Heroes' Success's Impact on Main Series Development

[Landjager]

As of December 2017, Heroes has grossed over 240 million USD. To call it anything other than successful would be a huge disservice to the game. Do you think this success has impacted the development of the main series games at all? I'm interested to see if there is a split in opinion here.

Source: https://sensortower.com/blog/animal-crossing-pocket-camp-launch-revenue

[omegaxis1]

I don't think that Heroes will slow the main series. Rather, I think Heroes is a way to keep FE players active, aware of the series itself, and thus when the new games are out, they can market them off as well into Heroes. Heroes is pure fanservice.

And fanservice works best when they have the other series to market off of. 

[TheGoodHoms]

If Heroes became the main focus of the Fire Emblem series it wouldn't be that way for long. If main releases slowed for the benefit of Heroes I think the fans would boycott the game until Nintendo puts more focus back on the games they really want. At least that's how I see it.

Heroes is more like a casual's gateway into the rest of the series anyway.

[De Geso]

I'm a little worried about Heroes cannibalizing main series FE games' place in the market, myself. There's a good chance people will ignore new games in favor of playing Heroes alone - the same sort of people who only play Fire Emblem because it's the cool new thing to like rather than because they actually enjoy the series for what it is.

That said, I don't think IS and Nintendo are going to divert development attention away from the main Fire Emblem series for a while yet, if ever. I'm hoping that they'll use Heroes as their revenue machine to fund the main series, but that's just wishful thinking.

[omegaxis1]

1 minute ago, YouSquiddinMe said:

That said, I don't think IS and Nintendo are going to divert development attention away from the main Fire Emblem series for a while yet, if ever. I'm hoping that they'll use Heroes as their revenue machine to fund the main series, but that's just wishful thinking.

We have to remember that the main series is what keeps Heroes running essentially. They need to keep developing man series games so that Heroes can keep on going. They need people to stay interested at all times so they can profit off of Heroes. 

[Strullemia]

After reading OP's post I was going to say the same thing @omegaxis1 said.

Even IF they care more about Heroes right now I'm sure IS realizes that in order to keep things fresh they'll have to keep making mainline games to introduce new units and all of that fun stuff.

So in a way Heroes can be a good thing for the FE series. (assuming they don't take the wrong lessons from Heroes and apply it to mainline games)

[Landjager]

10 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

We have to remember that the main series is what keeps Heroes running essentially. They need to keep developing man series games so that Heroes can keep on going. They need people to stay interested at all times so they can profit off of Heroes. 

This is why I think Nintendo/IS will continue to develop both at a fair proportion.

To play devil's advocate, however,  I will say this. One of Heroes' original characters recently placed in the top 10 of nearly all characters in the series in a poll by Nintendo. This character is not even playable. In addition, nearly all the original characters placed in the top 100. While the poll was geared towards Heroes players, these results would suggest Heroes actually might not need the main series to keep feeding it new material. Don't forget, there is a portion of Heroes' paying customer base that has never played a Fire Emblem game and only plays Heroes because it is a fun mobile game. Also, slowing down development is not the same as ending development. When IS has something like Heroes to lean back on in between releases, they may be more inclined to take their time developing a new game. Fates released 2015. SOV was 2017. Switch is slated for 2018. That is a pretty ambitious development cycle. IS may just want to start slowing down instead of rushing into things. Just some food for thought.

[omegaxis1]

11 minutes ago, Ressueah said:

This is why I think Nintendo/IS will continue to develop both at a fair proportion.

To play devil's advocate, however,  I will say this. One of Heroes' original characters recently placed in the top 10 of nearly all characters in the series in a poll by Nintendo. This character is not even playable. In addition, nearly all the original characters placed in the top 100. While the poll was geared towards Heroes players, these results would suggest Heroes actually might not need the main series to keep feeding it new material. Don't forget, there is a portion of Heroes' paying customer base that has never played a Fire Emblem game and only plays Heroes because it is a fun mobile game. Also, slowing down development is not the same as ending development. When IS has something like Heroes to lean back on in between releases, they may be more inclined to take their time developing a new game. Fates released 2015. SOV was 2017. Switch is slated for 2018. That is a pretty ambitious development cycle. IS may just want to start slowing down instead of rushing into things. Just some food for thought.

Yes, but even so, how often have we had chapter updates in Heroes? Heroes needs to be constantly updated to keep people interested. And most of the main heroes have no been brought in. They could either choose to keep bringing in new Heroes, but they will need more. Its not something that can exist infinitely unless FE mainstream can exist continuously. 

[Will Bill]

I’m assuming Nintendo/IS probably has two different teams, one for the main series (FE Switch), and one working on Heroes, like the Zelda team has one working on console releases while the other focuses on handheld.

Edited February 14, 2018 by Will Bill

[Anacybele]

Nintendo themselves said FE is a major IP for them now, so the second option is the only one that's accurate here.

I hope that Reinhardt's crazy skyrocket in popularity will encourage IS to remake FE4 and FE5. He only appears in FE5, but you can't really have FE5 without FE4.

[omegaxis1]

Just now, Anacybele said:

I hope that Reinhardt's crazy skyrocket in popularity will encourage IS to remake FE4 and FE5. He only appears in FE5, but you can't really have FE5 without FE4.

Depends on how much loyalty they might push, cause I'm just gonna say that I do NOT look forward to FE4's tedious gameplay.

[Anacybele]

Just now, omegaxis1 said:

Depends on how much loyalty they might push, cause I'm just gonna say that I do NOT look forward to FE4's tedious gameplay.

Remember, this would be a remake, so things like that could be improved.

[Watchman]

I didn't play SoV, but wasn't it so loyal to original that it felt outdated in certain aspects such as map design? Unless the game lets up to temporarily mount foot units on horse while navigating the map, some people aren't going to be thrilled going through those huge maps again.

[omegaxis1]

6 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Remember, this would be a remake, so things like that could be improved.

 

1 minute ago, Watchman said:

I didn't play SoV, but wasn't it so loyal to original that it felt outdated in certain aspects such as map design? Unless the game lets up to temporarily mount foot units on horse while navigating the map, some people aren't going to be thrilled going through those huge maps again.

Let's hope that Echoes had the critics explain that sometimes being too loyal is a flaw. So for FE4, they need to basically build the entire game from the ground up, as the maps they have only work because its so many combined together. So to separate the long ones, they need to add new things into those maps.

[Anacybele]

5 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Let's hope that Echoes had the critics explain that sometimes being too loyal is a flaw. So for FE4, they need to basically build the entire game from the ground up, as the maps they have only work because its so many combined together. So to separate the long ones, they need to add new things into those maps.

Yeah, I do feel IS has been a little too loyal with their remakes, so I agree, kinda.

[Strullemia]

3 minutes ago, Watchman said:

I didn't play SoV, but wasn't it so loyal to original that it felt outdated in certain aspects such as map design? Unless the game lets up to temporarily mount foot units on horse while navigating the map, some people aren't going to be thrilled going through those huge maps again.

Eh, I'd say that the big maps weren't necessarily the problem but the amount of things to do in the maps is the problem. If the remake has the same maps but gives us more side events to do and enemies to handle at the right places I think that would improve a lot.

[Thinks Their Own Way]

You need more mainline games to give Heroes more characters and content (you can't have one with out the other). I think IS needs to do better at differentiating the two (maybe it's because playing the GBA games on my phone and casual mode for the recent games conditioned me to think like that); I'm going to talk about my personal experience. Heroes does a really good job at capturing the FE feeling for me, I admit that I've had more fun with Heroes than I've had with Echoes (first mainline game to be released after Heroes). I was wondering if others feel that way about Heroes, why would they pay Nintendo Switch pricing (I live in Canada, just the system is $400 + $80 for a brand new game) for something they can play on their phone for "free", with some of the same characters.

[omegaxis1]

So overall, Heroes and Mainstream Fire Emblem have a sort of symbiotic relationship. Heroes allows more players to remain interested in Fire Emblem and brings in some newcomers too. And the mainstream allows new content to be added into Heroes. They support one another. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I hope that Heroes' success lets them foot the bill for projects that aren't so lucrative, such as those remakes we want so much. Or modes that might seem more trouble then they're worth like being able to create and share maps online. And the clear interest for legacy characters as shown in Heroes' polls is probably communicating to Nintendo/IS that people want to know more about the older games, and that they ought to be made available. If not through remakes, then through Virtual Console.

But really I don't know what they're thinking at this point. When they were making Heroes, did they know it would be such a success? Did they know that the Switch would be such a success? Whatever gameplan they had for the series at the start of 2017, I have no doubt the plans have changed in the year since.

[Ivy Wife Supremacy]

Absolutely NOT Heroes as cool as the app game is its nothing if there's no new games to keep it fresh and still keeping the servers up. Seasonals/Alt variations can get you so far until it grows stale. I'm pretty sure Heroes has 1 team while the core main team/s are always working on the main games. Heroes obviously needs the games definitely more than the games need it. 

 

[ElectiveToast]

From a business standpoint, it does not seem out of probability that when a "gacha" game makes many times the amount of money that a standard game can make, there's no rush to to pour tons of time and money into a big project for a standard game. 

[Florete]

5 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

We have to remember that the main series is what keeps Heroes running essentially. They need to keep developing man series games so that Heroes can keep on going. They need people to stay interested at all times so they can profit off of Heroes. 

That. I think there will be an additional positive effect from Heroes for the international market, though. New main games are unlikely to come out far apart from each other since they'll want to do collaborations with Heroes. If we have to wait 8 months after the Japanese release to get the new game, we won't be very inclined to spend money on the new characters in Heroes.

[Anacybele]

2 hours ago, ElectiveToast said:

From a business standpoint, it does not seem out of probability that when a "gacha" game makes many times the amount of money that a standard game can make, there's no rush to to pour tons of time and money into a big project for a standard game. 

Thing is, a person only buys a main game once on average while they can spend as many times as they want on a gacha game. So it's not a fair comparison.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Anacybele

[ElectiveToast]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

Thing is, a person only buys a main game once on average while they can spend as many times as they want on a gacha game. So it's not a fair comparison.

That's my point though. Why spend tons of money on a big project that people will only buy once, instead of a mobile gacha game that basically prints money? Nintendo realizes they have to do the game at some point, but it's likely not a high priority since it doesn't have the potential to keep the franchise making money like Heroes. 

[Anacybele]

22 minutes ago, ElectiveToast said:

That's my point though. Why spend tons of money on a big project that people will only buy once, instead of a mobile gacha game that basically prints money? Nintendo realizes they have to do the game at some point, but it's likely not a high priority since it doesn't have the potential to keep the franchise making money like Heroes. 

I disagree. Like people said, Heroes can't really run without the main series since without new games, they'd eventually run out of characters to add. They'd just have to make a ton of OCs. We would no longer see characters already from other FE games.