Working Designs closes

Kishi · Post by **Kishi** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 2:58 pm

<img src="http://norbert-x.com/rock/userfiles/Kis ... ameet3.gif" title="MASAKA!">

<a href="http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?new ... 2">Yeah</a>.

This is the company that brought games like Popful Mail, Arc the Lad, Growlanser, and the superior half of the Lunar series to America and pioneered the concept of actually giving games decent translations. The industry as it is today owes a lot to their accomplishments, but now they're gone to join the ranks of Technos and Compile. I'll see you at the crossroads, Vic.

Post by **Delphine** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 3:02 pm

Well, poop.

WhoopA · Post by **WhoopA** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 3:03 pm

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooo~~~~~~~~~~

Tsuyoshi-kun · Post by **Tsuyoshi-kun** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 3:05 pm

I wish the staff good luck, and hope that they can get jobs with other video game companies still out there today. The video game world can use better translations.

Protodude · Post by **Protodude** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:14 pm

I for one, am displeased.

Locit · Post by **Locit** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 6:44 pm

*sniff*

Baba O'Reily · Post by **Baba O'Reily** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 6:45 pm

NARL! WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE NARL!?

Ngangbius · Post by **Ngangbius** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:34 am

I'm surprised that it didn't happen sooner. When was their last finacial success? Lunar 1 PS1? Lunar 2 PS1? I give them props for what they did in the 16-bit and to a extent the 32-bit era, but as time went on they seemed to be outclassed by the likes of Atlus and later NIS America. Though I am still sadded that they never got to be the ones to bring Grandia 1 to the states(thanks for the shoddy job on that one SCEA).

I do admit that I liked their extras--even though it raised the price of the game and it could almost be classified as guady junk.

I bet the people who hated WD's localization jobs are probably busting out the champaign right now.

Post by **Squirrelknight** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 8:35 am

Ngangbius wrote: I do admit that I liked their extras--even though it raised the price of the game and it could almost be classified as guady junk.

I bet the people who hated WD's localization jobs are probably busting out the champaign right now.

I really liked the extra shit that came with Working Designs' games; when most American companies release a special edition of a game, the only extras are usually a making-of DVD and a tin box. WD's releases were like Japanese limited editions in that they came with the most cracked-out, weird, and unneccesary crap EVER.

I also like WD's localizations. I imagine that Lunar would've been twice as boring had it not been for their localization.

Locit · Post by **Locit** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 7:19 pm

Didn't one special edition come with a little boxing puppet?

Light Speed · Post by **Light Speed** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 7:47 pm

If that's the case then I am even more sad. Not that I was terribly sad to begin with, but still.

Ngangbius · Post by **Ngangbius** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 9:09 pm

Locit wrote:Didn't one special edition come with a little boxing puppet?

IIRC it was a Ghaleon punching puppet that was a pre-order bonus for Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete.

It was and still is one of the best pre-order present in the American video game business.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 9:43 pm

So then Growlanser was officially their last release?

It's amazing they were able to sustain business for as long as they did, but regardless, it's a significant passing, I think, at least for those of us who remember what the scene was like a decade ago. Back when the Lunar games made up 2/3 of my entire Sega CD library and I still had to explain to people how to pronounce "anime".

I, for one, will continue to eat my Wheaties and avoid flatulent old inventors spouting Clinton jokes.

Ngangbius · Post by **Ngangbius** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 9:12 am

You know, I'm not sure if I could back to playing Lunar without rolling my eyes at the Clinton jokes because they seem so out of place and now outdated.

http://ferricide.1up.com/do/blogEntry?b ... Id=5400083

There's a good article on the history of WD and what led to their downfall. There is also some musings between the responders of the article of examples of Vic being a dick.

Peter Bartholow of Gamespot wrote:It all started up again when I got a lot of shit for giving the original PSone Lunar a "not good enough" review (it was 8.6 when first published, before Gamespot rebalanced old reviews - http://tinyurl.com/bq8hf) and being critical of the stupid "Making of" video. Being the consummate professional that he is, rather than contacting me or Gamespot, he rallied the troops on the Working Design forums with childish posts sniping at me and my review credentials and character. It turned into a flame war, with some particularly crazy posts from him - one especially memorable one broke my review down on a word-by-word and even provided dictionary definitions for some, in a lame attempt to show everyone how wrong I was. In particular, he focused on my use of the word "overwrought," so being me I made a point of working that into every Working Designs review I did.

Later, I gave one of his games an actually-bad review (http://tinyurl.com/77qmf) because I felt he has ruined it with his rebalancing, so he "declared war" and tried to end my freelance career by calling every publication I was writing for, and threatened to pull ads if they didn't fire me. I'm sure he was especially infuriated when all of them told him they stood by my work and they were sorry he was upset - I'm sure this was less about defending me and more about not being bullied around by a mediocre, loudmouth publisher who only releases one or two products a year.

Kishi · Post by **Kishi** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 10:37 am

I should have known my man Nutt would have a comprehensive contribution to this. That's some good reading.

Of course just about everyone who's ever come into direct contact with Vic has come away with a story about how batshit he can be at times, and his pursuit of rebalancing games was often disastrous and always uncalled for, and his eventual strategy of only releasing games in pricey special editions wasn't wise at all, and WD's downfall could clearly be seen coming from a good year or two ago, but it's still sad. Their sordid later years can't negate all the good they did when things were still peaches, and if anything, I'd say the way Vic more or less wasted his business away releasing things he couldn't afford will continue to catch WD more reverence than scorn. He burned brightly and did it for the kids.

Ngangbius · Post by **Ngangbius** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 11:36 am

I have a feeling if he swallowed his pride and actually looked towards bringing in niche games for the handhelds(especially Nintendo's) minus any extras that would jack up the price, WD would have probably still be alive today.

Though we would have probably received a tougher-than-it-should-be Magical Vacation game full of Dubya jokes.

VGJustice · Post by **VGJustice** » Fri Dec 16, 2005 12:45 pm

This news saddens me greatly. They brought me Aludra.

Well, I'm sure that their staff will be able to find jobs elsewhere.

HyperFox · Post by **HyperFox** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 6:36 pm

FUCK.

R.I.P. WD.