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News: Cing Files For Bankruptcy

Posted by Aaron Clegg - Mar 7th 2010 19:21

Acclaimed developer of Hotel Dusk and Another Code files for bankruptcy...

It pains us to bring you news that Japanese developer Cing has filed for bankruptcy with liabilities of around $2.5 million.

The company has developed a number of well-received games for Nintendo platforms, including the Hotel Dusk and Another Code franchises, as well as collaborating on cult Wii-hit Little King's Story. Cing's portfolio with mainly the Wii and DS scene has called for probably-a-little-too-optimistic hopes for Nintendo to purchase the company.

We fervently hope Cing will be back on its feet developing great titles in the near future.

Source: NeoGAF

[More on Little King's Story]

Mcj metroid Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 13:46 \|\| Total Comments: 19

...this upsets me

VaatiKaiba Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 13:49 \|\| Total Comments: 275

This one needs to be rescued. I adored Another Code, and what I played of Hotel Dusk was really good. This is terrible!

...Would this impact on the release of The Last Window (I think that's what it's called - Hotel Dusk 2) over here?

Sumo73 Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 14:43 \|\| Total Comments: 359

I've been a fan of Cing for a while now since Glass Rose for the PS2 so this is sad news.

I guess the release of Hotel Dusk 2 : Last Window MP may never come out now in Europe. I wonder if 'Again' will be ever be released here either?

Nintendo-master2 Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 14:50 \|\| Total Comments: 1533

How crappy!!
They have made some of my favorite games. Hotel Dusk is definitely my favorite ds game and another code on wii was amazing also.

I hope they manage to stay afloat and hopefully this wont affect Hotel Dusk 2!
:)

Darkflame Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 15:42 \|\| Total Comments: 1073

I would guess any games already finished would be an asset in the sale of the company. It would be daft not to release it.

I loved Another Code, I just wish the Wii one was a bit better written. (by which I dont have a problem story-wise as such, but rather dialogue was very long and frequently redundant).

Still, a real shame.

Hellfire Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 17:14 \|\| Total Comments: 822

Man this sucks, these guys were immensely talented. Please relase Last Window in the West Nintendo! For them(and us)!

Nathan Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 17:46 \|\| Total Comments: 1138

Nintendo could and should bail them out after the Another Codes and Hotel Dusk. Don't let their talent go to waste.

Tealovertoma Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 18:20 \|\| Total Comments: 426

What, no one even mentioning Little King's Story? Did you all miss out on that little gem? No wonder they're bankrupt...

LaiceAterna Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 02:23 \|\| Total Comments: 33

Maybe that's the rewardfor producing a console point and click adventure without voice acting. Even LucasArts games from 15 years ago had voice! Even small budget games like Secret Files from little companies have voice! Don't get me wrong, I adore both the AC and the Hotel Dusk series, but come on! Nobody I know actually said "Hey, that's no prob, I prefer reading text on my TV anyway".

Azmol01 Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 04:25 \|\| Total Comments: 921

Yeah Little Kings story was brilliant, really sad for these guys hopefully Nintendo will get the cheque book out.

Auntnadia Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 05:54 \|\| Total Comments: 854

Laice: i don't think it's got a lot to do with lack of voice acting!!

we've seen a lot of this over the past couple of years. studios don't tend to be managed by people with business skills. they have more ambition than their purses can cater for and end up taking huge gambles on one or two games developed on borrowed money.

i can't see why the smaller devs aren't making the most of wiiware. the development times are significantly less and distribution isn't a problem, plus the money they make would help keep the company afloat to give them more time to finish their flagship games.

little kings story for instance could have been built for wiiware (possibly even in episodes or level add ons) and i believe it would have been much better off for it. instead it got a very low key release and few people bought it.

LaiceAterna Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 06:33 \|\| Total Comments: 33

You're absolutely right, however, it's not that this small independent developer produced this game all alone, they got supported by Nintendo themselves. There should be enough money and manpower to produce a game that does not miss out on standards such as voice over, yet it does. I strongly think Nintendo is to blame here...

No US release, lack of marketing, no voice acting - all these problems are based on Nintendo's decisions, not on Cing's.

Auntnadia Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 07:46 \|\| Total Comments: 854

zelda doesn't have voice acting and it seems to do pretty well.

i think it's the assumption that these things should be a standard that holds back the progress.

Hellfire Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 09:07 \|\| Total Comments: 822

LKS was only co-developed by Cing people don't forget.
I really don't know why bring voice acting up, it's such a non-issue, specially as far as sale goes. Saying it's a Nintendo decision is also incredibly speculative. And of course, it would ramp up costs.

Wii Ware doesn't magically solve everything, for starters the size limit is still there, even if they split games episodically it might not be possible, not to mention the structure of the game needs to be changed. Asides from that, it's also a relatively small market, since the connection rate reportedly isn't that great, so chances are it would do even worse.

Sales for Hotel Dusk and Another Code were damn good for them, but asides from that they've been failing sales-wise (btw Another Code R had good marketing considering the genre and target audience), they're not very financially viable to warrant a Nintendo bail-out and since it has a very low output and it's not a very "complete" team (as opposed to Monolith), it's just not probable it'll happen, unfortunately of course.

Nintendo already funded (of course I don't know how big was this funding) and published 4 of their games, let's not forget that. Small developers always had a hard time, now it's even harder. It sucks, but it's how it is.

Kurtle Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 11:17 \|\| Total Comments: 363

Bugger

LaiceAterna Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 11:27 \|\| Total Comments: 33

Yes, but Zelda is maybe 80% gameplay and 20% story, so it is forgivable. Nobody plays zelda because of it's epic story, although it's nice that they put more emphasis on it these days.

And yes, I stand by my opinion that voice acting should be standard by now, at least for story-heavy games. To once again mention Secret Files: I'm pretty sure its developer's had a significantly smaller budget than Cing and cater to a much smaller audience - yet it had voice, and even several languages.

I am absolutely sure that a lot of customers, especially those who are "casual adventure gamers" and usually only play games like this on their PCs, were extremely disappointed with the lack of voice. It really isn't that hard to get a few people together and record a few pages of text these days.

Saying voice acting is a non-issue for games like this is like saying a correct translations a non-issue for RPGs. Maybe some people don't care, but most do.

Hellfire Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 14:06 \|\| Total Comments: 822

In text intensive games, if it has voice eventually I end up skipping it because I can't wait for them finish reading every damn sentence honestly. Not to mention that most of the time VA is pretty bad.
Bad translations have absolutely nothing to do with voice acting.

Nathan Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 15:16 \|\| Total Comments: 1138

@Tealovertoma

Of course not, but that was a joint effort between several teams.

Sariachan Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 19:55 \|\| Total Comments: 375

I don't usually like voice acting in games... especially during gameplay moments.

LaiceAterna Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 02:01 \|\| Total Comments: 33

@Hellfire: Concerning translations: I forgot to mention, but what I meant were translation to other languages than english. Take, for example, Chrono Trigger DS or Ace Attorney Investigations. Both games are available in english only, even here in Germany. I WOULD be able to play them, and some people might even say that the english script is better than the german could have been, but still a complete translation is standard, and games like there stand out of the rest. In a negative way.

@Sariachan: I don't like it during gameplay too. I had quite a hard time following the story in RE Darkside Chronicles, cause they were talking all the time I tried to shoot some zombies. But take NSMW or Mario Galaxy: If there is a well done movie scene, and there charcters are talking to each other, and their lips are moving, and you hear NOTHING, just read a line or two... sorry, I just think that's stupid.

CSP Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 18:11 \|\| Total Comments: 536

ok their games on the DS and Wii did not sell that badly (and hardly lower than estimated) so I would like to know what on earth happened.

LKS is one of the Wii's best games and I had a completely different opinion about the game after playing for only 2 hours. Even though it sounds like a one off deal, there is a lot of room for it to grow and I believe collaboration or not, Cing has to be around for such a thing to happen. So let me tell you that LKS blasts pikmin to pieces and costs only 10-15 Eu on major online retailers, GET SHOPPING PEOPLE

oh btw, another code R was an embarrassment so if you can avoid this one, you won't regret it.

"has called for probably-a-little-too-optimistic hopes for Nintendo to purchase the company."

Can someone tell me what Nintendo are buying these days? Their last buyout was Monolith and that hasn't paid off as well as people expected. Spending money to clear a company off debt, highly unlikely although I really hope they do something about Cing.

D_prOdigy Says:
March 10th, 2010 at 03:12 \|\| Total Comments: 1674

Let's just see how Xenoblade turns out before judging how smart the move to buy Monolith was.

CSP Says:
March 10th, 2010 at 06:56 \|\| Total Comments: 536

I am sorry, they made disaster which is just AWFUL as it tried to do too much and it failed on every single game type (and shooting is on rails? WHY?) they released Xenosaga 1-2 for the DS but that stated in Japan and Xenoblade looks good but I could hardly call this the next Xenosaga and btw

"It has also been stated that it will convey the feeling of freedom to the player, and won't be as focused on cutscenes and story as its sibling games"

So a turn based action game? You can see why I have not wet my pants just yet.

Auntnadia Says:
March 10th, 2010 at 08:51 \|\| Total Comments: 854

disaster wasn't awful!! it was no masterpiece, but i found it enjoyable for what it was. parts of it reminded me of operation winback, which i loved.

Darkflame Says:
March 10th, 2010 at 09:19 \|\| Total Comments: 1073

For some reason things either have to be brillent or awful, games that are merely pretty-good or pretty-ok, get sent to one of the extreams in peoples minds.
--
" Nobody I know actually said "Hey, that's no prob, I prefer reading text on my TV anyway"."

I do actually, frequently.
The problem is (imho) many people read a hell of a lot faster then listening. So you have already read the characters text before they are even halfway said it.

Voiceovers work great if its a narration...Sands Of Time style...because it dosnt slow down the gameplay.
But mostly I think text works better, or used only in short cutscenes.

Darkflame Says:
March 10th, 2010 at 09:20 \|\| Total Comments: 1073

"oh btw, another code R was an embarrassment so if you can avoid this one, you won't regret it."

Far too much text, but come on, the puzzles were ok, and graphically its one of the Wii's nicest looking games.
Hardly an embarrassment, more of just a let-down.

CSP Says:
March 11th, 2010 at 03:43 \|\| Total Comments: 536

sorry but I played through the entire game and there were only 2-3 instances I could probably call puzzles although they were not challenging at all. In a world where I have to spend over 1H on certain levels of Zack and Wiki, Another Code R is barely a game that falls under that same category, it's more of "listen to useless conversations, move around a few items and place them to painfully obvious places in order to proceed"

Sam & Max is harder, Zack and Wiki is harder, heck even phantasmagoria is harder (and that was an easy game). As for the story, it's like watching a soap opera for chapters 1-4, something I found particularly boring.

As for Disaster, ok no I do not regret buying, but I believe this game cold have been so much better if it was polished more. I am annoyed to the kind of game it would have been were not for obscure choices on gameplay. I also find it too hard to sit down and finish this even though I know it's not a long or a hard game.

Klausness Says:
March 30th, 2010 at 20:16 \|\| Total Comments: 1

Seriously i dont see the point of where they would cancel the 2 other release of games for the western fan countries because of the financial crisis on Cing. Even though Cing has been bankrupt in japan, Nintendo should at least, i repeat AT LEAST!, release the remaining games to the western audience. The fact that i patiently waited 4 months for AGAIN to be released in Australia and unfortunately due to this news, its not gonna happen and its unfair for North Americans to get a hold on this game where else the European and Australian fanbase is gonna miss out the opportunity of playing the game (Also to mentioned, especially Last Window: Midnight Promise, probably going to be a "Japanese-exclusive game"). I absolutely wasted my precious time of waiting and now im devastated.
Despite about this circumstances, i wondering the games is still on prints in Japan? or the games is going to be "limited time only"?