Working Designs is no more

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Jasonb12
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Post by Jasonb12 »

My sentiments exactly. Working Designs was a group that actaully cared about us, and they were snuffed out by a company that doesn't care about us. The unfortunate thing is that this happens quite often...too often, if you ask me. It's not just Sony that is responsible for the death of Working Designs, but the fact that many companies do not care about their customers.

The companies that forget that they are nothing without us often kill the companies that always remember that we are their backbone. Sony will pay for this, one way or another.

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snaztacular
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Post by snaztacular »

I go to GameFAQs when I need to feel better about myself...nuf said.

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CRuckofBelAire
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Post by CRuckofBelAire »

Well all I gotta say is thank you to Mr. Ireland and the people at WD, Lunar: The Silver Star was the first role playing game I ever played and really opened me up to that genre, and I have been a huge fan of Lunar for like 12 years, I'm sad to hear the company is folding, but I appreciate what they did during their time, the humor and the personality they put into their games. God Bless you and thank you WD!

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Alunissage
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Post by Alunissage »

Dragonmaster Lou wrote:One other interesting thing to note is that apparently GameArts and Square-Enix have become very chummy as of late (did Square buy out GameArts or something? I don't know the details). Square-Enix is handling Grandia III, for example. Perhaps they would be the ones to do a future Lunar?
Enix bought a chunk of GA some years ago...I forget the details, but they had some (non-majority) control of GA at least as of 2002. Totally coincidentally the Lunar games were moved out of the Our Games part of the WD site to the Museum part around then and all the Lunar merch became unavailable. Something similar happened with the Silhouette Mirage stuff...who owns Treasure?

I don't want to reopen stuff from a few pages ago, but since I wasn't around to say it at the time, it's not the expression of the point of view or the other statements that made me crack, it was that it was there THREE TIMES. (Roas, I'll answer your PM tomorrow; haven't had time to so much as read it until tonight and I must sleep now.)

Lastly, please, please don't post in dark blue text on a board with navy backgrounds!

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wisequark
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Post by wisequark »

yeah, i noticed the lunar moving thing. didn't wd sell/lose lunar in mid 2002?

on a side note, don't forget to answer my pm too :-p

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Alunissage
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Post by Alunissage »

Yes, the rights were sold back to GA in 2002 so that GA could assign them to Ubi. The website change happened before then, though, I'm pretty sure. I know the merchandise was no longer being sold as of approximately April, since around then I tried to order Lunar posters along with a second copy of Arc the Lad for my sister. The order was taken, but I wasn't charged for the posters, and I think that was because they stopped selling Lunar stuff right then.

? I don't have a PM from you.

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Post by drumlord »

Alunissage wrote:Yes, the rights were sold back to GA in 2002
Do you a source (public or private) for the actual date of them selling it back? Vic only recently spoke publicly on selling the rights back and speaks as if it was done prior to Ubi licensing. Lunar Legend came out early 2002 in Japan, so I'm guessing it was 2001 when the rights were sold back. Nitpicky I know, but some friends and I are just trying to piece everything together. We know it didn't happen until after 2000 obviously with EBC coming out.
-Rich-

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Roas Atrades
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Post by Roas Atrades »

drumlord wrote:
Alunissage wrote:Yes, the rights were sold back to GA in 2002
Do you a source (public or private) for the actual date of them selling it back? Vic only recently spoke publicly on selling the rights back and speaks as if it was done prior to Ubi licensing. Lunar Legend came out early 2002 in Japan, so I'm guessing it was 2001 when the rights were sold back. Nitpicky I know, but some friends and I are just trying to piece everything together. We know it didn't happen until after 2000 obviously with EBC coming out.


A good way to track the dates might be to find out when SSSC and EBC were pulled off the shelves. That could be a clue to the haltings of production and loss of the liscences.
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Post by drumlord »

Roas Atrades wrote:A good way to track the dates might be to find out when SSSC and EBC were pulled off the shelves. That could be a clue to the haltings of production and loss of the liscences.
I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have anything to do with it. Those games would still be sold. In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw copies of them every once and a while until a year or so ago. And to my knowledge, the Lunar merchandise being pulled off their site wasn't directly related to the selling back of the license if that was what you were thinking.
-Rich-

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GhaleonOne
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Post by GhaleonOne »

I believe it was somewhere around Feb. 2002. Reason being is Lunar PC was canned in Jan. and Lunar SSS fan release was in Feb. I seem to recall something about Lunar PC being canned because the liscensing for Lunar would be up shortly thereafter, which is why the fanart edition was printed in it's place. I don't remember if this was public or private info, not that it probably matters at this point. Lunar PC was canned because it was taking too long to fix all the bugs, at least that's the public explination and very likely true, but I think it did have something to do with the liscensing being up as well. Likely, because of all the extra work to get it released, it was coming time to the liscense being up and knew they wouldn't be able to get it out the door in time.

I'm almost positive the rights to the US translation of TSS/SSS were sold later, as WD owned the rights to that. The beta UbiSoft originally let me play around fall of '02 had translated many of the names in Lunar Legend on their own (Luc Bogard for Laike, Fidy for Quark, others I can't remember offhand). I actually remember speaking to Vic about the translations names and the like, so I know he sold the WD translation back to GameArts after some negotiations and whatnot.
-G1

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Kobalt
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Working Designs Passing

Post by Kobalt »

I know that this statement has been said several times already, but this is truly a sad, sad moment in gaming history. Working Designs has been a major player in the game industry for years, bringing several amazing titles to the states that might not have even made it here had it been for them. Even though I have never played any of the Lunar titles before, I have to say that Dragon Force is the most memorable game that I have ever played, and Growlanser Generations has become my favorite PS2 game. None of which I would be able to play if not for Working Designs. So with that I have to say "Thank you Mr. Ireland, and all the staff at Working Designs for your hard work and dedication. I wish you all the best."

And on small rant I'd just like to add that I think that this is also SEGA's fault. Had they kept their partnership and made better import decisions than this sad event might have been avoided.

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GhaleonOne
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Post by GhaleonOne »

Nah, I think Sega helped WD, indirectly. The Playstation outsold the Saturn out of the market, and during the PS days, WD had it's best business. If anything, the fallout between WD and Sega was benefitial to WD in the long run.
-G1

drumlord
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Post by drumlord »

Yeah, definitely not Sega's fault. In fact, WD choosing to outright cancel any dealings with Sega was a bad choice IMO. WD had a Saturn Shooter Pack planned that including several shooters that importers went nuts over and people to this day still clammor about from time to time. And they simply cancelled it. It would have been very nice to get that.
-Rich-

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Kobalt
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Post by Kobalt »

Hmm, those are some good points. I'll keep those in mind. However I was still some what dissappointed in Sega's lackluster performance during the Saturn's twilight years. Had they imported such games as Xmen vs. Street Fighter, King of Fighter '95, Grandia then things might have turned out differently. And IMO, I don't really think that it was necessary to bring out the 32X either. Especially since a bigger and better machine was just around the corner. They should have saved their money for the Saturn. Just my thoughts.

PS: Thanks for the replies. Since I'm new here the replies are most appreciated.

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Kizyr
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Post by Kizyr »

The 32X was a lousy move no matter what way you look at it. The only folks around now who actually have a 32X were the most diehard of Sega fans back in the day.

Myself included. I had Knuckles Chaotix and Starfleet Academy for it. KF
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Kobalt
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Post by Kobalt »

So true, and same here. I have Kuckles Chaotix, Virtua Fighter, and Virtua Racer.

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wisequark
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Post by wisequark »

yeah, i had a 32x....what a waste of money that was :-p lol

Agawa
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Post by Agawa »

Hmm, I'm late to the discussion. Either way, I'd just like to add my two cents- it may be the same as what other's are saying, but I still wish to get it out.

While I didn't know that much about Working Designs, without playing Lunar I never would have gotten into other video games, not to mention the series itself. It's sad to think of them being gone, but at least their releases were good while they existed.

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Alunissage
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Post by Alunissage »

Brief replies:

Yes, I have a private, but impeccable, source about the rights being sold. I probably can't narrow it down any further than late 2002, as G1 says; Rich, PM me about this if you want. The license expired earlier that year, which is why the Fan Art edition was put out then; there was just enough time for it to sell before the license expired. This was actually the first time in ten years that WD hadn't had a license for some Lunar game or another. Lunar PC was indeed buggy as hell and a monster job given the many permutations of hardware people can have; it was just too much work. I never heard of any other reasons for its cancellation besides the scale of the bugfixing required. Rich is correct that the merchandise being pulled did not have to do with selling the rights back.

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wisequark
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Post by wisequark »

I've said it before and I'll say it again . . .

console companies make lousy pc software developers. the opposite is true as well. working on either platform is just a completely different experience.

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