Working Designs closes it's doors... :(

[Doonzmore]

After owning Lunar (PS1) for over a year i finally decided to whip it out over the past summer and it stands as only the second RPG I have ever completed (first being Thousand Arms) and for not being much of an RPG gamer, that is truly saying A LOT.

So long Working Designs.

[drwily008]

That is indeed horrible news!

I found out this information in the "classing gaming" thread and was quite pissed as to the authors approach.

I have utmost respect for the company and wish they would have moved over to a more niche market (like the Gamecube). They could have done quite well there and sold lots of titles instead of being over shadowed by the mainstream crap put out on the PS2.

Anyways, an ode to you Victor and all all that your company did to bring out games that wouldn't have seen the light of day otherwise!

[zmweasel]

His indirect blaming of everything on Sony comes off more like denial to me.

Nope, it's truth. For pretty much the entire PS1 run, Victor had a couple of guardian angels within Sony, veterans who had come over to SCEA from SEGA. For various reasons, those angels couldn't help him anymore in the PS2 era, and so it was a mighty struggle for Victor to get anything approved. The angel-less SCEA forced Victor to ship the technologically wanting Growlanser II and III as a bundle, and flatly rejected the even more primitive Goemon.

There are other factors, of course. Probably the biggest was that in the PS2 era, the competition got much savvier about picking the best Japanese double-A games, and so there wasn't much for Victor to realistically choose from. If Atlus didn't grab it, Ubisoft or Midway or Eidos or someone else did.

But, hey, let's celebrate that for 15 years, there was a video game company headed by a man who actually played and enjoyed video games, instead of a suit. We're never going to see that again.

-- Z.

EDIT: Typo-fixin'.

[kainemaxwell]

WD was definitly a great company and one that thought of its fans, especially when it came to packaging and extras. They'll be missed.

[drummy]

Though almost finished and substantially improved from the Japanese release, Goemon is dead for the US, and that was really the final straw.

Which Goemon is he talking about? If it's the one for the DS, I'm going to be pissed.

[zmweasel]

Though almost finished and substantially improved from the Japanese release, Goemon is dead for the US, and that was really the final straw.

Which Goemon is he talking about? If it's the one for the DS, I'm going to be pissed.

He's talking about the first-gen Japanese PS2 Goemon, which was very technically raw. It would have taken a lot of reprogramming to bring it up to SCEA standards, but Victor had a very talented coder in-house.

Victor has always loved the franchise, and I remember him talking about playing through the N64 Goemon (Mystical Ninja) games with his son.

-- Z.

[Six Switch]

weasel,what did you do at wd?

that is really cool you worked there,sorry the split was rough,whatever happened with that.

[zmweasel]

weasel,what did you do at wd?

that is really cool you worked there,sorry the split was rough,whatever happened with that.

I was the "Vice-President of Game Content," aka Writer Boy, from early 1998 to early 2001. I was the lead rewriter on a bunch of WD games:

Albert Odyssey
Magic Knight Rayearth (one of maybe six writers on that one, actually)
Alundra
Lunar: SSSC
Vanguard Bandits
Lunar 2: EBC

The healthy majority of English text in all of those games, save Rayearth and a few segments of Lunar 2, is mine.

You can see me on the Lunar 2 making-of video disc, wearing a pound of orange pancake makeup to conceal my gigantic pores and mispronouncing "Lucia."

I also did a little work on Thunder Force V (the pilot journal) and Silhouette Mirage (the shopkeeper dialogue), and wrote the in-house strategy guides for Bandits and both PS1 Lunars, and wrote some back-of-the-box blurbs, and performed a bunch of other duties. Even at our post-SSSC peak, we only had about ten in-house employees, so we all had to multitask.

It was, for the most part, good times.

-- Z.

[DonMarco]

The thing I always liked most about Working Designs was the company's goal. The image they wanted to make for them selves. I mean, what other publisher is kinda like Working Designs?

Working Designs bowing out is like saying goodbye to this guy at EB Games you've known for over 15 years. The guy who told you to get Dragon Force. The guy that still never sold his Sega CD because of Lunar: Eternal Blue. The guy that owned all the Langrisser games before they were released in the states. The guy who had a Goemon tattoo that no one could recognize.

I'll miss them. More for whcat they could do, rather than what they did. Alundra, RayStorm, super-duper omake boxes with the PSX Lunars... What other publisher would get behind those games? Especially Lunar. An old-school traditional J-RPG remake of a 8 year old Sega CD game from GameArts.

(I have three punching Ghaleon puppets.)

[Griking]

So why is Sony so against WD as a company that they won't approve any of their games?

Also, someone else has already asked it but it wasn't really answered. Why couldn't WD just release games for the Gamecube or Xbox instead?

[zmweasel]

So why is Sony so against WD as a company that they won't approve any of their games?

Sony wasn't "against" WD. It just couldn't be bothered to deal with such a small-taters company and such small-fry games. For example, Goemon was a very early, very raw PS2 release, and while a larger company might've been able to get it approved, WD didn't have the political pull to do so.

Also, someone else has already asked it but it wasn't really answered. Why couldn't WD just release games for the Gamecube or Xbox instead?

Because GameCube third-party titles didn't/don't sell, and there were very few localization-worthy Japanese Xbox games.

-- Z.

[Ed Oscuro]

Think about it, WD had all the problems of a publisher, but none of the assets of a developer (no IP of their own) and while they could go to whatever system they wanted to, in practice they were reliant on Sony's largesse (whatever little there was) at the end.

[Melf]

Nope, it's truth. For pretty much the entire PS1 run, Victor had a couple of guardian angels within Sony, veterans who had come over to SCEA from SEGA. For various reasons, those angels couldn't help him anymore in the PS2 era, and so it was a mighty struggle for Victor to get anything approved. The angel-less SCEA forced Victor to ship the technologically wanting Growlanser II and III as a bundle, and flatly rejected the even more primitive Goemon.

From the way you describe it, it doesn't sound like Sony was missing much. How many games had WD released this generation before Growlancer? You don't need to think too hard that realize that such a small track record coupled with asking Sony to release two older games doesn't really give you much of a chance, especially when companies like Ubi Soft and Atlus are much more prolific & timely with their releases. If what you say is truly the way it went down, then Sony wasn't being evil, it was practicing sound business.

There are other factors, of course. Probably the biggest was that in the PS2 era, the competition got much savvier about picking the best Japanese double-A games, and so there wasn't much for Victor to realistically choose from. If Atlus didn't grab it, Ubisoft or Midway or Eidos or someone else did.

That, I think, is it in a nutshell right there.

But, hey, let's celebrate that for 15 years, there was a video game company headed by a man who actually played and enjoyed video games, instead of a suit. We're never going to see that again.

Like I said, they were great up until this generation, and they had one hell of a run. No other company will ever do what they did in the same way.

[MrRoboto19XX]

Is it just me or does anyone else think that games by working designs almost always had "that feeling"?

perhaps you know what Im taking about, that feeling that happened when you first started up Super Mario Bros 3, Link to the Past, Sonic and Knuckles, or Sihlouette Mirage. That feeling that youre arbout to experiance a game, not just play it.

Farewell WD, you will be missed.

[swlovinist]

RIP Working Designs, I will play some homage games to remember your good days. Working Designs was in my hometown, they will be missed. I knew of their hard times at the end, I was just happy with them getting thier last project out the door.

[Push Upstairs]

My experience with WD games is limited, I can say I enjoyed "Magic Knight Rayearth".

Some of the things said in that game were worth a few chuckles.

"Sihlouette Mirage" was a different story, and i agree that the it was messed with more that it should have been.

All in all, its sad to see the little guys go. Let's just hope this never happens to PC games.

[Tron 2.0]

R.I.P WD even if Victor was a jerk.

He wasn't a jerk. Not always. He did some really nice things for me, and he did some really nice things for others.

Keep in mind this is a guy who donated part of the profits from Iron Storm--a World War II strategy game with Nazi imagery--to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. That's an exceptionally non-jerky act.

-- Z.

Not from what some of the storys i've herd.

I use to bitter over the whole Saturn thing.

Not any more though 'still i did like what, WD stood for in taking a interest in... publishing japanese games.

Heck i have most of what they publish only thing i'm missing is "Vasteel and Growlanser Generations" still.

[Buyatari]

Wow this is sad news. I figured they would be bought out by another. To just shut down man that sucks.

[zmweasel]

From the way you describe it, it doesn't sound like Sony was missing much. How many games had WD released this generation before Growlancer?

Not counting Arc the Lad Collection, two: Gungriffon Blaze and Silpheed. Both flopped, and hard. I believe they're the only two WD games you can easily pick up used for less than $10. I was only around for Gungriffon Blaze, which was supposed to be a PS2 launch title, but which actually arrived at most stores a day or two later. Quite the fiasco.

You don't need to think too hard that realize that such a small track record coupled with asking Sony to release two older games doesn't really give you much of a chance, especially when companies like Ubi Soft and Atlus are much more prolific & timely with their releases. If what you say is truly the way it went down, then Sony wasn't being evil, it was practicing sound business.

Sony didn't care about Ubisoft or Atlus putting out more games more quickly than WD, but Japanese developers and publishers did. That's why Hoshigami ended up with Atlus; the developers knew of WD's reputation for extreme lateness, and rejected Victor's bid.

I found out about that whole mess through a third party near the end of my WD stint, when the bloom was most definitely off the rose. When you have to find out what your employer is or isn't doing from people outside the company, you've got problems.

And I agree that Sony isn't "evil" for denying Victor's request to ship a butt-ugly Japanese launch title, or for making him bundle Growlanser II and III. In fact, I agreed with both decisions.

But that's the bad stuff. Let's get back to the good stuff.

-- Z.

[zmweasel]

Not from what some of the storys i've herd.

I don't know what "storys" you've "herd," but Victor was like every other human being. He had his good points and his bad points. He did some nice things, and some not-so-nice things. But a lot of the Vic-haters were simply bent out of shape by his straight-shooting 'tude. He was the president of a video game company with the passion of a video game fanboy. Some folks had a very hard time with that.

-- Z.