The trademark filing was, of course, notoriously vague on details. All we know is that the project is a video game of some kind. But what kind? Nobody knows. Well, nobody outside of Capcom knows. So you, I and John Q. Gamer are left only with our speculation. I love to speculate, though, so let's consider some options.Option 1: It's a mumorpuger! Massive multiplayer online role-playing games such as "World of Warcraft" and "Lord of the Rings Online" remain popular, but are generally inaccessible to causal gamers. It might make sense to market "Mega Man Universe" as some lighter alternative. Capcom notably has experience in the MMORPG arena with "Phantasy Star Online" and "Monster Hunter." So this option isn't implausible.
Option 2: It's a compilation! More than four dozen Mega Man games have been released, including games set in several different universes. Might the "Mega Man Universe" be one game disc that brings these many entries together for the first time? Many of the games in the series have been released on the NES, SNES, PlayStation and handheld systems so these smaller games presumably could fit together on one disc.
Option 3: It's a crossover! Whether done in the style of "Super Smash Bros." or "Kingdom Hearts," a game that unites the many Mega Man characters in one setting could be great fun. Even better would be if the game resolved some heretofore unanswered questions, such as what happened between the original Mega Man games and the futuristic Mega Man X games.
Option 4: It's something else! Maybe the game could be some retro-styled undertaking that blends various aspects of the property together, like "Super Mario Bros. Wii." Maybe we're getting a first-person Mega Man shooter, like so we can run around capping Mets by the dozen. Or maybe we're getting a traditional role-playing game that uses Rush Jet in place of airships. Anything is possible!
What do you think is the answer to the "Mega Man Universe" riddle?
4 comments:
Y'know, I have to chip in here as to regards your #1 speculation.
Props to spelling out mumorpuger which made me laugh, but saying that MMOs are not built for casual players? That's the majority of the audience actually. Sure, you hear about the all night epic raids and such from the hard core gamers, but most people log on, play for 20 minutes to an hour, bang out a couple of missions or do some crafting and then leave it at that. The reason that WoW got so big is because it did play to the casual market which paid off big for them.
It worked so well for them, you see game elements lifted from the MMOs and brought into casual web games like Mafia Wars and the like.
Fair points. I'd offer this in response:
1. Casual gamers as I define them aren't likely to spend the $10-15 in monthly access fees that most MMORPGs demand. Free new MMORPGs such as "Monster Hunter Tri" could be setting a new standard and might represent the future for this genre. If the new Mega Man game embraced this approach, I imagine it would entice even the most casual of gamers to give it a try.
2. Casual gamers as I define them aren't going to spend hour after hour leveling up. If we could fundamentally rethink the motivation that keeps MMORPG players playing, we might discover a casual gamer solution for the genre. For example, instead of striving to become level 50 or 80 or whatever, what if more emphasis were placed on the social aspect of the game? I think less value placed on number of monster killed and more value placed on number of people known — think some mixture of Facebook and Animal Crossing — could bring a whole new audience into the genre.
Or maybe I'm just nuts. That's entirely possible.
Its a trademark right? Could it be another animated series and not a game at all?
The trademark is specifically for "computer game software" are related items. So I'm relatively sure it's not another animated series. Thank goodness.
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