Mega Man has been one of the most widely-recognized video game series out there. Starting back in the 80’s on the NES, the series has spawned numerous spin-offs, merchandise, and even made its way into Super Smash Bros. But up until last year, there’s been a startling lack of Mega Man games from its own company, Capcom. While there are several different reasons for this, the one that makes sense to tie to economics for the sake of this blog post is the idea behind supply and demand.
Look at this graph I made. In the 10 years between 2000 and 2010, more and more Mega Man games were being produced, mostly spin-off titles and subseries. With most video game series, there’s one or two games released in a year, maybe three if you’re lucky. In 2004, the collective amount of Mega Man games released was freakin’ 13. And they didn’t even break 1 million sales total. Things got even worse in 2006, with 9 games released, and only about 500,000 games sold. Mega Man X8. Mega Man Starforce 1 and 2. Mega Man Zero 2 and 3. Mega Man” Powered Up. Mega Man Battle Network 4, 4.5, and 5. This is just the tip of the iceberg of games that were released. In general, releasing that many games in a year isn’t a good thing, but the games themselves didn’t help.
Now, it’s not that the games were bad. Far from it, in fact. But it was instead in how they were designed. The Mega Man series is very formulaic in how the games work. Jump and shoot. Fight evil robots. Get their powers. Rinse and repeat with different art styles ,characters, and mechanics. While the games were oftentimes very good, the consumers who bought the games ended up only getting a couple. After all, once you’ve played one, you’ve played them all, right? (Actually this is very wrong but that’s a discussion for another day. Let’s just say all the games have wildly different stories, levels, bosses, etc. I could rant about this for hours). The point is, people were getting tired of Mega Man. So, what happened next?
https://imgur.com/a/GV9nN10
Nothing.
There were a few projects planned, notably Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe, but none of them came to fruition. For 8 looooong years, Capcom gave Mega Man fans nothing. In 2013, Mega Man got the honor of being a playable character in the 4th installment of the Super Smash Bros. series, where he utilized his classic weaponry, but there was still nothing from his official company, apart from a few collections of older games released on new hardware in the form of the Mega Man Legacy Collections. With no one else left to turn to, the fans took it upon themselves to satisfy their demand for more Mega Man in the form of fangames.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BpCarkGGoxI/maxresdefault.jpg
It’s ironic in a way. As Capcom released a massive amount of games (increasing supply), the demand for the games suffered drastically. Only once games stopped is when people wanted more Mega Man. While we eventually got an actual, new game in 2018, that being Mega Man 11, it’s tough to ignore the near-decade hiatus fans got.
https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Mega-Man-11_20180921202415.jpg?fit=400%2C225&strip=all
Works Cited
Fletcher, JC. “Capcom Europe: Mega Man Legends 3 Canceled Due to Lack of Devroom Participation.” Engadget, 14 July 2016, www.engadget.com/2011/07/21/capcom-europe-mega-man-legends-3-canceled-due-to-lack-of-devroo/.
“List of Mega Man Video Games.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mega_Man_video_games.
“Why Does Capcom Hate Mega Man?” Destructoid, Destructoid, www.destructoid.com/why-does-capcom-hate-mega-man--251468.phtml.
Luke Lochner
ReplyDeleteBased on this post, the company that produced Mega Man do not seem to know their target audience that well. They create games that seemingly not many people decide to play and then the fans make their own fangames to satisfy their own demand. The company has not been supplying the necessary top notch classic games of Mega Man to the demand of the people. The company should hired some of the people creating those fangames and get them to think of new ideas to help the company’s revenue begin to increase again. Otherwise they may go out of business.
It is strange that when we have an excess of something, we don't really want it, but when there is nothing, we want it really bad. I guess its like the saying "Only don't know what you have until its gone", I like mega man but tons of people love it, and all of the later mega man games are pretty expensive not to mention hard to find. The games that came out in 2004 are worth $30 and up now. Because of the decrease in supply the demand has really gone up for mega man games.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to find out that so many games were produced 3 decades after the opening of the first NES game. Given the economic value of the game, giving way to different high value games following that, the company made an exceptional choice to of creating spin-offs of that original game to give the company more and more money. I appreciate the fact that a chart had been created to display the data of how the profits have increased and changed over the years. It's one thing to say it in words but putting a visual in front of it takes the attention away to the chart. Overall, the post was great and informational in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteWhile I can agree with you to a certain extent that supply and demand affected Mega Man's sales it’s just your explanation that I can’t get around. As you stated in your post that when capcom was releasing multiple Mega Man games in a year they were barely making a million off of them. Meaning that the demand was very low for Mega Man games, but then when they stopped making them the demand for them went up? Now looking at it from that point of view it just seems silly right? Being a consumer why would you not buy the games when multiple were coming out (obviously because all the games literally are the same with a few minor tweaks and graphics each game but we can debate on that later) and then when no games were coming out then you want the games? Especially when no one was buying them because he wasn’t as big anymore and everyone was getting tired of the same thing. So I can’t agree with you because the demand never went back up for the game meaning there were some other economic factor playing here.
ReplyDelete-Noah
It sounds like the issue behind their business model is that they aren't adapting their strategy to offer value for consumers over time. They had a great idea that was massively successful and people had a large demand for that. Since the overall premise didn't significantly change (even if the games are still high quality) their prior games are competing against their new games for the same market. Supply is greater just because the cumulative effect of game production over time. If a game 5 years ago can meet the same demand as now, why would people spend money on the new game?
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting post analyzing an often ignored topic in the industry. I think the unfortunate reality of it is that the demand for Mega Man isn't as strong as it was in the past. While the series clearly has a following, game development isn't cheap, and while Capcom isn't exactly strapped for cash, they don't nearly have the amount of resources Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo or even SEGA do in their coffers to be able to afford a flop.
ReplyDeleteOne has to question the impact of certain shifts in the industry had on the series' long hiatus (especially the rise of 3D platformers and a general decrease in difficulty in the genre) until the recent resurgent of nostalgia based returns to classic style platformers. Surely Capcom saw the cash cow that was Sonic Mania and found a return to the series at least somewhat more commercially viable.
DeleteHey everyone!
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited. My ex-boyfriend is back after few months of breakup, I’m extremely happy that will are living together again. My boyfriend of 4yr just broke up with me and am 30 weeks pregnant. I have cried myself to sleep most of the nights and don’t seem to concentrate during lectures sometimes I stay awake almost all night thinking about him and start to cry all over again. Because of this I end up not having energy for my next day’s classes, my attendance has dropped and am always in uni and on time. Generally he is a very nice guy, he ended it because he said we were arguing a lot and not getting along. He is right we’ve been arguing during the pregnancy a lot .After the break up I kept ringing him and telling him I will change. I am in love with this guy and he is the best guy I have ever been with. I’m still hurt and in disbelief when he said he didn’t have any romantic feelings towards me anymore that hurt me faster than a lethal syringe. He texts me now and then mainly to check up on how am doing with the pregnancy, he is supportive with it but it’s not fair on me, him texting me as I just want to grieve the pain and not have any stress due to the pregnancy.
I was really upset and I needed help, so I searched for help online and I came across a website that suggested that Dr Ahmed can help solve marital problems, restore broken relationships and so on. So, I felt I should give him a try. I contacted him and he told me what to do and I did it then he did a spell for me. 17 hours later, my bf came to me and apologized for the wrongs he did and promise never to do it again. Ever since then, everything has returned back to normal. I and my bf are living together happily again...
All thanks to Dr Ahmed if you have any marital, relationship or divorces problem contact Dr Ahmed now and I guarantee you that he will help you. Here’s his contact.
Call/what’s-app: +2348160153829
Email: Ahmedutimate@gmail.com
This is actually very interesting! They tried to keep pumping out these games, and almost nothing was gained from it. Proportionally, when the supply was getting so high, the demand fell rapidly, as I’m sure it felt like everything they were making was just another remake. It’s surprising though that they did nothing after this pattern of making lots of games and not selling as much was found out, as I’m sure lots of people would buy it if it came out today due to the nostalgia it held.
ReplyDelete