Working On F-Zero Wouldn't Have Been My Idea Of Fun, Says Former Criterion Boss

It would be tricky I imagine. Especially with Mr. Miyamoto breathing down your neck telling you to slow the game down, not to make it too hard, & sucking the life out of it in general!

I'm crying inside.

I don't know why people are trying to point out NFS as something that contradicts what he's saying. He was quite vocal at the time about wanting to get away from that series and start fresh with something new.

I'd have still loved to see an F-Zero by them. Wouldn't be fun? Quite possibly, but at the end of the day this is their job. I don't particularly have fun at my job either, but we don't go to work for fun, we go to earn a living.

Maybe not fun for you, but pretty fun for us. So sad...

Ah well I guess that is the side effect of being owned by a large corporation like EA. Artists in other mediums tend to hate not having control over their project and this shows that the games industry is no different.

That's fair. Though Nintendo might have given them more freedom to shake things up a bit given Miyamoto is constantly saying he doesn't know what to do with the franchise.

NFS's sales was a real shame, it could have been a poster child for what the WiiU could achieve. But it went ignored sadly. That being said, I played the 360 version a little and it felt just like Burnout Paradise without the character (jokey, if sometimes annoying, radio dude replaced with generic sexy lady voice over, focus on how sleek and precision the cars are over how fun they are etc), which is why I didn't pick it up on WiiU. I can see it appealing more to those actually into cars, which I'm not in the slightest.

And now I'm itching to play Burnout Paradise again!

Need for speed most wanted u was not the only game that had little or no promotion it's a wonder why the first wave of wii u games were released and now virtually everything is in house and they wonder why it's nintendos least ever performing home console.

@Ichiban
Just like he did with X and GX right?

The point is that criterion shouldn't have accepted the EA buy out then. Although, we wouldn't have the excellent NSF MW on the WiiU.
I always thought Ward was a bit off to blame Nintendo for not promoting NFS MW, it's not their game, that job should be done by EA. And what stopped Criterion putting money behind the game's advertising, they could have put that into their budget plans.
The other thing to note is, by offering Criterion F-Zero, Nintendo obviously had confidence in them to do the job properly. They could have quite easily said come back in a few months and we'll speak.
I would rather have had F-Zero at some point in the WiiU's life than being dropped because Nintendo wanted it to be a launch title.

Well, then it a good thing that it never happens.
There is nothing worse then a game made by people who didnt want to do it in the first place.

@dizzy_boy As long as they made THEIR games, they fared pretty well under EA. At this time, EA was bad already, but didnt mess too much with their subdivisions ideas.

@Ichiban Yeah, Miyamoto made X and GX WAY too easy and slow. Especially GX. Sorry buddy, but Sega made one of the most hardcore racing games ive ever played, even with Nintendo breathing down their necks.

For those of you having a whinge about my comment, bear in mind that X & GX came out a long time ago. I'm talking about the current day Miyamoto. So get off ya high horses

@-Godot If a game is torturous to work on, chances are it's going to show in the quality of the game. (also, I wouldn't like for him to go through development hell just so I could enjoy a game)

@Ichiban What about the current day Miyamoto?

Any game or studio bought by EA will turned into sh*t. No exaggeration, the management of EA are not interested in games, they are only after profit. Developers will have their creativity removed, forced to use a template to churn out games like machine.

@justastone nothing against the guy, he has created some amazing experiences & seems very charming & sweet.
But he seems to have just as many bad ideas as he does good ones these days, & is very old fashioned. We would probably end up with F-Zero without online or something just as mind boggling.
But that's just what I think & I don't expect many (if any) to agree. But hey thats ok!
Sorry to everyone for kinda derailing the conversation, back to it!

Swan princess?

This reminds me of whatever happened to that weird spin on American Football that some of the devs from EA (that left the company) were doing. Can't remember the name for the life of me. Very similar to Madden football, oh it just came to me, Madmen football. Wonder if that's still a thing?

I wouldn't want to work on a Nintendo ip either, cause Miyamoto needs to have the final word in everything that company does. Miyamoto telling me what to do all the time would drive me nuts too.

I suppose it wouldn't be fun to revive one of the most heavily requested franchises in gaming history

@Ichiban
How did Mr. Miyamoto influence F zero gx for the worse? That game is fast AND tough. Seems to me Nintendo gives a lot of leeway to creators.

His comments are fair enough. There's nothing wrong with them only wanting to work on games that's their IP.

@Ichiban
"Why are you using these F Zero races? Use Mii's instead, and make everything chibi."

I think the difference between Nintendo and EA being over you would be world's different. EA sounds to be a cold corporate entity that just squashes the soul out of you, while everything I see about Nintendo is that they just want their products to be fun and only step in to offer guidance to make it a characteristic Nintendo title.

I point to Eternal Darkness, Metroid: Prime, Splatoon, W101, Devil's Third, Fatal Frame, Captain Toad, Bayonetta 2 and countless other new properties that Nintendo has allowed to go in unique directions.

Monolith Soft, Retro, Koei Tecmo, Activision,and so on have said that Nintendo has been surprisingly supportive of them as second party developers. So it might have been a different experience than what Criterion was familiar with... It also sounds like not enough time wasn't the only reason that Criterion turned down the over. In any case, too bad, I think that a solid F-Zero near launch would have done wonders for the Wii U.

@Peach64 So you didn't choose you're own job? Most of us do and that should mean that we first followed a relevant education and then chose a job that we were interested in or would like to gain some experience in. I love my job and I have fun doing it all while making a pretty decent living. Obviously everybody has an off-day that makes it harder to get out of bed every now and then, but other than that you should be okay with the job you have. If not, then you may have to think about a career change. Not always easy, but it's important because it's your life. The only people I can think of that really aren't doing a job that they like are the ones that are on benefits/welfare and are forced by the government to go and get a job because they've been sitting on their lazy butts for too long... They get the worst jobs...
@Spoony_Tech As far as I know they aren't ex-EA at all. The name was chosen to make fun of what they think is the worst game publisher in the business. There's also no info on the site to be found that points to them as being former EA developers. As for what they are doing now: apparently not much, since their last update is from October last year. The site does have contact info, so if you want to know more, I'd say send them a tweet or an email: http://www.aegames.net/

Yeah with nintendo's reputation for being tough on 3rd party devs about quality and lore and this guys attitude on it I think it would have gone sour now.

@TheRealThanos Guess I didn't realise that. Thanks for the heads up. I doubt this will ever get off the ground which can't say bothers me.

@Spoony_Tech Yeah, they've been awfully quiet. I would have liked to see their game, though. The first time they explained it, it made me think of games like Brutal Football and Wildcup Soccer. I used to play those games on my Amiga, but they were also published on the SNES and Sega Genesis/Megadrive. Just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E8zyDUTKKI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqSKQ3pPEt4

@Ichiban Have you never played F-Zero games before? They are by far the fastest and most intense racers out there. Because they aren't grounded in reality F-Zero can do some crazy gravity defying tricks & turns not to mention the level of handling skill needed just to be competitive (ie. snaking).

Because with IPs like Burnout they can't afford to have their creativity hindered by generic franchise restraints. Whatever.

My problem is that the potential is endless with F-Zero. Obviously I would love another straightforward entry in the vein of X and GX. But Criterion had the chops to pull off something special...

Like how about a Most Wanted-sytle open world F-Zero with rival street gangs? You can peel around, earning new parts to modify your Blue Falcon (or whatever). Incorporate the mission mode and some stadiums for championships cups. And the brutal death races to settle scores.

Maybe create your own F-Zero protagnist and develop the characters a bit for some comic book-style drama about blurring the line between good and evil with blood on the streets. This could be so good.

He seems hung up on his job being fun, a rather immature mentality IMO. Work often is not fun. Their job is to develop games and they are paid well for it, not play and have fun. They would have surely received a nice large paycheck for F-Zero...

This is why I don't get up in arms about "bring my fav franchise back!!!". It'll come, when it comes, until then, we're not getting it unless (and until) Nintendo brass says so. In the meantime, I'll look forward to F.A.S.T. Neo to satiate my high speed hovercar desire.

@Ichiban Uhh, what? Have you played Miyamoto games? Pikmin is certainly not an easy game. Also, F-Zero X and GX surely weren't slow and easy, and neither is 200CC Mario Kart. facepalm

I don't see why they're butthurt about Nintendo not promoting their game.
1) They could have literally broke into my house and forced me to take it. I still wouldn't buy or play it because I don't care about 'Need for Speed' or any other more 'real' driving games. If I want to drive a car, I'll go outside and get in mine. If I want to race, I'll drive to a track and race.
2) It's not their game. I mean, there we go. Why do they expect Nintendo to promote something that's not theirs? Its EA's and Criterons problem if it didn't sell well.

That's what happens when you deal with the devil like EA.

I still want someone, somewhere, to make an F-Zero game with frickin' laser beams.

On one side of this argument, game developers should be revered as artists and should have freedom to do what they want to make a living. On the other, game developers are supposed to cater to fans wants and needs to survive as a company.

So what are video games, in this respect? Forms of art for aesthetic pleasure? Or are they little more than gold sinks for consumers to throw their money into?

Criterion may not have wanted to work on a pre-existing IP, but would it be so bad if they were given complete creative control that Nintendo also assured Platinum Games and Vallhalla Studios? New IP or not, you're not going to be herded into developing the same type of game that Infinity Ward, Treyarch and DICE have gotten themselves into. Hell, you could run wild as long as the game was fun in the end. That's all that matters to Nintendo, it seems.

NFS for WiiU could still sell pretty well if they dropped that price in eshop to something like 10€/$. It was actually great port and looked and worked better (offline) than Xbox360 & PS3 versions.

Well to be fair, playing a Criterion developed F-Zero wouldn't have been my idea of fun either.
The series is anything but flash over substance, so I don't think it would have been a good fit.
I'd rather see Monster Games take on a new F-Zero game for example.

Most Wanted U is a great game, didn't get the praise and sales it deserved.
For me, all F-Zero games aren't my idea of fun, so I'm glad we got Most Wanted U instead.

@Ichiban You mean like he did with Metroid Prime?
oh wait

I just want Burnout 4. (or 5, or 6 depending on how you look at the series) Burnout Paradise was pretty, but it wasn't Burnout, it was Midnight Club with pretty damage models. I wish Burnout Revenge was ported to PS3 like it was to 360, I'd snap that up in a second.