Pac-Man World Original Staff Not Credited In Switch Remake

That is disrespectful. Namco US replied to the tweet with the following so hopefully they'll do the right thing and update the credits now in a patch:

"Thank you for bringing this to our attention! We hear you and we are looking into it currently."

Hopefully it's just an oversight and not malicious. Still, that's a really bad oversight.

Willickers! Is the original really that forgettable that the very people working on this rehash forgot the ones that created the game to begin with? Not much of a passion project I guess.

This seems to be quite common practice nowadays. Wasn't too long ago there was the scandal of people who left during development of a game would get their name removed from the credits even if the game still used that person's hard work.

It's simple everyone. If someone contributed to the game, be it new content, content referenced or content copied - CREDIT THE DANG PERSON.

Why is this so common now, what the heck? It shouldn’t be and yet, it is, why?

Got this game yesterday and like it so far.
Sad for the old developers.

This is all sad news, but I'm not updating my game for solely longer credits. Great that these patches are optional.

This remake looks like such a mixed bag, some things are better, some things are worse, a good remake makes everything better.

Plus, the original game was good, but nothing great.

I’m not sure how it works in a legal sense, but in terms of doing the right thing, it seems very simple to me. If staff members who worked on the game aren’t credited, it’s plagiarism. If this story is true, I hope Nintendo takes it off the eShop until Bandai Namco fixes it.

A shout-out to the original developers would suffice (if they haven't already), kind of like what they did with Pokémon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl.

The only other people who should be credited are the original creatives (level designers, scenarists) and such, rather than listing absolutely everybody who worked on the original.

In any case, this sort of thing shouldn't warrant a patch.

@Silly_G

Bad take.

The original game wouldn't exist without EVERYONE involved. Not just the level designers and "creatives" . The original artists who made the old designs (even if a remaster revamps them) the original programmers that built the engine (even if a remaster uses a new engine). They all deserve credit. The remaster being made now would not exist without the original game.

The only exception would be if perhaps it's an entire ground-up remake or retelling. Like Starfox to Starfox 64 or Zero (btw, what the heck, Starfox?). But that isn't the case here.

@BLD : "The original game wouldn't exist without EVERYONE involved."

Well, yes, that's why those credits belong in that game and not the remake.

People who tested the original game don't warrant a credit in the remake.
Legal personnel of the original game don't warrant a credit in the remake.
The localisation team from the original game don't warrant a credit in the remake (unless their work is copied verbatim).
The original marketing team and packaging/manual designers don't warrant a credit in the remake, among others who do not immediately spring to mind.

"Bad take" indeed.

Video game credits are already ridiculously bloated without crediting the entire staff of previous works.

And people really ought to stop using the word "remaster" in reference to video games as it doesn't mean what people think it means. A remaster is to film/television what "ports" are to games. It's a reconstruction/restoration of the original work for modern devices, as opposed to a from-scratch remake, which is what Re-Pac is (and sticking closely to the source material doesn't make it any less of a remake). "Port" and "remake" already cover all bases.

They really need to show more respect to their original devs. Some publisher when they got too big or too successful they tend to throw their own team under the bus if that means getting easy money off of original work they just repolish.

That's not cool, man. Not cool.

When in doubt... type the damn names dammit. Especially if you're not going give them anything monetarily... give people their roses and credit at the very least. Smh.

... Wun can only hope.

@Silly_G I'm with you on this. I worked on just about everything at Namco from 2006 to 2015. I don't expect my name to be on any other derivative works since then and there have been several, most recently Klonoa. Sure would be cool, but it can't be expected, and shouldn't feel offended when it doesn't happen, and shant cast shame because of it. This game was remade from the bottom up. I doubt they even have the original source (gold masters, yes, source code, no).

@Itsacardgame : That’s awesome. And do you mean the most recent Klonoa remakes?

Credits or no credits, you can just as easily cite these projects on your CV, and if appropriate, possibly even put together a showreel, which I think would be more valuable to a professional in the field.

@Silly_G I was QA Lead on the Wii version but I don’t expect to be included in the recent release, even though all the text corrections most likely came off that project. I was a tester all the way up to manager by the time I left in 2015, so I helped most products release during that time.

@Silly_G The original game did not use Unity. It used a proprietary engine. I know. I worked on it. The new game does use Unity which means it is a from scratch remake with new models, textures, sounds, etc. Those assets are largely copies of the original work which means that they would not exist without the original work. None of the game would. Everybody who worked on any iteration of the game that resulted in the game we have today should be credited and that includes you @Itsacardgame . If you look at the original PS1 version, there are numerous people left out of the credits for very petty reasons. This would have been a great way to rectify those oversights.

@Weezie13 well, the new assets aren’t exactly copies of the original assets, only similar in conveying the same look, because otherwise it would either just look like an HD remaster which would be terrible, or it would look like a completely different game altogether like when that one JP game got reskinned as a different game (I’m not looking up what the title is, it’s unimportant). I understand what you are saying about respecting the past work on the original iteration. What I’m saying is that it would be nice, but I can’t expect it, as with what @Silly_G said is that it would bloat those credits. And for some reason it’s hard to get those credits right. Timing, scroll chopping, music length, correctness, etc. is a mess all the time.

I haven’t watched the credits on Re Pac yet. So I can’t comment on how they played out or if there was like a special thanks to original staff or not.

My point is that at the end of the day it wasn’t a diss, it wasn’t intentional, it doesn’t change anything, most consumers don’t know who any of these people are, most people don’t even care when we tell them we’ve worked on games. It only matters to us personally on an individual level. When we work at a company, out work belongs to the company, and when we leave we are no longer part of the company.

Sorry if this seems a little scattered, but in the middle of cooking dinner.