I've explained this multiple times already. I know your point is probably going to be 'it's a game, therefore the gameplay is the most important'.
Not exactly.
I'm in a position where I advocate that video games are a broad media that allow for more than just gameplay. It's rare to find a video game that has great everything all around but most video games have certain draw to them. When one game excels in gameplay (RE4) another excels in the story (SH2) and others might not even do that but still have a quality that makes them good or appealing, like the visual design (Alice: Madness Returns) or even a more simple form of interactivity (Unfinished Swan). That is the beauty of video games.
In this game I don't believe the story is the paradigm of the experience, nor the art direction, or the character designs, but rather the game play, that's why I'm putting such emphasis on
it over the plot.
However, we have to face the fact that video games are like interactive movies, especially nowadays.
Yeah, your blockbuster games but the potential for gaming extends to a more abstract possibility than straight narratives such is in film. I'll refer to the previously mentioned Unfinished Swan. I'm not saying that that isn't true, that video games are becoming like movies, and it most certainly is the case with this game, but you say as an absolute, which is not, not all video games have a narrative, not all video games need one, and there will always be video games that don't have one to be a video game.
Without a plot, there is nothing to base the gameplay around.
The mechanics. Lumines doesn't have a plot, why would it need one.
Again, unrelated, but still, it's one of those things that needs to be said.
I'm not talking about 'what makes a game a game' or 'what's more important, gameplay or plot' I'm talking about what makes something one's intellectual property, brainchild, whatever you want to call it.
In this case it's the notion that you are taking something that exists and appropriating it can be the basis of possible discussion as to who it belongs to.
You can look at this in two ways.
1. NT simply created a fanfic, no different than any other writer of the genre but with a high budget and permission from the people holding the copyrights to add gameplay. The real owners are the people who created it and they have left Capcom. They aren't dead and they certainly aren't inactive but rather the victims of copyright law. Everything that came after the original is just someone twitching someone else's creative work, and that includes NT. That original creation is the birth place of all the concepts we see and adding and/or improving is certainly far simpler than creating. This case been no different, they just took out what they didn't think your general consumers would not like and replaced them with things that they would.
2. NT appropriated this work and altered it to how they would've created the concept. It is the time and effort to change something and making it 'their own,' giving it another personality, another presence, and developing an alternate take which is theirs. They created a unique world and their efforts are no different than all those different renditions of Batman or the X-Men. They might not be original creators but they did create this and therefore it is theirs.
Nether is without merit and they are both justifiable and valid perceptions. There is no 'one's BS and the other is word of god' in this one.
The plot is what separates DmC from the DMCs. Since the plot was made by NT, that makes it mainly their game (though I agree Capcom has rights to the game as well).
Why? The plot is not so crucial that would give creative ownership. Why does the plot been different become the factor that makes the games separate. There are other aspects of the game that NT did that would be more crucial to the game that one could argue really makes it a NT game far more than a Capcom game, like the art direction, or the characters.
In this case I will argue that if in fact the game is more NT than Capcom it's because of more than just plot differences and more because of the many differences the game has from it previous titles.
If I was certain that NT had done enough alterations from the previous titles to make it that different from a Capcom game I would certainly give it to NT but I'm not. I don't know how much influence Capcom had with the game's final outcome. For example, I know the tremendously changed design of Dante was Capcom's idea but the short black hair and skinny design was NTs, but that one was one that NT didn't really put up there seriously, just one that Capcom liked. Then when that was all sorted out the new design was shown and Capcom made plenty of alterations to the new product, like not making him skinny and making the coat much longer. After all that who do you really give the credit for the final product to? You say NT, I say I don't know.
The gameplay can be the same throughout all known time for all I care, but as soon as the plot is made by someone other than Capcom, and they give their blessing, that makes it those people's game, not Capcom's (for the most part).
Like I said, I don't think I can agree with this just on that solace. To simply give the game up to NT just because of the plot is not a strong enough argument for me. People are hired to write all the time but they don't always get to say the final product is theirs. A Steven Spielberg film is a Spielberg film, even if he didn't write the script or even if he wasn't the one that made the alterations from the original story, case and point, Jurassic Park.
Like I said, Castlevania (or whichever game) does not belong to the person who happened to come up with its core gameplay concepts. If that were the case, almost every game in existence would belong to people who are long dead, retired or otherwise.
In this case I'll argue otherwise because unlike DmC as far as I know MercurySteam didn't have as much guidance from Konami as NT did from Capcom. DmC was a much more blended collaboration where as Lords of Shadow, as far as I know, was all MercurySteam with some Konami financing. DmC was a very thigh collaboration, not just NT with Capcom financing.
How much freedom Capcom allowed is what would determine the answer for me and from what I understand they didn't just say 'go at it,' they were very controlling in some areas and very liberal in others and since I don't know how much of each there was I won't simply give it up to NT.
