What happens if the C&D dissapears?

[palmertech]

I know I am new here, but I have been luring for a long time.

I was just curious:  Faustwolf and co. do not want to fight this, which I understand.  But, I have two hypthetical scenarios:

1.  The almost complete beta is leaked, and the leaker is untraceable.

2.  The almost complete beta is leaked, and it turns out to be one of the team members.

3.  SE calls you up and retracts the C&D, then tells you they want to buy the rights to the game from you.

The first two imply the existence of the patch, and the third could go either way.  If they suddenly decided they want the game, what would you do?  Supposedly, all the copies are gone, and it would seem that if you keep saying that, SE will never even consider buying rights to the game, as you are supposed to have deleted it.

The first two I was just curious what action would be taken by the leaders of this site, and speculation on what SE would do.

Finally, one more question: I read someone saying that the japanese branch of SE pressured the american dept. into the C&D, is there a source for this?

Finally, a not-question: I am going to Anime Expo 2009 as media for a large tech news site, and SE will have a booth there.  In the past, a lot of the higher ups go as well to make announcements, most of which have already been made, but with these tailored to the anime crowd, or simply showing off already announced titles.  I think I can wrangle an interview, do any of the heads here have anything I should ask in particular?

Thanks, and I hope this is in the right section!

[Schala Zeal]

A noble statement Palmer, but SE treads on their fans and leaves only misery behind.

[FaustWolf]

Faustwolf and co. do not want to fight this

Eheheheh. I'm just a little fish, thankfully not important enough to be named in the C&D. It's all up to Agent 12, ZeaLitY and Chrono'99.

I think I can wrangle an interview, do any of the heads here have anything I should ask in particular?

Sounds like an opportunity to me. See what the core CE team (those mentioned above) think. Other than whether the interviewee(s) are aware of the cease and desist order given to Crimson Echoes, I'd be interested in a clarification of Shinji Hashimoto's recent comments as presented here. If CT:DS sales hold as they are now, is Square Enix declaring the Chrono franchise unprofitable, as Hashimoto seemed to have done?

[Romana]

A noble statement Palmer, but SE treads on their fans and leaves only misery behind.

Okay, go spread negativity elsewhere, you were already told about this, you're not helping.

palmertech, nice entrance, if you need to catch up with any of the details check out the news page.

If you can really make an interview then it'd be worth asking if said SE folks are aware of the Crimson Echoes C&D and what they think on it considering it's caused a lot of confusion in the fanbase as to whether it was right or wrong.

Agent 12 might have some input on this.

[palmertech]

Faustwolf and co. do not want to fight this

Eheheheh. I'm just a little fish, thankfully not important enough to be named in the C&D. It's all up to Agent 12, ZeaLitY and Chrono'99.

I think I can wrangle an interview, do any of the heads here have anything I should ask in particular?

Sounds like an opportunity to me. See what the core CE team (those mentioned above) think. Other than whether the interviewee(s) are aware of the cease and desist order given to Crimson Echoes, I'd be interested in a clarification of Shinji Hashimoto's recent comments as presented here. If CT:DS sales hold as they are now, is Square Enix declaring the Chrono franchise unprofitable, as Hashimoto seemed to have done?

Ah, I meant to name Zeality as well, as he seems to be the big guy for the Compendium.  The CE team I hazily remembered, research has reminded me.  

On my hypothetical situations, I do not really expect an answer, so if any of the CE team is holding off on a reply, I ensure I will harbor no ill will for any of you that simply ignore the first section of my post.   Boy, I royally screwed up the pacing of that first post, looking back on it; no more night posting for me!

I am definitely going to try and get a clarification on that interview, considering the push on Front Mission they have been putting out.  Luckily, there will be a few people at AX from SE for sure; I got some info that they will be winning the "Best FMV sequences in a game" award for FFIV, sounds like a perfect opportunity.  Anime expo is VERY fan work friendly, I am hoping I can wrangle a talk with some of the creative minds, I wonder if they even know that this is going on.  I will also be printing out some info so I can actually back up my questions (They may simply deny sales figures, or even that a C&D exists).  Any tips on what would be prudent to bring?

Thanks for the input all, and though I am sorry that you got banned PSZ, no need to get all butthurt over it, as some would say.

[FaustWolf]

Printing out the C&D may be a good thing, but on the other hand, it might just piss off SE if someone actually confronts them with it. IMO, a general question about whether the interviewee is aware of the Cease and Desist order given to Crimson Echoes should suffice, with a followup something along the lines of whether Square Enix has any plans to continue the Chrono franchise. However, ZeaLitY, Chrono'99, and Agent 12 would be the best ones to ask about the proper angle of approach. It'd be great to coax more non-standard answers from them.

[palmertech]

Another few things I dredged up:

1.  I figured out why Shinji Hashimoto will pursue Front Mission, even with sales that are dismal compared to CT:

After working for Bandai, Hashimoto joined Square in 1995 as the producer of the Super Famicom title Front Mission. He also supervised the production of the sequels Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Front Mission 2, and Front Mission 4.

Took that translation straight from the Japanese Wikipedia entry.  Looks like he just has a soft spot for his shitty series, maybe because he started the damn thing.    For him to say that CT is not profitable as a straight port with better sales compared to a full remake with much worse sales, is absolutely absurd.

2.  One big reason SE will not buy the rights to CE and throw it on the VC:

"We feel that the Japanese game market still requires physical media.

That was from an interview of Shinji Hashimoto with Nintendo Dream, talking about why Final Fantasy and other SE RPGs would not be on the VC.  This was before CTDS, too, so it seems that they feel as long as they can re-sell for a much higher price, no need to sell it on the VC.

Now, they could make a wiiware game, or heck, even port CE to a cart.  But though a lot of story work would be done, it would still require a full rewrite of the game in a different engine, in a different code format.

I would list more, like how SE is just doing cash cow franchises (Like FF13 and how he said it would last for 10 years via DLC), but that is already beaten to death.

Also, Shinji Hashimoto is in the credits of Chrono Trigger as a "special thanks".  Does anybody know what he did for that?  I wonder if he got slighted somehow, it seems like he REALLY dislikes the Chrono Franchise.  Or maybe he only likes ones he has worked on.   Either way, as the VP, seems that he would have some serious sway in terms of what games get made, and which do not, I think if he wanted to stop the Chrono franchise from taking priority over his pet projects, he can do so.  Heck, CTDS seems almost as if someone was TRYING to make it fail!

[mav]

How many questions do you think you'll be able to ask? Will this be a full-fledged interview, or something more akin to the briefing/Q and A done by the White House?

[ZeaLitY]

It's not going to happen. SE declined to give a public statement, which means they're just going to leave the entire thing buried.

[palmertech]

@Mav: I think that all depends on what kind of questions I ask, sadly.   If I seem the kind that is going to hype every word they say, I will probably get a lot more mileage than just slamming them about CT.

@Zeality:  Worth a shot though, eh?  If we just let it slide, they win automatically.  The longer we can keep bad press about this up, the better.  Sure, they will probably win either way, but may as well show as much interest in the franchise as possible.

[FaustWolf]

As long as you feel comfortable with asking a basic question about the C&D palmer, I say go for it. If it ends up seeming awkward, probably a question about whether there's any plans for another Chrono game would serve the community just as well at this point.

[Blackcaped_imp]

Just ask man, as you say, at least they'll know there's a lot of interest in the community, and they'll be crackin' their heads off thinkin' "what do we have to do to keep these guys away from us?". Yeah, maybe we'll just bother them, and they deserved it for being such NICE people. And thanks in advance.