The terrifying legion: Why fanboy-ism isn't cute.

So it is well known to many readers that recently I took issue with the way JRPG stalwart developer Nihon Falcom has been conducting its' business.  But today I want to talk about something tangentially related to it; fanboyism.

After taking my opinions to various fansites and forums, expecting to find people who would agree with me on how we fans have been given the rough end of the stick, instead I was met with something that made my stomach churn.  Open hostility? Mass flaming?  All manners of profanities?  Actually no, none of that.

What I found was that the fan-base has actually become a kind of corporate shield for Nihon Falcom.  Fans scrambled to offer up excuses as to why Falcom has conducted itself.  Not explanations; excuses.  These weren't just Nihon Falcom fans, but what I have come to term 'Nihon Falcom Apologists'.  These are people who have taken up the developer's responsibility to conduct PR where the developer has consistently failed to do so.

Now to be fair, this phenomenon exists in all fanbases, but it is normally counter-balanced by the presence of long-term cynical fanbase.  In the case of Nihon Falcom this isn't the case; Fan apologists make up almost the entire fanbase because Nihon Falcom's style of games are built on the premise of accepting compromise (fans agree to overlook the low tech nature of Falcom's games in exchange for the gooey gamey goodness within).  Fans go around apologetically taking up the Falcom mantle but relinquish their role as critics.  A role which is not only expected of them, but a social responsibility and a cornerstone in preventing anti-consumer practice.

The kind of behaviour listed above is a betrayal and reversal of consumer trust.  We trust the consumer base to act as a barrier between abusive corporate practice and ourselves.  We trust that consumer base because, at heart, they share the same interests we do.  But what happens when that consumer base starts setting up a barrier from the corporate side of the fence?  You end up with the fanbase itself perpetuating anti-consumer practice through legitimisation.  Quite why this kind of sentiment is allowed to spread on forums despite being damaging to the community as a whole is beyond me.  In all likelihood most forum administrator's simply don't see the relationship between extreme fandom and perpetuation of anti-consumer sentiment.

I want to state in no unequivocal terms that the consumer has a responsibility (not just an expectation) to side with other consumers.  Ideally that wouldn't necessitate siding against a company, but inevitably there will be times when that is exactly what it entails.

Woe is this blog: Criticism and Negativity. Nihon Falcom vs Fans.

Some people reading this blog, especially the reviews, might have noticed how negative and picky it is.  There is a reason for that; in order to provide good critical coverage of a game it is necessary for me to be extra vigilant in catching problems that most reviewers miss.

The reason most other importers miss things I pick up on could simply be down to their language skills (they can’t review story content or characterisation because their Japanese isn’t strong enough), but I think the privileged access angle is also in play here; many importers are in the privileged position of being able to access games you guys can only dream of playing…or at least that is what they are going to tell you to justify the high price of their imported game.  You, only armed with Google Translate are pretty much at the mercy of what they say.  It’s like someone taunting with you with what they claim is the world’s tastiest baguette…only you can’t have it.  I like to think my reviews act as counter friction to that kind of almost elitist outlook.

But I do sometimes worry that this blog is putting out too much negative karma.  I started it after all because I was excited about these games and wanted to share something I loved with other people.  Somehow that got lost in the sea of critical writing. I am planning to try and write something more positive in the future but today I want to take one more chance to be a downer.

This time though it isn’t a critique of a game that I am being a drag on, it’s a particular game company and their questionable sales practices.  The company in question is Nihon Falcom; developer behind hardcore fan favourites such as Ys and the Legend of Heroes games.  This company has an incredible reputation between its fans (both Japanese and International) for putting out technically modest games that make up for it with rock-solid writing, and engaging gameplay that tickles one with the details into a messy geekgasm.  Being a small company most fans are happy to overlook the rough edges in their games because these games have it where it counts.  I’m not about to detract from that, but I do feel that many people outside of Japan need to have their attention drawn to the Nihon Falcom of recent years which is guilty of numerous accounts of anti-consumer practices.

Many of the West can be forgiven for having never heard of this side of Nihon Falcom because by the time their games are translated and released they have been patched numerous times and bought to a spit shine.  In Japan however the last three major Legend of Heroes releases have all been troubled by bugs (many game breaking) that were so pejorative that one can only draw the conclusion that Nihon Falcom has begun routinely putting out games it knows are broken (to meet quarterly release schedule expectations) at the cost of their most supporting fans.

A quick recap:

-The Legend of Heroes: Ao no Kiseki (PSP) released with a game breaking save glitch bug that kicked in near the end of the game.  Nihon Falcom has not acknowledged this let alone apologised.  To this day fans are using work arounds.

-The Legend of Heroes: Zero no Kiseki Evolution (Vita) was released for the Vita with dozens of game freezing glitches.  Some reports suggest that the problem was so pervasive that many took to manually saving the game after each fight…when they weren’t getting freezes on the save screen that is.  These bugs were extremely common and would appear just as you went about the core story.  In other words, there was no conceivable way they could have been missed in testing: Falcom released the game to paying fans knowing full well it was a broken mess.  A month after release the game was patched and now runs effectively bug free. But it still begs the question as to why this happened.  

-The biggest problem however is the recent release of The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki (PS3/Vita).  This game has bugs such as voice samples not playing correctly but most worrying is the length of the load times (and the frequency).   The PS3 version has frame rate issues even during cutscenes. It is also pretty bad (especially when you consider the mandatory install) in the load time department but the Vita version is simply inexcusable.  Fans are scrambling to try and enjoy the game; many of them swapping over to SSD drives for the PS3 version. 

Reviews scores on Amazon have completely crashed.  Nihon Falcom could not NOT have known about the game breaking load time issues but released the game again using the logic that they could patch it later.  In fact their Twitter representative has gone on file to say that the first patch (of many!?) is coming out on the 10/3 (tomorrow).  I decided to write this blog now to keep things topical (we will no doubt see a flood of load time comparison videos soon).

We are not really sure if a PS3 version is even coming as the language used was vague.  As of yet there has been no apology; Falcom goes right on ahead, content to patch major issues with games post release rather than being honest with its fans.

Nihon Falcom prides itself on making games for a particular fan base.  Sure its games are a little rough around the edges but they have heart.  Nihon Falcom has that mutual understanding with its small fanbase and that is how it has made its way. But in light of way Falcom has been conducting itself of late many fans are no longer happy to make concessions to Falcom; the relationship, in the eyes of many fans, has become exploitative.

Fans have cheered Falcom on, put up Falcom's promotional banners on their webpages, convinced their friends to try these games and made tear-soaked speeches excusing the rough graphics and animation.  To that Falcom has responded by marketing their games as ‘rough around the edges but good where it counts’; Nihon Falcom has taken fan reveration for their games and spun it into part of their marketing hype, and at the same time released shoddy, even broken products now 3 times in a row.

I for one will not be pre-ordering or buying Falcom games at launch.  I encourage many importers out there to do the same.  Fandom is something earned, not something to be exploited.

Edit: It has come to my attention (after reading one of my sources more carefully) that the PS3 version of the game is also getting patched.  The initial Tweet from Nihon Falcom was vague about this but the cited sources cleared that up.  I hope to see dramatic load time improvements to both versions of the game tomorrow.

Update: Today the game was patched and load times on the Vita version were reduced (the PS3 patch hardly changed anything).  ATM the Vita's load performance is on par with the PS3 version; still very slow.

However when Falcom's Twitter representative was quizzed on whether any of the upcoming patches would reduce the load times further they responded 'We are hard at work on another patch for both the PS3/Vita versions of the game'.  They don't say outright that the patch will improve load times further but it does suggest that.

No details or date for the next patch has been given at this point in time.

Update 2:  Nihon Falcom have announced that the 1.02 patch is set to arrive sometime in the 1st third of November.  The patch will:  
-Further reduce load time
-Reduce frame drops
-Fix typos
-Fix text that is overflowing from text boxes

Update 3: The 1.02 patch went up on the 7th November.  Falcom announced this the day before it went up.  The load times have indeed been reduced (or outright removed in some areas such as between strings cut scenes).

However my impression of playing the game is it still feels slow compared to conventional expectations of load times in 2013.  You wouldn't call it 'fast' by any means.

The game varies from acceptable to 'on the longish side'.  There is still room for improvement but the game in it's current state is eminently playable without being a major drag.