Money laundring.

@coded_artist all of the games on the left look and play substantially better too.

@beardalaxy @coded_artist The Xenoblade games are absolutely gigantic, and none of them have credits breaking even the 10-minute mark. Xenoblade 1's was barely over 4 minutes.

Western AAA Gaming is a fucking joke.

@ChristiJunior @beardalaxy @coded_artist
Monolith Soft is also well-known for having reasonable working hours and avoiding crunch. Work smarter, not harder.

@ArdainianRight @beardalaxy @coded_artist Really makes you wonder what a lot of people in the industry are even doing, though Monolith Soft might still be small enough that they're not that well-known outside of Nintendo and JRPG communities, explaining why their practices aren't being widely emulated.

@ChristiJunior @ArdainianRight @beardalaxy @coded_artist i dont think monolith does anything special just that most modern devs have lost the ability to properly plan and manage time
Measure twice, cut once

@Vidmastereon @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @coded_artist yeah you gotta wonder if all this crunch is the result of people not actually doing their jobs until it's too late. I wouldn't be surprised with how focused on things other than the game itself they seem to be.

@beardalaxy @Vidmastereon @ArdainianRight @coded_artist I always find it funny how Ocarina of Time's many delays tricked me into thinking that a game suffering multiple delays meant the devs had something truly special on their hands, and wanted to polish their game until it sparkled.

@ChristiJunior @beardalaxy @ArdainianRight @coded_artist for games like oot am always curious what causes a game to get delayed
Did they really need more time to finish or was it an outside factor like data loss, failing quality control tests, or something critical completely broke

@Vidmastereon @ArdainianRight @beardalaxy @coded_artist Early OoT looks very different from what we ended up with, and I truly believe the Zelda team at some point became Inspired to the point where where Nintendo realized that they had pure gold on their hands and just let them cook. Remember, we're talking about the kind of Inspiration that allowed the same team to make Majora's Mask in just 18 months.

@ChristiJunior @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @coded_artist super smash bros melee was made in 13 months. Isn't that insane? I mean, it's a little broken, but it's still an incredibly good game by all accounts.

@beardalaxy @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @coded_artist I mean, yes and no, Melee was a giant upgrade over Smash 64, but I can certainly see the various corners being cut (like all the Clone characters). It's also easier to make that kind of "bigger, better, more" sequel to a bare-bones, high-potential first entry in a fighting game franchise than to make a truly unique adventure game that ends up being so different from its predecessor.

I also believe Melee was one of those games where Iwata had to step in and assist the developers in order to get the game out on time.