Beeline is Capcom, Capcom is Beeline. It's just a label (and one they are planning to retire soon). I'm honestly not sure how to feel about this. Monster Hunter Explore is pretty cool for what it is, but truthfully, a small part of me is happy that the F2P Monster Hunter seemingly didn't perform as well for Capcom in the West (albeit just Canada) as the premium one did. I certainly understand if anyone is upset, but this is unfortunately the nature of soft launches... not all of them make it to wide release.
It is clearly obvious that Capcom does not at all understand the mobile gaming market and have yet again screwed the pooch. They should just get out all together. I will say I own all the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney games and bought all IAP involved and that was the only thing Capcom did right that I'm aware of oh and fixing ghost trick
Capcom is a frustrating company to follow on any platform. They're famous for their "tests" - where they rig the board so that whatever they're testing is bound for failure. They can't be doing that on purpose, but they do it often enough that you have to wonder sometimes.
Very good points I grew up thinking Capcom was the best but yeah over the years and on mobile they went backwards Do you also agree the Phoenix Wright games were something they actually did right? Not fixing MHFU to me just meant explore wasn't going to be well received anyways.
I think most of the games they've released on mobile have been well-done, apart from things like Mega Man X. The problem is never with the quality of the releases, it's with the post-release support. So yeah, the AA games are looking good at the moment, but if they break in the next iOS update and Capcom doesn't fix them, they'll be examples for the naughty list. Capcom's basic structure is very ill-suited for mobile, though. It's part of the company culture that teams are dispersed after a game is released, with the various members going to work on different projects. This makes it enormously difficult to get the band back together if something big breaks in a game, because not only do they have to wait until they're done with their current projects, said projects are likely on different schedules. Anyway, this is all off-topic and part of the sausage-making process that really shouldn't be something the customers have to worry about, ideally speaking. What's happening with MHEx is simply a case of a test marketed product that never makes it to the full market. I don't think it's necessarily fair to expect publishers to have to go ahead with every product they throw into a test market. It sucks for those who were enjoying it, but if the game wasn't testing well, I don't blame anyone for backing out. Especially a company that's a couple of decent-sized flops away from going out of business.
I was really looking forward to the UK release for this... I guess I'll never play it! I got MHFU just before it broke so I never really got to play that either!
Aw god. I just downloaded it some weeks ago and thought it was pretty cool. I feel bad for those people who spent money on this. Now it's gone and wasted, unless you want to deal with Apple to somehow get it refunded. What a joke. This is pretty much the reason why I never download any indie online only games, let alone spent money on iap. It's just to risky. Player base drops and the dev will shut down its server. I really wouldnt expect that from any big company. I was wrong it seems. Oh well, it was in soft launch. Should have known it better. Too bad I cant refund the time I've wasted with this.
I can appreciate your mixed feelings on this. If it means they would be more interested in bringing premium MH titles to the western mobile market in the future, then that would definitely be a good thing. The thing is, do we really foresee them making any more premium MH titles for mobile in the future at all (even in Japan)? MHFU was successful, but it has such a huge following (even to this day) that carried over from the PSP. I think MHFU was a one-time case of this working. I think what MHRX failing in the west means for us is simply that whenever they make the next mobile MH game (which will likely be freemium), it won't even be considered for a western release. Nothing more. So while I share your hopes, I don't actually think there is any silver lining to this story. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.
Wow this sucks. I really enjoyed the game but took a break to wait until worldwide launch, looks like I won't be returning ever!
I had originally posted this line of thought in the comments to the TA article about the MHRX shut down, but it was removed for some reason. It's a decent question though, and something worth discussing. If MHRX is being shut down because the number of active players was greatly out of proportion to the number of in-app purchases made, then did those of us that played it but don't live in Canada help kill it? I don't know the actual numbers, of course, but I get the impression that a large portion of the MHRX user base were players that were not in Canada. If that's true, then it's safe to assume that a large portion of potential IAP spenders were waiting for the game to be released in their country in order to be able to make purchases. So a large portion of paying customers were counted as non-payers. In other words, the ratio of payers to non-payers was artificially skewed. So if the soft launch of this game was meant to determine if enough people playing were compelled to spend money on the game, then perhaps the skewed ratio of payers to non-payers made it look as if this game wasn't worth the hassle in the west. If that's the case, then are we (potential IAPers playing outside of Canada) responsible (even if only partially) for this game getting the axe? The further implication is that any soft launched game could be subject to this. Are we actually hurting the chances of a soft launch game getting released worldwide by playing them from other countries?
You're right that it's worth discussing whether or not people outside of the soft launch countries are the cause for the game getting cancelled. The key word in the quoted bit is "if." There's absolutely no way you or anyone outside of a small group of people at Capcom will ever know the answer to this. Not only will you never know if it's the reason, you wouldn't know IAP sales figures to be able to compare how many paying players were from inside Canada or not. With that in mind, I can't even force myself to dwell on the possibility. Another way I see it, if we did magically have sales data and inside information at Capcom, is that the test of the soft launch market was successful. They found that not enough people, in a country they feel is a legitimate test market, didn't buy enough IAP to keep the game afloat for a worldwide launch. Besides, the game was also released in Japan. If Japan wasn't spending enough money to keep the game alive (again, assuming a lack of IAPs was the reason), I don't think you could argue a global launch would pick up the slack on that. I'd bet that if you compared the number of worldwide MH players, with players just in Japan, it would be a small fraction.
Yeah, it's pure speculation. We can assume that they thought the game might be profitable before the soft launch, or else they wouldn't have done all the work to localize it. We can also assume that they ruled the game as NOT profitable at some point during the (very brief) soft launch, or else they wouldn't have shut it down. But you're right, we can only guess at the exact details. From what I understand, the Japanese version is doing very well. I want to say I read that it has even surpassed MHFU in revenue, but I can't remember where I read that, so I could be mistaken. If it was failing in Japan, then I don't even think they would have attempted to localize it in the west in the first place.
Just now saw this, but anyway I don't show any comments from you on that post that were deleted or any that were stuck in the pending queue. More likely the comment never got through in the first place. In regards to that comment, I don't think the number of people who make a special iTunes account to download soft-launch games is very large at all. In fact I'd bet money it's completely insignificant. There are 35 million people in Canada, even if there were a few thousand soft-launchers from other countries (and I think that's a very generous estimate) it'd still be a drop in the bucket. It's almost certainly something not so cut and dry, and games can be cancelled for any number of reasons. Sadly, like others have said, I doubt we'll ever know exactly why.
Apparently they are still releasing new monsters into the game even after announcing that the servers will shut down. Capcom Beeline pls...
But the time you spend should result in the fun you had. Like the time is currency and the enjoyment is the item you purchased. Like I spent 130+ hours on MHFU, and it rewarded me greatly with enjoyment.
I agree with you, but in his defense the fun of grinding in a game like this is progressing towards being able to handle harder/higher level content. Having the game shut down before you get to enjoy the content you were progressing towards can definitely soil the entire experience and make what was previously fun seem like a waste of time.
Yeah, I do agree in a way. That's kind of my whole thought process behind ANY online/F2P game. And why I am hesitant to ever fully invest in one of these games. At least with ports and premium games available on many platforms, there are other ways to play in case the iOS version ever dies. But online only mobile exclusive titles are probably all going to be born and eventually die. Some so much sooner than they should. But, I'm bummed too. I was going to wait for it to hit the US App Store. Now I'm left with just MHFU... which I guess isn't all that bad.
