voicing them. They just buckled down and made the game they were going to make.

I didn't read the thread, only the OP, and here are why I find it an incredibly laughable attempt at critique:

• Every quotation was given completely devoid of context. Given the obvious agenda of the OP, it's safer to assume that no context was given specifically so the words could be misconstrued to better support the writer's argument
• Tameem is accused of being racist for saying that the very Japanese style of Bayonetta is not what he wants for the new DmC
• Tameem doesn't know what "cool" is because Monkey, a character from a crazy sci-fi post-apocalyptic game, wears clothes that would look out of place in modern society
• Gameplay is wrong (without playing it) because one minor aspect is vaguely reminiscent of Heavenly Sword
• Capcom lied by not calling it a reboot? What?
• Tameem and NT are UK based, which is bad I guess
• Tameem described Dante as a "streetbrawler" therefore he is a football hooligan
• Calling Dante a "disenfranchised youth" is Tameem's way of criticizing the world's youth of being angsty with a lot of bark but no bite
• Dante is part Angel now so clearly this game is being influenced by Heavenly Sword
• Dante Smokes, therefore NT has no respect for Kamiya

EDIT: If you think any one of the above things is a valid criticism against NT and DmC, according to the information available when the thread was made, then we're probably at an impasse.

@starvinggamer: Well like I said, by the time the thread was made, it was over a year before the game was made so of course not all of it is valid. Now how about the second link with the more up-to-date critique?

And stuff like what's shown in Crysack's post isn't what I'd call "gentle ribbing in the direction of the whiners." It's straight up saying "our Dante is better than your Dante because your Dante doesn't fit with what I think is cool." And that ticks quite a few people off, even if it does seem a little petty.

From where I'm standing, the stupid irrational fans did not completely dominate the conversation. There were many, many times when the rational ones let their voices heard and the pointless bitching was reduced to a minimum.

Also, what do you think of the press's reaction to the fans and how they too seem to group them all into one giant group of trolls who hate everything? Some of the press's reactions haven't been all that in touch with the fanbase, like that one article from here that essentially blamed the fans' voting with their wallets for the low sales of DmC and still thought they were complaining about the hair.

@nettacki: I don't see any critique there. Just a long, rambling way of saying, in essence, that DMC and DmC are tonally different. This is true. Different ≠ bad, different = different.

And as the OP said, the over-the-top style of DMC was a product of its times, just as the self-serious, gritty tone of DmC is a product of the world we live in now. In that regard, DmC is actually more true to the OP's notion of the original intent of DMC than a copy-paste original series's vibe that would be considered tone-deaf by modern standards.

EDIT: Rereading it, it actually seems more like a defense of the original DMC than a critique of the new DmC.

EDIT2: Just saw you edited your previous post. I see what Crysack posted as gentle ribbing. Anyone that isn't actively trying to take offense can see how patently farcical those images are.

As far as the conversation goes, maybe the rational voices came through at some point. Unfortunately, I only followed the discussion whenever NT was talking about the game, not during the long lulls in between.

And there are plenty of idiots in the press. The anti-fans aren't responsible for DmC's poor sales, the state of the industry is. Expecting people who don't want to buy a game to buy it just because you think it's good is incredibly stupid. Any members of the press writing articles like the one you linked are guilty of that.

@starvinggamer: Different =/= bad, but if the fans feel that the changes aren't really for the better and completely miss the point of the series at large, why condemn them for saying so?

@nettacki: If they don't like it, that's fine with me. They can say so as much as they'd like, I don't really care.

Also I edited my previous post in response to your edit.

@starvinggamer: I see. And yeah, I agree with what you said about the press. That's one reason why the fans that don't like this game are kinda pissed with them. It seems like some people honestly think that game reviews are the Gospel, anything said there is undeniable fact and anyone who disagrees is ridiculed for having an opinion.

I feel that the whole DmC situation is a perfect case study for how to not treat your most loyal fans.

Dark Souls 2 seems to be getting it right with the gameplay demo that IGN showed off. There was a whole lot of concern once word came out that they were aiming to make the game more accessible to attract a larger market. What was the fan reaction? It was negative across the board. The only people who were coming out to say they wanted an easy mode, or a mode where you didn't lose souls, or something with checkpoints were people who had no idea what they were talking about. Whenever someone suggested any of those things in the forum here countless members came out to tell them why they were wrong and why they didn't need people messing up their series.

People could call that kind of thing "fan entitlement" or whatever else, but if you're expecting to sell your product to a specific consumer it would be a good idea to listen to their concerns. DmC didn't really do that and as a result they lost a good portion of the fan base.

@golguin: I think that where the whole "don't mistreat your fans" argument falls apart in regards to DmC is that, when you actually think about it, the people bitching about the game pre-release weren't "their" fans. Ostensibly, they were fans of Capcom and the DMC series but, guess what, the developer was Ninja Theory and this was a reimagining, not a sequel.

Even if they had wanted to, the only way NT could have appeased the fans of DMC would have been to cancel the contract and magically force Capcom to develop a game they had no interest in making. As it stands, I think that NT actually did exactly right by the fans that mattered to them, the fans of their games. Instead of trying to broaden the appeal by acquiescing to the demands of complainers, they stuck to their strengths and made a game that rose above the high notes of Heavenly Sword and higher notes of Enslaved.

Had NT tried to stay totally true to the previus DMC games, I think they would have fallen flat on their faces. Nothing they did would have satisfied the people that wanted DMC5. Instead, their game would have been met with middling to poor reviews, failed to recapture fans of the series, and disappointed fans of the developer. This version of DmC would still have sold poorly, and likely sold worse.

This whole situation was unavoidable from the moment Capcom put NT on the job, and NT made the best of it and produced a fantastic game.

I'll agree to disagree on it being a "fantastic game." It's objectively shallower than DMC3 and DMC4, if you really like the 'They Live' storyline, that's your choice. The thing is that I don't think whatever the fans said was going to be heard by Capcom or Ninja Theory, so instead they belittled and mocked the fans. They never intended to do right by the fanbase and unsurprisingly the game bombed. You can say the game appealed to a new audience, but ultimately how would it sell well if even before release it was already hated by the very same fans who would naturally be the first to consider buying the game? This seems like the most direct cause and effect in a video game. It's fallacious to say it could ever have been like DMC5 in the first place, that'd require no Ninja Theory.

I don't think it's true that the fans would never be pleased by this reboot. Just look at other successful attempts, one that springs to my mind is Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It was met by harsh criticism when it was revealed, then was released to avid praise and acceptance by the die hard fans. So personally I just don't accept at all that Ninja Theory couldn't have made the fans happy, they simply went in a bad direction and they paid for it.

Another successful reboot was Tomb Raider and I thought it was fantastic. I'm not sure what the hardcore fans thought of the game, but I never saw people coming out and saying, "This isn't my Tomb Raider."

@golguin: Yeah that's a better comparison, as it came out as almost the same time. I think it's good proof that this isn't simply the generation "slowing down" and had something to do with the game or its marketing.

Last year, I saw someone tweet to the official Tomb Raider account that they weren't happy with the direction that they were taking Lara, but that was one guy around the time that the press was intent on crucifying the devs for making Lara someone you'd want to protect.

Christ, the games press is fucked.

DMC is also a niche game. And well RE6 was err....uhhh...The same level as the latter Resident Evil movies.

Man, and all of this because Ninja Theorie didn't change the stupid character model. Fans are idiots sometimes.
And yes, I do think that if they had put in old Dante the game would have sold better, now it seems that DMC is going the Onimusha way.

@endurancefun: I'm assuming that your post was in reply to me, as I'm the one directly above you calling DmC "fantastic".

It's shallower, yes, but if DMC3 and Bayonetta are in the 17' deep far end of the dive well, DmC is in the 13' deep area by the springboards. The only people who would notice the lack of depth are the platform divers, the niche within the niche. To a majority of players, DmC is still deeper than any other character action games on the market, and intelligently designed in a way to allow swimmers to feel like divers. This analogy is getting away from me.

What people seem to be ignoring is that Eidos Montreal was developing to their strengths. They clearly have a keen understanding of a western aesthetics, tone, and shooting mechanics. Do you really think the people at NT could have put out a game that properly captured the specifically eastern style of DMC? Do you really think they could have put out a wacky, tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top story when they've always been focused on delivering resonant storytelling with acting! ? Do you think they could have built a combat system on par with DMC3, literally the best in the genre, given the extremely shallow combat of Heavenly Sword and Enslaved? Without all three of those things, the harshest critics would never have bought the game, and no way in hell was NT going to hit all of those marks when they would have been forced to play to their weaknesses.

EDIT: The combat in DmC is literally second-best in the genre if you lump DMC and Bayonetta together (Kamiya), and that wasn't enough to please people.

EDIT2: Possibly third best depending on how you feel about the memorization/regurgitation style of Ninja Gaiden vs the improvisational style of DMC/DmC.

Putting games out that straddle the line of the most popular genre makes selling copies a lot easier than releasing in a genre on the verge of extinction. Just look at Bayonetta. And I don't know where people are getting the idea that die-hard fans of Tomb Raider are super happy with the reboot. They just weren't that vocal to begin with. The conversation that dominated that game since its inception was the supposed misogyny. The people saying "boo, this isn't the Tomb Raider I want" were reduced to a faint echo. And post-release, I'm hearing the same things, that this wasn't the Tomb Raider that they wanted.

Expecting NT to make a game that would make the hardest-core fans of DMC happy would be like expecting Nether Realm Studios to make a sequel to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Mortal Kombat 9 and Enslaved are both well regarded games in the same genres as DMC and UMvC3, but for drastically different reasons.

I did, plenty, with the same frequency before and after release. Except the Tomb Raider discussion was dominated from start to finish with sexism and misogyny so no one noticed unless they were paying real close attention.

This. I've heard people not like it too, they just weren't as ridiculously loud about it. Look, Tomb Raider kind of shows why I have a problem with people's reaction towards this game. I actually liked Tomb Raider Legend and Anniversary(couldn't get into Underworld too much, gameplay just didn't feel right), so I was really weirded out by the super gritty direction of the new one. Due to that, I haven't played it, and still don't want to. That being said, I haven't went out of my way to attack the game. It just isn't for me. I can recognize that it might be a perfectly fine game, I just don't know if it's what I personally want out of Tomb Raider. I don't understand the seething hatred towards DmC. I get it not being for everyone, and that's fine. But for some reason, DmC became the new horse to beat on. Guess someone had to take over for Mass Effect 3/EA/Activision.

And in regards to DmC being a good game in general, I actually prefer the gameplay from it to the old ones. And I love the old games. Just finished replaying them last month. But, as I was playing them, I found myself missing the grapples and modifiers. The system just clicked with me better. Doesn't make the other games less valid, they are just for different tastes. That's what makes me so frustrated is that people seem to have an idea that if it isn't the same as the old games, it's just bad. If it's not as complex or difficult, it's bad. Doesn't mean that at all. It's just different. If it's not what you're looking for in an action game, then just find one that is what you're looking for, and leave it be.

I'd say it's unfair to lump together all of DMC into one. You may not know, but Itsuno, an entirely different designer from Kamiya, took over after DMC1, and he went on to make the excellent DMC3 and DMC4 which are very different from the first game. Personally, I'd say it is quite easy to argue DmC is shallower than Bayonetta and every other DMC game except for DMC2, which is the worst game in franchise. It is harder to argue comparing Ninja Gaiden, but these six games made by Capcom, Platinum and Ninja Theory are all easy to compare. In my opinion, it's the second worst, only surpassed by DMC2, and I do have reasons if you want me to explain myself and stop being so vague.

From a financial standpoint, this was Capcom's mistake. Ninja Theory may have done the best they can but it was misguided, as it failed to ignite interest with the fanbase. My point with Human Revolution was more that changes can be made to a series without sending the fans into an uproar. Before this DmC trainwreck I never thought of the DMC franchise as anything particularly remarkable as far as the players go, just very interested in details, picking out parts of the lore and enjoyed the series' difficulty. What I'm saying is, DMC is not notably bad for its fanbase, what was unique with this reboot was the game itself. I think it's unfair to blame the fans for not liking the new game, it was Capcom and Ninja Theory's job to appeal to those gamers, not the fans' job to approve of the game.

I don't think the Bayonetta comparison works. That game is going to outsell DmC in the end and was a new IP, quite impressive really. What makes me respect Kamiya far more than Tameem is that he practically built the genre from scratch. I freaking love the first DMC. In fact, Itsuno himself had to come back from the disaster of DMC2 to make two very solid entries in the franchise. Ninja Theory had both of these philosophies to develop off of and in my opinion they really failed to make anything worthwhile. The bare minimum should be not pissing off the long-time fans, which is Capcom's fault.

While you may say the hair is the reason, it is not. The hair was just an outlet for the fans to focus on because they felt completely duped by the whole affair. I am one of the people who greatly enjoyed DMC4 but thought it could have been about ten times better if they had just given it the time they ended up giving DmC in development. I was very excited for DMC5, and Capcom let me down. Ultimately though, what is objective here is that this game was a relative bomb. Capcom, and by extension Ninja Theory did wrong.

No disrespect, your post was very well-informed. I do think you may have the wrong impression of DMC fans. I have a lot of friends who liked the old series and they're not bottom-feeding trolls or morons, there're plenty of valid reasons why they don't like DmC.

@endurancefun: No, I vaguely agree with you in ordering the combat of DMC games (3>4>DmC>1>2), but that's not what I'm talking about. DMC and Bayonetta are best-in-class as far as the entire genre is concerned, but DmC isn't far behind them and is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else in the same category. Expecting NT to go from literally worst-in-class combat (Heavenly Sword / Enslaved) to combat on-par with DMC3/4 is incredibly stupid. The fact that they managed to do as well as they did, regardless of Itsuno's involvement, is nothing short of a miracle.

As far as Human Revolution is concerned, it still seems like and incredibly unfair comparison to make. HR is a modernization, not a reboot. It takes place in the same universe within the same continuity of Deus Ex 1 & 2. That's what allowed it to maintain that tonal core that felt familliar, despite the updates and tweaks done to the gameplay formula. DmC, on the other hand, is a reimagining. From the very beginning, it was never going to line up with the previous DMC games. It was given to a developer that couldn't be more different specifically to create something new out of something old. No one's blaming the fans for not liking the new game, but no one should be blaming NT for failing to make a game that the hardcore DMC fans were demanding. There is only thing Capcom did "wrong" was decide not to make DMC5 from the outset.

Don't misunderstand me. I am a hardcore DMC fan. Super hardcore. I'm the type of person that studies crazy shit like frame data and hitboxes. I'm the type of person that uses math to calculate combos for hours before testing them in-game. But I'm also realistic. From the instant it was announced that NT would be developing DmC, I knew the game I would be getting wasn't going to be DMC5. There was no way it could be. Yes, there are plenty of valid reasons to not like DmC. I don't begrudge anyone their opinion. But anyone who actually expected NT to make a true successor to DMC3 then felt disappointed when DmC was very different, well, it's hard for me to classify them as anything other than a moron.

@starvinggamer: If anything, there's still the argument that the reboot was completely unnecessary and that everyone is better served with a DMC5 that properly closes the series and fills in whatever holes they left behind. Especially for a series this young and arguably not that stale. Certainly not stale enough that the flaws in 4 couldn't be fixed by a new title in the same continuity.