Suikoden Charity

A place to post news and also give your ideas about the future of the Suikoden series.
Please justify all speculations with reasons why you think such an event could happen.
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KC_MCDOHL
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Suikoden Charity

Post by KC_MCDOHL »

I was wondering, and I'm sure people would be up for it, if the people of this forum (and the other big Suikoden forums) would like to get together and raise a little money (hopefully alot of money) to help support the Konami Suikoden team. Think of it as a little charity event.

lol I'm not asking folk to go around knocking on their neighbours doors and ask for cash, stuttering nervous words trying desperately to explain your cause. I'm just wondering if the people of this forum would like to send some money off to the team.

Think about it. This could show the creation staff just how keen and serious the fan base is. And, of course, the money is going to a good cause.

I would probably send around £100 myself personally but lets just say everyone sends away $20 (or pounds, or whatever currency your using, we'll say dollars for arguments sake) there's 2495 people on this forum.

2495 x $20 = £49,900

Even if only half the people on the forum do this, that's still $24,950! Not bad for fan based money! Yes, I know the money we spend on the games themselves, music CD's, publications etc should help fund our beloved game anyhow but this could be an answer to dispelling the fears and keeping our franchise alive. Imagine we did it monthly. Konami could be making around $24,950 a month from us!

What you guys think?

KC
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amelia108
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by amelia108 »

i think it's a decent idea, but kinda iffy...

would they accept it? would they even want to?

beside that, i know star trek fans have gotten ridiculous things done, but their numbers are pretty damn high. how many truly hardcore fans are there here (or anywhere) that would want to give konami any more "extra incentive"?

despite that, say we do donate to konami... what if they just make tierkreis 2 instead? then we're just even more pissed.

i don't know. i may want to do it, but there are too many questions. and i wouldn't do 20, more like 10-15; as much as i love the series, i just don't have that much money to spare anymore.
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KC_MCDOHL
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by KC_MCDOHL »

Well, we can't force money out of peoples pockets so $1 dollar is better than nothing. I think, if we where to go for it, there would have to be a good bit organisation involved. It would be nice, if when presenting the money, we had come up with ''5 things the Suikoden fans want to see in the next Suikoden'' much like the 20 questions we came up with on this forum to pose to Konami.


It may seem a bit cheeky though if we're telling the development staff how we'd like the game/story etc to be run when essentially handing over which may well be only a small bit cash. However, I'm sure they would be thrilled that fans would be willing to contribute in such a way (and thrilled they should be) and would be open to any suggestions or feedback that we may have.

It depends on if the ''Suikoden Charity'' would be a one off event or if it would be monthly or annually or what. If it was annual, for example, I would send away the money the first year and have faith they would spend it wisely. The second year i would send it away along with the ''5 things Suikoden fans would like to see'' example
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Xelinis
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by Xelinis »

Honestly, $24,950 would barely cover any costs and wouldn't help the team much at all. It costs into the millions to make games nowadays. :-/

However, it anything even remotely like this could be well organized and executed, it would serve to show Konami just how loyal us Suikoden fans are. Konami is far more willing to listen to a check rather than a list of names on a petition. Also note that, unless you set this up as an official charity with Konami from the very outset, it would seem very sketchy and you won't get any donations at all.
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KC_MCDOHL
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by KC_MCDOHL »

Well, I may be being naive as I do not know too much about games development, but I reckon Suikoden could not have cost any more than around three million dollars to make. That is for the games development itself and taking out individual salaries? If that estimation is correct then the $24.950 really is pretty good money for a fan based contribution. If we can raise more than that then even better!

Perhaps we could find out how much each Suikoden installment cost to develop? (I tried to research this myself but with little luck i'm afraid :( ) At least that way we know roughly what kind of money we are dealing with.

If we did raise this money, perhaps we could tell Konami what we want it to go towards. For example, marketing. It has already been discussed how bad the Suikoden marketing is. iF more money was spent on good marketing then this could gain Suikoden poularity and raise more funds for future installments.
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Xelinis
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by Xelinis »

There is no specific cost for developing Suikoden games, it depends on the current generation. A proper seventh-generation game costs between $15m and $25m to make. Again, $24,950 wouldn't even make a dent in it. At most, it would cover the costs for a single programmer for about 6 months, maybe even less.

Also, you're assuming that the 2495 members on this forum are all active. Chances are, only 1~2% of the member list still checks these boards regularly.
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KC_MCDOHL
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by KC_MCDOHL »

:shock: it costs that much!? What about without salaries though? (i.e. your single programmer for 6 months)

Yea, I know. I'm assuming half the forum is still active and willing to pay up. Quite an assumption but there are a few other forums and I still think we should give it a try. I'm more curious to see how much we would raise now :)
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Xelinis
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by Xelinis »

KC_MCDOHL wrote::shock: it costs that much!? What about without salaries though? (i.e. your single programmer for 6 months)
Salaries are a good chunk of the budget, it takes a damn large team to make a game when you take into account programmers, artists, 3D modelers, motion capture actors, voice actors, and the core creative heads. The average annual salary for such people is probably somewhere around $70,000. Don't forget that games can take 2-4 years to make, longer in some cases. Other than that, equipment is relatively cheap. Marketing, however, takes another massive chunk out of that, usually more than $5-7m.
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by Oppenheimer »

Ummm not to be too harsh, but you know one way for Konami to make money? Produce a game and charge people to buy it. I have already given them plenty of money from doing that.

Did you buy the PSN rerelease of Suikoden? Import the Japanese PSP version of 1&2? That's a way of giving them money if you really want to.

Suikoden is not exactly Konami's only franchise either. Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, etc pad their pocketbook already.

If this were a tiny PSN downloadable studio I could see how maybe this would be an idea but . . . that's not the case.
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by Porom »

As far as I'm concerned, the Konami team can go take a long walk off a short pier these days. Suikoden IV? Suikoden Tierkreis? No thanks. You don't even have a single guarantee that their next game won't turn out to be the same crap as most of the last few games have.

If you really want to support Suikoden, raise money for a proper fan translation. Hire someone to translate the many Suikoden Card Stories for the GBA. Or to translate Suikoden 1&2. Or to make a proper, well done fan game that's faithful to the continuity of the Suikoden universe, tying up the game's many loose ends. The original writer and creator of the Suikoden games left in the middle of development for Suikoden 3, so anything we could come up with story-wise is just as legitimate as anything the current Konami team can. Or, as we can see in the case of Tierkreis, probably better. I know I would've completely lost interest with Lord of the Rings if after the second movie, they decided to change the director and scriptwriter over to Uwe Boll and released several side-movies showing life at the Shire before eventually getting around to the third.

All you'd need is someone with time to kill and the ability to make one gigantic Suikoden hack with new sprites, story, etc., ala Exit Fate. If that guy can do that for free, actually paying someone to study the continuity, the loose ends and the world to make a game to wrap things up in RPGMaker should come out just fine.
Rezard
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by Rezard »

All the extra "bonus" stuff Konami brings can be considered a donation to them. All of it is way to raise more money. If they really needed "donations" from fans all they had to do was realease a game with some kind of bonus for double the price. A collectors box or something like that.
A donation from the fans wont help, they wont release a game just cause you sent them some money, they will release it if it is profitable. This is busisness and that's how it works.
Porom wrote:If you really want to support Suikoden, raise money for a proper fan translation. Hire someone to translate the many Suikoden Card Stories for the GBA. Or to translate Suikoden 1&2. Or to make a proper, well done fan game that's faithful to the continuity of the Suikoden universe, tying up the game's many loose ends. The original writer and creator of the Suikoden games left in the middle of development for Suikoden 3, so anything we could come up with story-wise is just as legitimate as anything the current Konami team can. Or, as we can see in the case of Tierkreis, probably better. I know I would've completely lost interest with Lord of the Rings if after the second movie, they decided to change the director and scriptwriter over to Uwe Boll and released several side-movies showing life at the Shire before eventually getting around to the third.
I agree with you, I think we collectivity could came with a better storyline for the loose-ends, after all we know more about the suikoden world than Konami and they also been have terribly afraid to meddle in any of Murayama stablished world. But reality isnt that nice, it is very rare to see a good fan game, most of them suck a lot. Maybe in the near future we will see fans creating games with a improved game creations tools.
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KC_MCDOHL
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by KC_MCDOHL »

Yea, I buy as much Suikoden merchandise as I can. I plan to go to Tokyo in a couple of years and buy up what I don't already own. But this is really small pennies. What I'm suggesting is that, as a fan base, we donate money to Konami in spite of what we already give them. Something extra.

I know a lot of people are unhappy about the way the series as progressed and wouldn't trust Konami with our money but if every subsequent game released since Suikoden 2 was as good as its predecessor then there would probably be no need for me to create this topic. But many of us are anxious waiting in hope. I believe a 'Suikoden Charity' is a way of projecting that hope onto the series creators and also kills the anxiety we have of waiting around feeling like theres' nothing we can do to save our beloved series.

Instead of our money appearing seemingly useless then what if we raised as much as we can (perhaps over a long period of time) and sent the money away with a message for Konami.
We could get together and come up with '10 ways Suikoden fans want to see the series progress' to send away with the money. Such things would have to be proffessional and well organised which, of course, could be done.
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Hawksaber
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by Hawksaber »

I think if they agreed to make a game on the DS or PSP involving the original storyline, the charity idea may actually help them out a little bit. I'm sure releasing a game for a hand-held costs a lot less.

I'm not opposed to another Suikoden game being released for a hand-held console, it's the change in storyline and linearity that I mainly have a problem with.
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daoster
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by daoster »

Let's be serious here, Konami is a multi-million dollar company, and the Suikoden team probably make enough money to support themselves financially. Giving a company like Konami "charity" is kinda...eh...when I think of giving to charity, its usually to support, you know, the less fortunate, rather then to support a hobby of mine.

Besides there are probably legal issues that won't allow them to accept money.
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Re: Suikoden Charity

Post by Nemesis »

Konami you Jerk! You stood me up for almost 3 years! REMEMBER THIS~!!!
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