The problems I'm about to discuss via example are all around the videogame industry these days, but the company I'm going to focus on - courtesy of tonight's disappointing announcement - is Capcom.

Last year, I was really, genuinely excited about what Capcom had coming down the pipe. They'd been pretty solid in recent years - bringing us games like Ace Attorney and Dead Rising - and their lineup seemed pretty good. AAI2 and PLvsAA were on the way for us Ace Attorney fans, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D was a great opportunity for Capcom to flesh out the addicting minigame, word was that Monster Hunter would be seeing a bigger presence in the States, and between the AAA Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and the smaller Mega Man Legends 3, Capcom seemed to be treating its longtime fans well. Mega Man fans also had the somewhat more experimental Mega Man Universe to look forward to.

But things went downhill fast. AAI2, as we all know, most likely will never see English release. Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney has been silent on all fronts - collaborative project or no, a little disconcerting when you consider the fates of two of the abovementioned games that had radio silence, which I'll get to in a minute. The Mercenaries 3D turned out to be largely a disappointment - there was barely any new content, and the inability to delete save data was frustrating to players and damaging to the secondhand market. Sales have apparently not met Capcom's expectations. Monster Hunter, meanwhile, seemed to vanish - despite relatively strong sales of Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii, Capcom seemed to have no interest in bringing over newer games. They did, however, see fit to announce an HD remake of MHP3, apparently only for Japan. Marvel vs. Capcom 3, while a great game, had DLC on the disc, locked away to be sold later. Poor form.

And as for the Blue Bomber... he's had a bad year. Mega Man Universe was met with somewhat tepid reaction, and the project, rather than be salvaged, was scrapped entirely to some disappointment. But the real trouble - the one that inspired this post - was the ultimate fate of Mega Man Legends 3. MML3 was the fans' game - the diehard fans of the series had spent over a decade clamoring for it, and its announcement was met with enthusiasm. With the "Devroom", Capcom sought to involve fans even more, promising transparency in the project. This was largely delivered on, including the warnings that the game may not be greenlit. Fans were promised a "Prototype" version whose sales would help determine if the game got the green light or not.

The Prototype never materialized. And suddenly, Capcom pulled the plug on the project for "not meeting certain criteria."

It was a kick in a nuts to the fanbase. Cancelling a beloved game for no real reason is not something that shows much respect for your fanbase, any way you cut it - especially when you consider what is coming out.

Because in the meantime, Capcom's newly-announced and -released titles had a disturbing trend. Street Fighter IV got an additional two expansions, Arcade Edition and Super Street Fighter IV 3D. Word is Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will get the same treatment. Dead Rising 2 is getting a rerelease featuring Frank rather than Chuck. Meanwhile, Devil May Cry will be outsourced to a Western company and has been met with less than enthusiastic responses. Resident Evil likewise is heading west, to become a squad-based shooter.

All of these new releases are designed to make as much money while providing as little financial risk to Capcom as possible. The fighter games and Dead Rising are, rather than whole new titles, old titles with a few new characters thrown in and released at close-to-retail price. DmC is an attempt at drawing in a new fanbase for the series, while Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is a straight-up shooter, rather than the horror or horror-action games the series is known for. They're all "safe" bets. And they're all incredibly boring and in some cases disrespectful to their original series.

This method of running a videogame company is stifling to innovation and disrespectful to fans. While no official word has ever come out, people tend to claim that Capcom has very high sales expectations for its titles - already people are speculating the low sales of Mercenaries 3D, one of Capcom's biggest series, were what scared Capcom to pull the plug on Legends 3. It's a vicious strategy, and unfortunately an effective one. You won't lose many fans re-releasing a beloved game, and if you can get a piece of the Call of Duty pie, you're well on your way to a very nice bottom line. But as a result, smaller games - and their fanbases - get thrown away. There are exceptions - Ghost Trick came out in January to positive reviews but I can't imagine any sort of good sales - but this is largely the strategy Capcom seems keen on taking now. And it's distressingly common among the industry as a whole, and really makes companies seem like they couldn't care less about their fans.

I have a few words I'd like to say. And a lot of them are profane.

So here we go.

First, let me get this out of the way.

Fuck you, Capcom. In my book if someone tells you to fuck off, you be the better man and don't return the favor. They do it again and again, you're within your rights to volley back. So right back at you Capcom, fuck off.

I am honestly astounded at the 180 you have done in the past nine months. It's incredible. Back in October, I thought you had it all covered. A new Ace Attorney game. A collaboration with Level-5. Marvel vs. Capcom, a series I never had much interest in but knew many people loved, was getting a big-budget new entry. Resident Evil's Mercenaries was getting a standalone game, a chance to really flesh it out and have some fun. The buzz was that Monster Hunter 3 Portable was on its way to the states. You'd even announced Mega Man Legends 3, complete with total transparency to the fans.

Let's check in on those projects, shall we?

-We all know the state of Ace Attorney Investigations 2. Chris Svensson says he'd like to get it brought over somehow, but I doubt he'll have much luck.
-We've heard neither hide nor hair of Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney since its announcement. There's two scenarios here: if you're involved in the development, why haven't you mentioned anything about it? AA's got its tenth anniversary soon. Let the fans see a bit like AAI2 - you're not known for a good track record when it comes to keeping games quiet these days. And if you're not involved and it's all Level-5's perogative, then I'd like to congratulate you on farming out another one of your beloved franchises. Oh, don't get me wrong, Level-5's great, but I remember you saying "Phoenix Wright is something handled very delicately in Capcom." Delicate enough to punt over to another company, I guess. (Okay, turns out that at least circa January it was considered a co-development. Still, guys, a little more word on the project would be reassuring, given how MML3 and MMU turned out.)
-Marvel vs. Capcom 3. As I said, I'm not a guy who played this series. And nobody can deny that you certainly hit the fanservice mark. It's just too bad you don't have things like spectator mode, from what I've heard. And on-disc, day one DLC? Poor form.
-The Mercenaries 3D was a joke. One new character, no new stages, no new weapons, a short campaign, and no option to delete save data - which rather coincidentally sinks used value for the game. People who want to set their own high scores have to buy a new copy. Funny coincidence, that.
-Monster Hunter apparently isn't good enough for the West. Who says that? Oh, right, you guys do. Not the best-selling MH3 for Wii, you guys. You know what else you guys said? That America doesn't care about Mega Man. You sure know your fans well, Capcom.
-Well enough to cancel Legends 3 without a speck of explanation besides a vague statement that it didn't meet certain goals. Very nice, very transparent. A totally suiting end for a game whose development was based around fan input. What the fuck were you thinking? Of all the games to cancel without reason, don't cancel the fucking fan outreach one like that! Jesus Christ, if you thought the game was bad or something like that, tell us that! If you thought it wouldn't sell enough, tell us that! If you thought it wouldn't sell enough because Mercenaries 3D didn't, get your head out of your ass, and then tell us that.

And in the meantime you've handed over Devil May Cry and Resident Evil to western developers in the hopes of grabbing a bit of the Activision pie. Bravo, guys, bravo. Boy, I can't wait for Left 4 Dead: Raccoon City edition. Or that new Marvel vs. Capcom 3! I hear it'll have six new characters at least. It's a shame YouTube exists, or I might actually have a reason to be interested if Phoenix really does make it in.

And the sad part about all this? You could see it coming. The games industry today is goddamned brutal for big companies. I almost (but still can) can't blame Capcom for some of the decisions they've made. The cost of making a AAA game today is big - but the returns have been bigger. Have you seen how much Call of Duty makes each year? Capcom has. Bioware has. Everyone has. And now the big companies are saying "why bother with the little projects when the big or derivative ones can make us money instead?"

But you know what the worst of it is? It's not bad business practice. Not in the least. DLC is a gold mine. Games like the Mercenaries 3D or Super Street Fighter 3D are cheap to make and have good profit potential (just be careful not to make it too obvious you put no effort into it - missed the mark a bit with Mercs 3D, my friends!) And small titles are more affected by piracy than larger ones (AAI1 had 90k downloads at one big rom site alone before they stopped allowing DS downloads several months ago. The game itself sold at most 80k if Chris Svensson is to be believed.)

But just once. Just once, Capcom, or Bioware, or any big company out there - just once, don't be so goddamned corporate. Have a little soul. Win a little fan goodwill. Megaman Legends had fans crying for a new game for an entire decade without rest. Do you really think your average Call of Duty fan really would care that much if they stopped coming out?

I realize I've got "entitled fan" written all over this rant, I realize that there's probably dozens of examples of cutthroat videogame business practices from past decades but right now I'm frustrated with Capcom, and right now I'm saying Capcom, you're everything wrong with the videogame industry today.

I need a different hobby.