Arc System Works US - Good for the Bottom Line, Bad for Consumers

Latency's got the week off, so I'll be filling in for him, instead of the usual "attempt to get new site up between work days" routine.

I spent a while trying to figure out what to talk about tonight, and there's really only one thing that comes to mind. Arc System Works US.

A bit of history for those who have never heard of Arc System Works(and I don't blame you, they make niche fighting game titles, though they used to make other titles in Japan, and handled a fair number of ports back in the day), this whole debacle starts back with the release of a Playstation game called Guilty Gear. Arc System Works is also fairly well known for the BlazBlue series in the past few years, but for the most part, I won't be discussing that here. Eleven iterations later, [some being spin-off titles like Guilty Gear 2: Overture for the Xbox 360, and the oft-maligned 4-player Guilty Gear Isuka(which was recently re-released on Steam; I suggest against buying it)] the third game in the series Guilty Gear XX has undergone a number of revisions, with the latest being Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R. 

Or, it would be, if not for a series of missteps on the part of the localization team at ASW US. In the somewhat recent past(well after ASW re-acquired the rights to the Guilty Gear franchise from Sega/Sammy), ASW had used Aksys as their North American localization and publishing specialist, including the BlazBlue series, and the PS2 and Wii releases of Accent Core Plus. Now, at some point in late 2012 or early 2013, Arc System Works opened up their US office(Their Facebook was created on January 22nd, 2013, with their twitter starting somewhere around February 16th), and decided to take on some of the localization and publishing duties for themselves. This, however, doesn't apply to  the upcoming BlazBlue: Chronophantasma(still being handled by Aksys) or the Persona 4 Arena series(both* titles published by Atlus, who own the Persona franchise), which really only leaves one-off games like Chaos Code, and DSiWare titles to ASW US. Oh, and the fucking Guilty Gear franchise which has kept them afloat for so long.

So that should cover all the background information you need to really follow the next part. Here is a timeline of events involving the "release" of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R in the NA region:

Early 2012 - Arc System Works JP announces work on a new iteration of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus

September 20th, 2012 - After a brief development period, and multiple location tests, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R releases in Japanese arcades

November 1st, 2012 - Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus is released on JP PSN with promise of a free patch to the Plus R version in the future

December 4th, 2012 - Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus is released on US PSN with promise of a free patch to the Plus R version in the future, to be released in Spring of 2013

March 19th, 2013 - Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R is released on JP PSN for Vita

April 23rd, 2013 - Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R is released on US PSN for Vita

May 19th, 2013 - Guilty Gear Xrd announced

June 3rd, 2013 - Announcement of delay for Plus R patch, on the official Japanese Guilty Gear website(No official mention of this in other regions, only fan translations of the original post)

August 7th, 2013 - Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R patch is released on JP PSN

September 30th, 2013 - ASW US announces that Plus R patch would be out in NA by end of year

October 11th, 2013 - Plus R patch releases for XBLA NA

December 31st, 2013 - ASW US announces that PS3 Plus R patch will not be releasing in 2013. Includes the quote, "We are very sorry for the delay! If it's any comfort, the lack of resources on the +R patch is due to the ongoing production of Guilty Gear Xrd."

February 12th, 2014 - Release date for arcade version of Guilty Gear Xrd is announced to be February 20th, 2014

February 20th, 2014 - Guilty Gear Xrd releases in Japanese arcades with no delays

February 26th, 2014 - ASW US announces completion of development on NA PSN Plus R patch, and states it will be coming "very, very soon".

This is now the part where we get into rant territory. 

Outside of a few balance issues here and there, for the most part, until this point, Arc System Works had been a fairly stand up company, and I do understand that delays happen, however their communication and execution here were horrendous. I'll try and cover these issues in timeline order

1. The nigh unannounced release for Vita of the Plus R version well before the release of the patch. This wouldn't be such a huge issue if it had been previously announced, or was also released as the Accent Core Plus version, and later received a patch, as the consoles did(or should have).
2. The incredibly delayed first notification of the patch being delayed. This was already a bad sign, however this was 6 months into the games lifecycle, and Guilty Gear fans tend to be a fervent bunch, with most having already purchased the game in anticipation of Plus R.
3. The Japanese PSN patch(Has options to change language to English, French, German, and obviously Japanese, yet only released in that region). This means that most of the localization work to be done by ASW US had already been completed, either here, or by ASW JP.
4. The "By the end of 2013" announcement: You've already missed one deadline, and gone months without communication, and yet you found a way to get a considerable percentage of your fanbase's hopes up... And then kick them in the teeth.
5. XBLA NA patch releases, and PSN players patiently await word from ASW US, assuming that the patch must be coming soon as it has already been released overseas, and now on a different console as well.
6. ASW US says nothing further about the status of the PSN patch to Plus R for several months, ignoring questions both on Facebook and Twitter, instead plugging trailers for Guilty Gear Xrd and Chaos Code. Until December 31st, that is. At which point they announced that they would be again missing the deadline, and that, to reiterate, "the lack of resources on the +R patch is due to the ongoing production of Guilty Gear Xrd". Ok, let me get this straight here. You've got a game that people have paid for, with a patch that is now, at the least, 6 months overdue, with most of the work already done on it. You're the US branch of a Japanese company, set up to run PR(which they've not been doing the best of jobs at), and most likely localization, and yet, you don't have the resources to finish this patch because your parent company is too busy making a new game, that still doesn't have a release date, and is known to be coming to arcades in Japan well before any console release... Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. And you're pulling the resources from this patch why, exactly? The BlazBlue: Chronophantasma team has wrapped on their game, having both a console and arcade release in Japan already, with the US console release not until March, being handled by a 3rd party localization house(Aksys). The Arc System Works side of the Persona 4 Arena team has also already released to arcade, with their console release coming much later in 2014, and again being handled by a 3rd party team(ATLUS). And we all know that you're eventually going to release Xrd to console at some point in the future, but you're going to pull resources off a project that people have already paid for and you have yet to deliver on? There are so many things wrong with this that even I can't put them all into words.
7. Guilty Gear Xrd release date announced... Eight days before release. I guess it's easy when you've got an online system to push code to cabinets instead of having to print discs, ghost hard drives, and flash ROMs. The bigger question here, with the ability to release near at-will like this, is why delay an overdue patch further to accelerate development here, instead of delaying a project without a set deadline a bit?
8. Guilty Gear Xrd releases, and SIX days later, we receive word that development on the NA PSN Plus R patch has completed. Only fourteen days since the announcement of a release date for Xrd, and yet, it's finally done. During the wait for this patch, Xrd was announced, dated, and released, and yet they couldn't find another two weeks of man hours to wrap it up and appease the fan base ahead of this?

Much as many of you have watched(and perhaps even had your gaming disrupted by) formerly great developers and publishers taking a misstep, and sometimes a fall, over the years(Capcom, Electronic Arts circa 1998, Square Enix post-merger, current Nintendo), this, I feel, is Arc System Works biggest blunder to date. No longer can I count them amongst the "good guys", and there are certainly others that will feel the same.

*There's a sequel currently out in Japanese arcades, NA console release is projected to be fall of 2014.