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Clover Vets Open SEEDS, Capcom Clears The Air

Posted by Zonk on from the planting-the-stuff-to-grow-a-new-company dept.

Last week, the designers who used to head Capcom's Clover Studios (makers of Viewtiful Joe, Okami, and God Hand) announced that they were forming a new studio named SEEDS. Clover principles Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya, and Shinji Mikami are looking to make some 'preposterously amazing' games. People upset by Clover's closing, though, should know that most of the studio is back inside Capcom. In a Gamasutra article with Capcom Vice President of Marketing Charles Bellfield, he makes it a point to say: "Capcom, unlike most other developers, doesn't have dedicated strict boundaries between each of its development teams. We actually have one pool of development talent at Capcom and those individuals are basically assigned based on the timescales of each product we're working on ... the rest of the Clover team was just incorporated back into the rest of Capcom's development talent pool. So in fact, while three individuals left, Clover Studios as a separate entity was merged back into the rest of the Capcom teams and today, still, the talent we had, with the exception of three people, is still remaining at Capcom."

27 comments

  1. Should horticulturalists not open seeds? by Timesprout · · Score: 2, Funny

    And let the vets get on with neutering pets?

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    1. Re:Should horticulturalists not open seeds? by captain_cthulhu · · Score: 1

      hahaha, like little viewtiful squirrels preparing for a long winter...

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  2. It's too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It looks like Capcom had been really trying to impress those developers, or else they wouldn't have held it in for so long and would have 'cleared the air' while the developers were still around.

  3. SEEDs again? by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 1

    Don't we have enough damn seed based names? Not to mention this is way too close to Gundam SEED to be ignored.

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    1. Re:SEEDs again? by jrwr00 · · Score: 1

      or in Trigun, the SEEDS Project

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    2. Re:SEEDs again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Face it, seeds will always be superior to easily sabotaged feeds.

    3. Re:SEEDs again? by mjhacker · · Score: 1

      Better yet, SEED cadets in Final Fantasy VIII...

    4. Re:SEEDs again? by NonSequor · · Score: 1

      I think you mean Ploject Seeds.

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  4. Doesn't let Capcom off the hook by Matchstick · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's shortsighted to view a successful team as solely a collection of "human resources" to be broken up and spread around among projects. Smoothly functioning teams don't appear by magic when you throw a bunch of resources together; it takes time, and sometimes they don't appear at all.

    1. Re:Doesn't let Capcom off the hook by Taulin · · Score: 1

      But that is how most Japanese companies work. When you interview for a job, you don't interview for a position, but rather for the company. In every major company (Canon, Fuji, Nissan, etc), this holds true, and you may be an accountant one year, and doing programming the next.

    2. Re:Doesn't let Capcom off the hook by MeanderingMind · · Score: 1

      Regardless, the criticism holds.

      You can argue that breaking up Clover was not bad, as many of its recent games were not received as well as they might have been. However, there is room to be skeptical about the practice in general.

      The perception is, and is sometimes true, that teams with great synergy are broken up and divided amongst other groups by the callous processes of HR. Whether or not this is standard practice is not the issue, whether or not this is good practice is.

      There's nothing wrong with the Japanese model of signing up with the company rather than for a position. However, there is something wrong with the unjustified cannibalization of programming teams.

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    3. Re:Doesn't let Capcom off the hook by Taulin · · Score: 1

      I totally agree. I only tell people about this just to see the culture shock they go through. Even at my 'day job' we are working with a major Japanese client, and they found our non-component approach interesting. The people they sent over here to work with us were never part of the components they came over to support. Totally ridiculous. Between this, and having worked over there several years doing contract work, it amazes me that they are able to make what they do. They are good, smart people, and I hate seeing them treated as a lesser meat, but that is why they are termed 'penguins'. I could go on, but I am getting off topic enough as it is.

    4. Re:Doesn't let Capcom off the hook by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      It's not just Japanese companies that miss the big picture regarding group dynamics.

      At a multi-studio game company I worked for a few years ago, I was part of a successful new studio that got broken up in part because they wanted to redistribute our personnel. Ironically, we ended up being victims of our own success. The management got it into their head that they could improve the overall quality of the other studios by breaking up our groups and redistributing it throughout the company.

      Still, it wasn't all bad, as this helped motivate me to find a new job at a much better company.

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  5. Re:Nintendo never at fault! by Spazntwich · · Score: 1

    Well, yeah, if there's one way to get downmodded, it's trash talking Nintendo in articles that have nothing to do with Nintendo.

  6. Re:Nintendo never at fault! by HappySqurriel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I make factual comments about the stupid Wii and my karma gets bumped down to terrible. WTF! The system is a pathetic excuse for a game console. All the games suck that are out for it. If you took away the crappy tacked on controls they would barely score over a 40/100. If any of those games were on any other systems they would get shot down. "Don't you dare talk about nintendo in a bad way or you will go to hell!" -quote from idiotic nintendo fans.


    Please note, your opinion does not count as fact so the statements you're making are not factual comments ... Had you said "In my opinion, the system is a pathetic excuse for a game console." people probably would have been a little bit nicer to you ...

    The only thing I can say that is really fact is that there are lots of people who would disagree with you because the Wii is exactly what they are looking for in a game console; many people are not looking for uber-realism and are just looking for an fun way to spend some time.
  7. Re:Nintendo never at fault! by revlayle · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    OMG

    Don't you dare talk about nintendo in a bad way or you will go to hell!

  8. I played a great Capcom game last night... by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    I played a great Capcom game last night...Ghost and Goblins for the NES8 on an emulator. I remember when these guys were like the #2 or #3 game provider for the NES8 in the 1980s - anyone know how are they doing today?

    1. Re:I played a great Capcom game last night... by MeanderingMind · · Score: 1

      All I know is that after Mega Man X, I stopped playing Mega Man games. X was awesome, but something about the sequels lost me. Legends was interesting but ultimately came down to endlessly strafing every boss and enemy in the game. I honestly can't say anything about the handheld games.

      Call me old fashioned, but I really just want an old style Mega Man game with 8 Robot masters.

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    2. Re:I played a great Capcom game last night... by jfodale · · Score: 1

      How about Bionic Commando? I don't own a Wii, and currently have no plans to, but if there were to be a Bionic Commando game on the Wii... good lord, the sheer awesomeness would be astounding.

      --
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  9. Summary Grammar Alert by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Clover principles Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya, and Shinji Mikami

    Clover principals. This is one of the trickier homonyms in the English language because their meanings are so very similar. Principle can mean primary so it does seem like it makes sense to use it here. However, principal is the word we're looking for here: "a chief or head."[1]

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    [1] "principal." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 20 Feb. 2007. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/principal>.

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    1. Re:Summary Grammar Alert by minus_273 · · Score: 1

      I heard the Atsushi Inaba principle is a corner stone of capcom development.

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  10. You know what they say about horticulture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

    Posting anonymously because, well, would you want your name associated with this joke?

  11. Incorrect summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While the article summary states that Mikami, Kamiya, and Inaba were key players of Clover, only one of the three actually was a part of the Clover team: Inaba. Mikami and Kamiya were two of the biggest players of Production Studio 4, a much larger and more prolific development studio within Capcom.

  12. it's an adjective phrase... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    It's also common in English to shorten an adjective phrase to contain only its adjective, at least in informal use. This is especially true for a common or well-understood adjective phrase such as "principle players" or "principle members".

    You are correct to state that "principal" and "principle" are difficult homonyms, but you have misidentified this particular situation as an example of homonym substitution. More likely the writer was merely truncating the adjective phrase.

  13. Team dissolved by AceJohnny · · Score: 1

    I believe there is magic in a good team: synergy. This means that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

    I regularly see examples of small teams of 5 people outperforming the 40-person team (of course, communication overhead grows very quickly).

    Anyhow, with that in mind, Capcom's declaration does not reassure me at all. You can't just "assign" someone to a project and expect to see that project get the same boost as the assignee's previous.

    They've kept most of the people, but they've very probably destroyed the magic.

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