Mighty no. 9

Lack of transparency of the actual project? (forums are only for backers, so is it the case?)
Bad communications from the backers to the developers?
Bite too much to chew on?
Bad manager on the forums?
No proper updates?

That day when the campaign ended, I'm regretted of not being able to back it
Now, it seems like a whole debacle of nasty stuff coming from it, which I'm kinda glad of not supporting it
But from different perspective, XombieMike did point out that without MN9, Bloodstained would never got into what it is now

Wouldnt be surprised if this is intis retort to the abysmal deep silver trailer

Well, this is in off topic and some people here did back mn9, plus inti and possibly (probably) deep silver are working on bloodstained (even though its a completely different team at inti), so one its off topic and two people are making comparisons because people do that whether its warranted or not,

as for the importance of mn9, it was the first ks by a major japanese developer who left the company (somewhat similar to going ronin) that was successful and at the time was resurrectibg a dead franchise under a new name, and that gave iga hope that he could continue working on igavanias with a bit of nudging by ben

It's important to Bloodstained's Kickstarter for several reasons. The KS campaign itself (which was great) provided experience and a framework for Ben Judd to follow with Bloodstained. It gave Japanese developers a clear sign that yes, this can be done, the support is there. We were able to even get this whole thing moving because of that - it was part of Ben's encouragement to IGA to do it.

That's just the early/pre-game stuff that lended to Bloodstained being pitched. Then you have the experience from it gained by other entities that have crossover like Fangamer and Inti, so it wasn't just an example that this could become a thing for Japanese developers, but even further specifically gave some of the very ones that would become involved in our poject tools and experience to make it the success it was.

Was the execution poor, following and out of the hands of these guys' involvement? Maybe so, but I don't think we should ignore these things.

Part of me hates when Bloodstained is compared to MN9, but I can't deny they have similar DNA through Ben Judd, IntiCreates, one would assume Deep Silver (but don't), and of course, Kickstarter and being a spiritual sucessor.

ArtPlay is heading up this project. IntiCreates is the work horse that is helping, not leading the project. They also have already displayed results that blow MN9 out of the water. Honestly, I haven't seen many comparisons between the two games since the shader 3 & 4 vote. I think the background blew everyone out of the water, and left no room for comparison anymore.

If we continue to see updates that show game play with that level of background detail, we will be safe from fear of Bloodstained looking empty and simple.

You really want to know the whole mess behind Mighty No.9 Including Dina...well since you asked let me pull up a chair and tell you a story about how people had hopes and dreams and how everything took a little dark turn for the worst

As you know Mighty No.9 was a kickstarter during 2013,it had a huge succeess due to capcom cancelling multiple megaman games and fans wanted to both prove the blue bomber was alive and in a sense stick it to capcom showing them the money can go elsewhere aka to their savior inafune

Between the normal method and paypal payments the game made a stretch goal length of 4million dollars and was supposed to have a release date of 2015

A short time after the forums were set up we were introduced to our community manager dina whom stated she was one of us a gamer and a megaman fan,in truth however looking through her tweets on twitter she stated she has never played megaman and has no idea why it was so popular

she was also an artist and started showing pics of what looked like a really weird fem-beck main character stating that a woman should be the lead for this game,naturally this raised some flags and upon some digging people found out she was a feminist and was one of those people hoping to exploit videogames to push a fem agenda,naturally this would mean it would be possible the game could be altered in such a manner it would become undesirable

In a sense it almost became a situation where mighty no.9 could have ended up as the ghostbusters reboot has now,an utter mess with a female cast for the sole purpose of pushing feminist rights

Naturally people blew up her social accounts and she deleted them then reopened them later clearing out all the questions,further freaking out on the forums the drama started when she started banning people criticizing her methods,im not talking about people bashing on her either im talking about backers who spent maybe as much as 300 bucks wanting to know what her intentions were

We had white knights defending her,we had a lot of people getting banned,we had more information come in to find out only reason she landed this job is because shes sleeping with and dating one of the comcept staff,shady stuff

after sometime however,the bans stopped,and for whatever reason dina shaped up and started being an excellent community manager being a middle woman passing on information to the teams and getting shit done and getting involved with the community,her fem agendas also seemingly stopped and for about 2 years things were well and she devoted to helping the people there

Of course some people left after they got banned,who could blame them?bans lasted about 30 days but some people saw it as an insult and an abuse of power which honestly was true,about sep 2015 the game was supposed to come out but was pushed back,it was announced because of a deal with deep silver the game would be pushed back to put physical retail versions up on the stores

Now that was great news,I could deal with 1 delay since I wanted this series aka a megaman series back on store shelves,the problem came we the backers didnt get an option to change our options to have a physical version,and that the physical versions would not only cost less but come with additional content

...Needless to say some backers like myself were pissed off since non-backers who contributed nothing could get the game cheaper with additional content like a poster,an artbook,and more in game content,an artbook alone would be around the $150 backer tier,here you could get a physical game,poster,and artbook for a mere 30 bucks so in this case the nonbackers got it better then us

Also during this time Inafune was getting a bit greedy asking for additional donations like 200,000 bucks for voices added to the game,which seemed like an insane price considering the original game goal was 800,000 he also wanted more cash for a ray dlc...he started getting less and less from what was called slacker backers which were people who donated after the kickstarter ended

I should mention before I forget,around the time dina was going ban happy,people were selling off their forum accounts on ebay since it was the only way for some banned people to return,it was ridiculous

Now after the second delay,Inafune had the balls to ask for more money for his next kickstarter game which was red ash a spirtual successor to megaman legends,funny that 100,000 facebook group wanted another legends game and barely any of them donated even the admins most of which I knew were not donating to the project even though they were supposed to be leading by example

Now heres the thing,during the Red ash kickstarter which was going both slow and horrible,certain gaming outlets caught wind that comcept was planning on once more delaying mighty number 9,comcept denied these rumors as false,however at the end of the red ash kickstarter they turned right around and told us mighty number 9 was delayed

Comcept lied to us flat out,and they did that so they would not look bad trying to guzzle more money during the red ash kickstarter,however that kickstarter failed to meet even its minimal goal ...didnt help inafune was also asking money for an anime tie in to the game as another kickstarter project,but despite not reaching its goal comcept announced fuze would fund the base game

I wanna make it clear,there was some shady as hell things going on here,comcept lying about the mighty no.9 delay and them having money from fuze seeminly all from the start just made it seem like it was one big scam to get more money from us,when they have not even delivered their first game mighty no.9

At this point,people were really beginning to turn on comcept and inafune and communication was beginning to die down

Not long afterwards Dina seemingly had some sort of breakdown and announced on her social sites she was done with comcept and that she condemned the game and told everyone on board to jump on and hate it as well,whether or not she was fired or quit willingly nobody knows,but she was the direct translator and communication with comcept,when dina was gone things changed,things felt barren and communincation and events was minimal,soon afterwards a 3rd delay was announced stating the reason was an outdated engine and online network features

At this point backers had it and were asking for their money back via refunds,and the others stated almost 99% stated they did not care about online modes they just wanted the main game and could patch in the rest later with an update,however comcept used the excuse because its selling a physical version advertised with online modes it must sell as a whole bundle

Months went on with absolute no communication whatsoever,no happy events were done in the forums which were pretty much dead,only the white knights and the forum backer admins remained,only for months later they announce a 4th delay!

4 delays...with the same excuse as last time...except no one cared because at this point people either forgot about the game or hated the fact they backed the project...more months passed,comcept promised a spring release date but as time rolled close to summer we assumed they were full of crap until the june annoucement in which they promised no more delays

Now im going to tell you even though thats the end of the story I will tell you this much,I dont trust comcept,they have lied to us various times,and I will never fund a kickstarter of theirs again,the fact red ash failed pretty much proves no one trusts them

Inafune is a man who has no idea what he is doing,not only did he fail to handle dina or even address her issues,but the man was like a little kid on sugar announcing he wanted a mighty no.9 figure line,a live action movie,a cartoon,and truth was we had a bunch he was spending the kickstarter money pursuing these goals when the game has not even come out yet

I also felt the backers were treated with a lot of disrespect,we should have been first to know about any delays not any gaming outlets,most the time I just felt the vibe from inafune was just "Gimme gimme gimme" since as stated before he bugged fans 2 or 3 more times during the kickstarter for even more money,money I felt was mis-used on various things other then the game itself,also the people inafune chose to deal with aka fuse and deep silver are...questionable choices

And there you have it,I have also still have not gotten my platform survey and I expect not to get my game I paid from them,I want nothing to do with comcept and inafune and to be honest...when looking at it and how bad he has mismanaged this whole project,you kind of wonder...maybe capcom had the right idea getting rid of him

This explains a lot of things, thank you. I knew the development was a crazy shitstorm, but I have never thought it was THIS BAD.

I wouldn't be too concerned about Bloodstained having no castle layout done. Ben said back on October on the BCB that they were laying out the plans for how they wanted things to go, and by then they had also got Curry the Kid on the team, who I believe made the layouts for previous IGAvanias.

Yeah, I'm with Xombiemike and Astaroth. While, as we mentioned earlier, things could always go wrong, at this point they seem to have gotten the physics and movement engine down, which is a large part of the work. With that done, things should proceed more smoothly, and I'm sure they'll have a lot to show us now 8)

Aside from that...in my case, I've been pretty interested in the struggles of Mighty No. 9, but that's partially because I want to learn as much from it as possible. Sometimes knowing what not to do can be as important as knowing what to do. The more we know about the mistakes a project similar to Bloodstained made, the better we can avoid making those mistakes, or at least give the bloodstained team advice on avoiding them. And since we all want Bloodstained to succeed, that's something we can work on

In all honesty, I think a majority of the drama surrounding MN9 has been blown out of proportion since 2013. I just want it all to end at this point.

Pretty much every game is going to have to face challenges, developers won't always be prepared for unforeseen consequences, and I felt people complaining about Dina and jumping to conclusions about her political views having an impact on the game were more annoying than anything she actually did (mostly because her fanart of female Beck holding a giant, phallic, wrench stopped haunting my nightmares 8 months ago). I have the impression that because fans/backers already threw money at the project, they are actively looking for reasons to worry about MN9 and lash out against the people involved, no matter how small.

I'm still willing to give Inafune, Inti, and Deep Silver the benefit of the doubt when it comes to dealing with the way business and game development work and juggling conflicts the best they can with the resources and knowledge they have. Most of life is dealing with sucky situations you're unprepared for and trying to survive, anyway.

I hope the whole MN9 experience ends up being a learning opportunity for everyone involved, whether it's how to deal with projects, budgets, game development, communities, marketing campaigns, or personal expectations for crowdfunded games.