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Post by Nester the Lark on Jan 30, 2013 20:42:46 GMT -5
I've been wanting to bring this up for a while, but honestly, I've been a little afraid to.
I've obviously been a supporter of OpRa, and I've seen a lot of different reactions to it over the months/years. It's ranged from positive sympathy, to people calling the movement a "temper tantrum" and the group a bunch of "whiners" and "crybabies."
Now that the whole thing has blown over, I was wondering what all your opinions on it were. I'd like to hear anyone's opinions, but especially those of you not from North America.
I've seen a lot of gaming campaigns, and in a way, OpRa was kind of unprecedented in both its scope and its results. Whether it had any actual influence is up for debate, but that's not what I'm asking about. I'm just wondering about the perception. Was it just a bunch of spoiled Americans with a sense of entitlement, or was it a group of gamers trying to tell a publisher what games they really wanted to play?
I have plenty to say on it, myself, but I'll save it for the conversation.
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Post by Leon on Jan 30, 2013 22:56:57 GMT -5
I'm Canadian, but I'm going to chime in anyway.
For me, my opinion of them changed over the course of the year. At the very start of the group, I didn't think much about, but they did have the same goals as me, so I decided to join their petition. What harm could it be?
A week or so later, OR seemed to have gained a lot of momentum and I felt like maybe they were actually making a difference so I got really invested in them. However as time passed, I started to like them less and less. That wasn't because they were making no progress, but I felt like they were selling out.
When they opened their webpage, I was pretty much done with them. It was clear as day to me that at that point they were only interested in becoming Kotaku 2.0. All the goodwill they earned was lost and never looked back at them again.
TL:DR I liked them when I felt their message was genuine, but over time they forgot their roots and I lost interest in them.
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Post by Da Robot on Jan 31, 2013 3:24:16 GMT -5
Part of the reason why I first posted about OpRa was because many years earlier after the Earthbound fans tried PK call'N campaign and thinking . . .
- There is gonna be a day when another "highly praised game" that is denied release outside of Japan . . . - Even though there is a "big gap" in the release schedule . . . - Another bunch of "conditions" happen to right for the game . . . (eg it being translated into English already by Nintendo of Europe) - And that it is going piss off a lot fans so much, that they come together to campaign to get it released in their region.
An minor example of this is late 2008 when Animal Crossing:CF and Wii Music were the only games released for the Wii while Europe got both those and Disaster: Day of Crisis. How would Disaster's sales have been in NA? Could it have potentially gotten some end of year awards because of lackluster final quarter? (which in turn could create more sales?) Remember when D:DoC was hyped up as a new Nintendo franchise back at E3 2006 alongside Excitetruck and the now cancelled Project HAMMMER?
And then 2011 rolls around, with the only major release being Skyward Sword at the end of it and that was originally delayed from the end of 2010. If it weren't for that delay, there would have been nothing good for NA that year. While PAL regions finally got Xenoblade around September of that year, it ends up getting tons of praise/good reviews (even Wii GotY from some reviewers), while NA gets no word of any release (until Dec)
A game fully translated into english (and multiple European languages), getting tons of praise, at the end of a consoles lifespan with plenty of software release gaps denied an NA release (for a time) which has a potentially bigger market than PAL regions? What the hell were (NoA?) they thinking?
And so that's why I first started talking about it because it just seemed like a good idea against such dumbfuckery, and I really wanted to see fan campaign (against Nintendo) that had all the "right conditions compared to previous efforts" succeed for once.
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Post by Nester the Lark on Jan 31, 2013 13:25:29 GMT -5
TL:DR I liked them when I felt their message was genuine, but over time they forgot their roots and I lost interest in them. Interesting. I'm not sure I understand. Why do you think they "sold out" just because they started a web page? And so that's why I first started talking about it because it just seemed like a good idea against such dumbfuckery, and I really wanted to see fan campaign (against Nintendo) that had all the "right conditions compared to previous efforts" succeed for once. It must be said that OpRa wasn't really about working "against" Nintendo as much as trying to work "with" Nintendo. It was their intention to run a positive campaign, and they did not condone boycotting, antagonism, foul language, or death threats (a la the reaction to Bayonetta 2 being exclusive to Wii U). OpRa has also never claimed credit for any of the three games seeing North American release. The Earthbound campaign was pretty impressive, and the Shenmue Campaign had some interesting ideas, but neither of them quite got the same wind at their backs that OpRa did. They got lucky a few times, to be sure, and certainly got a good bit of exposure, but they were able to capitalize on it. It was more than just some kids with an Internet petition, it was a pretty smartly run campaign, IMHO.
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Post by Leon on Jan 31, 2013 15:15:41 GMT -5
Because when the website started they began covering just gaming news in general, and only gave lip service to the cause. To be fair to them however, I do think this was after Xenoblade was announced by NoA.
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Post by Nester the Lark on Jan 31, 2013 16:26:41 GMT -5
OK, I understand.
I don't see that as selling out, though. I think at first, it was just a way for them to get more organized. They were kinda spread out across social media and forums, and it was just easier to have a single website so they could keep everyone on the same page (so to speak).
After that, I think it was just an answer to "what happens next?" A lot of people expected them to campaign for more games, but they wisely decided that if all they did was keep asking for more, they would only be reduced to insatiable whiners, and thus lose any credibility they might (or might not) have had. Furthermore, they officially "retired" their campaign last spring after their final push for Pandora's Tower because it had very little fan support compared to the first two games. Plus, there was little more they could do at that point anyway. They had made their point, so they rested their case.
Still, becoming a news site focusing on niche Japanese games seems like a natural extension of what they were doing anyway: bringing awareness to games that may or may not be localized. Yes, Kotaku and Siliconera do this too, but I think the OpRa staff does it because they enjoy it. Just like any fan-run website.
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Post by nocturnal YL on Feb 1, 2013 5:51:23 GMT -5
Didn't like Operation Rainfall from the start. I guess they're good for gathering awareness of three specific games, and... nothing else. They deserve partial credits, but they seem to give a "we fight for localization of Japan-only games" aura while, obviously, failed very hard at that.
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Post by Da Robot on Feb 2, 2013 21:06:09 GMT -5
And so that's why I first started talking about it because it just seemed like a good idea against such dumbfuckery, and I really wanted to see fan campaign (against Nintendo) that had all the "right conditions compared to previous efforts" succeed for once. It must be said that OpRa wasn't really about working "against" Nintendo as much as trying to work "with" Nintendo. It was their intention to run a positive campaign, and they did not condone boycotting, antagonism, foul language, or death threats (a la the reaction to Bayonetta 2 being exclusive to Wii U). OpRa has also never claimed credit for any of the three games seeing North American release. Okay, okay, "against" is not the right word, they did run a very good campaign and with their established website, they can still organise for a future efforts (which hopefully never happen because Nintendo has learnt from this, or XSeed could just release it).
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Post by Nester the Lark on Feb 2, 2013 22:07:08 GMT -5
I think they've put their campaign days behind them, altho they do have a Campaign Hub to host other people's campaigns. (It seems to be a little out of date, seeing that Project X Zone has been announced for NA.)
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