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Managing the fanbase when your franchise is on hiatus

Recently the publishers of two of my favorite franchises have caused a lot of anger among their fanbases, those two franchises being Metroid and Metal Gear. Whether the anger is righteous or not, both companies have made some decisions that almost anyone who cares about either property could have told you wouldn't go over well, and there's one common factor between the two.

I wish I could forget this game happened
I wish I could forget this game happened

Let's start with Metroid, as I think it's both an easier one to defend and more likely to make a return to limelight at some point in the future. In 2015 Metroid's future seemed uncertain. The 2010 release of Metroid: Other M had failed both commercially and critically among the fanbase, and Nintendo quietly moved the franchise to the back-burner after eight years of fairly steady releases. Nintendo would occasionally pay the franchise lipservice in interviews, but many fans were starting to give up hope as year after year passed without the announcement of a new game. This finally changed with the announcement of not only a new Metroid game, but one returning to the Metroid Prime branding. Metroid Prime: Federation Force, a... co-op shooter staring generic Galactic Federation troops set in the Metroid Prime universe.

Needless to say people weren't happy. Nintendo was slapping the Metroid brand on some generic shooter that didn't even star Samus? Did they not hear us all asking for a traditional Metroidvania styled sidescroller or Prime game? I can't believe they kept us waiting for half a decade for this!

To clarify, I don't think Nintendo is ignorant to the fact that fans want the Metroid series to return to form after the linear story driven disaster that was Other M, hell Nintendo employees have stated as much in multiple interviews, but if Reggie came up to me before E3 that year and told me that Nintendo was going to release a spin-off for the 3DS in order to reintroduce the Metroid brand before announcing a more traditional Metroid a few years later for their next in-development console I could have immediately told him it wasn't going to go over well. From the outside fan perspective it merely looks like Nintendo is cashing in on a recognizable brand to make a quick buck, and that the traditional form of Metroid as we know it might as well be dead. The rage against Federation Force never really died down even as we approached its eventual release, and it was not at all helped by the release and then takedown of AM2R: Another Metroid 2 Remake.

AM2R is a fan remake of the Game Boy game Metroid II: Return of Samus that's been in the works since 2008. Done in the style of Metroid: Zero Mission, the project is like a what-if dream game where Nintendo had followed up their 16-bit remake of the original Metroid with a remake of its Game Boy sequel, bringing the mechanics, graphics and level design more in-line with Super Metroid. When development first started it was hard to take it very seriously. Many other fans had attempted similar projects, hence the name Another Metroid 2 Remake. But as time went on and an eventual demo was released it became clear that this version might actually see life beyond some screenshots and a trailer or two, leading up to the game's eventual release on the thirtieth anniversary of the original Metroid's release in Japan.

You should check out AM2R if you care about Metroid, it's really good
You should check out AM2R if you care about Metroid, it's really good

As far as fan projects go AM2R is pretty close to the top of the list, a fantastic re-imagining of a forgotten entry with a surprising amount of polish. Sure it's not perfect, but it's still a great Metroid game and closer to the beloved side-scrolling entries than that 3DS game Nintendo's trying to push on us. The fan game quickly got spread around to various gaming communities and websites as something any Metroid fan should check out, and then was almost as quickly DMCAed off of every site hosting it by Nintendo.

Nintendo is perfectly within their right to protect their IPs, but this move angered a lot of fans. If Nintendo doesn't want to give us a new 2D Metroid why not leave this guy alone? What I think a lot of fans haven't done however is look at the actual way Nintendo went about taking the game down.

First off, rather than send the usual Cease and Desist letter that legally prevents the creator from continuing his work, they sent a DMCA takedown to any website hosting the file. This does not affect the torrent that has been up since the day the game released, allowing fans to continue to download the game. The second, and more important part, is the fact that they waited until after the game came out to take action. Often companies with send a C&D to a fan project when it starts to gain traction among fans and the media. Chrono Resurrection is a great example, a 3D remake of ten memorable scenes from Chrono Trigger. Set to release in December 2004, Square Enix sent the team a Cease and Desist that September, preventing the project's release and wasting all of the effort that went into the fan endeavor.

When you put something on the internet that people care about it's going to exist forever, anyone who's internet savvy enough can tell you that. If Nintendo wanted to ensure that no one could play AM2R, they could have easily sent a C&D days or weeks before the game's release. But they didn't. Instead they made the choice that allows them to save face legally while still allowing the fan project to get out, because as much as fans might think that Nintendo loathes their fans they do understand that maintaining that fanbase is important. Yes, at the end of the day Nintendo is a business and not a person, but I do believe they care about keeping that core Nintendo fanbase around whether it's because they're their most reliable source of income or because higher ups within the company genuinely do care about the fans. Either way Nintendo handled this in a way where the reality is everyone wins. It's not going to make me go out and buy Federation Force, but I'm certainly not going to have a chip on my shoulder when the next mainline entry in the Metroid franchise is announced.

And now on the complete opposite side of the spectrum we have Metal Gear. Unlike Metroid the Metal Gear series hasn't been on hiatus, the last three years having seen the releases of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. While a fantastic game The Phantom Pain was obviously unfinished, and with word of Hideo Kojima being ousted from Konami even before the game's release it's clear that the finished project isn't entirely what he had envisioned. Taking Kojima's side, the fanbase was furious with Konami and to this day flood their social medias with angry pleas to "finish" the game and give us "Chapter 3." With the anger at Konami for ruining what was supposed to be the grand finale to the lengthy Metal Gear Saga, the company would have to make a hell of a first impression with their next project if they wanted to quench the flames of enraged fans. Instead they remade a bunch of Metal Gear Solid 3 cutscenes for use exclusively in a pachinko machine.

How on Earth does a goddamn pachinko machine warrant this much effort
How on Earth does a goddamn pachinko machine warrant this much effort

If you're a huge fan of MGS3 like myself it's hard not to feel heartbroken watching these incredibly detailed recreations of famous moments from the game, envisioning a full Fox Engine remake of the game that took the original's level design but transplanted MGSV's fantastic controls and guard AI in, and not weep about what could have been. Konami has solid gold in their hands and they're wasting it in a stupid gambling machine where you just watch balls drop down a bunch of pegs. Why waste so much effort when they could have easily just reused the PS2 version's cutscenes, do the people at pachinko parlors really care that much about graphical quality? Though the machine and its trailers were only meant for Japan, the YouTube videos are full of salty messages from English speaking fans, screaming at Konami over their flagrant disregard for their most beloved franchise. People were already mad before the pachinko machine, but now things were even worse. Short of announcing the redone cutscenes would also be features in a full MGS3 remake for modern consoles, it was hard to imagine what Konami could do to win back the fans. Enter Metal Gear Survive.

Metal Gear Survive is a co-op zombie survival game set in an alternate dimension within the Metal Gear timeline. If you like Metal Gear for reasons other than the fact that it has the words Metal Gear in the title, that probably sounds about as far as you can get from the things you like about the series. Though Big Boss and Kaz make a brief appearance in the trailer, the game seems to be set in a zombie wasteland where you and three other Mother Base soldiers will fight countless faceless creatures to survive.

Now let's go over why this hasn't captivated fans, starting off by asking the question what is Metal Gear. Metal Gear is actually different things to different people, but there are a few core tenants that are consistent throughout every title. First off is stealth. Every single main Metal Gear game has been a stealth action game, and though later entries began to let you run and gun your way through things, stealth has always been the main tenant of Metal Gear gameplay. Even the spin-off Metal Gear Acid games were still stealth games, just in card form.

The other factor are the story and characters. Like it or hate it it's hard to ignore the huge impact Metal Gear's story and characters have had on numerous fans. For over two decades fans have followed the tales of Solid Snake and Big Boss, analyzing the stories for themes and coming up with theories between releases to explain things like Liquid Snake's arm in MGS2. The spin-offs of Metal Gear all retained these elements, Ghost Babel telling a story similar to the original Metal Gear Solid, the Acid games telling insane tales akin to MGS2's off the wall plot, and Metal Gear Rising expanding upon Raiden's character and showing us the world left after the events of MGS4.

If you didn't already know would you honestly guess that this was a screenshot of the upcoming Metal Gear game?
If you didn't already know would you honestly guess that this was a screenshot of the upcoming Metal Gear game?

Survive doesn't appear to have any of these. The trailer shows a bunch of soldiers fighting zombies at close range with melee weapons, bows and shotguns, and after a cameo appearance of Big Boss and Kaz peacing the fuck out you're left with four generic soldiers fighting a bunch of zombies in a barren wasteland. Maybe I'm assuming too much, but I can't imagine a game where four create a character player characters fight a bunch of zombies that don't even have heads is gonna have a ton of exposition or plot in it. So if you take Metal Gear but take out the stealth gameplay, all of the characters people care about, and the focus on an intricate plot... what exactly about this makes it Metal Gear still? Survive just looks like a low effort cash-grab, especially given the amount of recycled assets from MGSV. Hell the goddamn pachinko machine I was talking about earlier had more original assets created for it.

Fans are not adverse to spin-offs. Though it initially had a rough reception when it was unveiled at the VGAs, Metal Gear Rising ultimately won over a lot of fans with its deep character action gameplay, fun plot and expansion of Raiden's character. It doesn't play like a Metal Gear game, but a game where you get to play as one of the series' many cybernetic ninjas is one of the most obvious places for a spin-off to go and it still retains many of Metal Gear's trappings in its storytelling.

Though they might have problems, the biggest thing that both Federation Force and Survive got wrong is simply timing. When a franchise is in a place of turmoil, whether it's because there hasn't been a big release in years, the last entry was botched or key members behind the older titles have left the company, your next move has to give fans confidence that you're still going to do right by them and by the series. A spin-off is something you create for a healthy franchise, a snack between meals to satiate your appetite while the main course is being prepared. When you transplant the next main entry with a spin-off, fans begin to think this is the new direction the franchise is taking, or that there is no new game coming and the publisher is just trying to make a quick cheap buck while their brand is still recognizable. Though a company can recover from a few missteps, if they want the next big entry to be a success they can't simply take the fans for granted in the interim. They don't have the whole picture.

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