Team Silent Question (no fanboy/girl wars plz)

[PureBlackAura]

I Thought it would be appropriate to put this here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Silent says that konami broke up Team silent to give the series to different developers .... which pretty much made me WTF everywhere ... why would they do that if they making money from the series....I thought it was something different then this that broke up the team...can someone please explain what happened without starting a war

[Jack Ketch]

I think, Silent Hill as a franchise lost popularity quite quickly in Japan, or never was very popular to begin with. If that's the case, I imagine Konami would have decided against wasting in-house resources for something they saw no interest in at home. I'm sure they considered just letting the series die, but seeing that it still made some money in the West, they decided to send it out to Western devs to please Western audiences, all the while not caring much if it did well outside of Japan, as long as it didn't lost money. Conjecture, but that's the way I think of it happening, when I think of it at all.

[nur_ein_tier]

I Thought it would be appropriate to put this here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Silent says that konami broke up Team silent to give the series to different developers .... which pretty much made me WTF everywhere ... why would they do that if they making money from the series....I thought it was something different then this that broke up the team...can someone please explain what happened without starting a war

I disagree with the wording "broke up."

Here is my research on the matter:
http://alchemillahospital.net/whining-a ... am-silent/

Some excerpts:

Sato: “I left Konami.” After SH2, he wanted to do his own thing.
Ito: He’s still doing artwork and comics for the series, though I imagine the reason he’s not on the games is because Konami has outsourced to companies like Climax and Double Helix, so he’s probably displaced a bit. But now that Yamaoka has left, I suppose that means Ito is now the person who’s been doing stuff for the series the longest. If Konami wanted rid of him, they wouldn’t keep hiring him to do covers and comics.
Toyama: Left to work on Siren and do his own thing.
Yamaoka: Though he was with the series from SH1 through SHSM, he left to work for Grasshopper of his own free will.
Owaku: Got a “special thanks” for helping a bit with Origins, so I’d count him as “displaced,” too, perhaps.

[PureBlackAura]

I Thought it would be appropriate to put this here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Silent says that konami broke up Team silent to give the series to different developers .... which pretty much made me WTF everywhere ... why would they do that if they making money from the series....I thought it was something different then this that broke up the team...can someone please explain what happened without starting a war

I disagree with the wording "broke up."

Here is my research on the matter:
http://alchemillahospital.net/whining-about-team-silent/

Some excerpts:

Sato: “I left Konami.” After SH2, he wanted to do his own thing.
Ito: He’s still doing artwork and comics for the series, though I imagine the reason he’s not on the games is because Konami has outsourced to companies like Climax and Double Helix, so he’s probably displaced a bit. But now that Yamaoka has left, I suppose that means Ito is now the person who’s been doing stuff for the series the longest. If Konami wanted rid of him, they wouldn’t keep hiring him to do covers and comics.
Toyama: Left to work on Siren and do his own thing.
Yamaoka: Though he was with the series from SH1 through SHSM, he left to work for Grasshopper of his own free will.
Owaku: Got a “special thanks” for helping a bit with Origins, so I’d count him as “displaced,” too, perhaps.

First of all thanks to both of you for the answers and research. I see all the points you two are pointing out and they make sense now that I think about it.... I just hope that Vatra keeps Silent hill

[kyleb]

I disagree with the wording "broke up."

From what I've seen that is what happened, facts you mention in your article notwithstanding. Sure some people left of their own cognition, and two stayed for a while to some extent, but half of Team Silent were still running things though SH4, and there were lesser known people at KCET who'd been on the series for a while too. Yet Konami made the decisions to give the later projects to different developers and to absorb KCET, effectively breaking up Team Silent. As for why Konami did that, I can't say I've seen any official statement on the matter, but given the cooperate culture it almost surely was because they thought the move would turn better profits.

[Purramid_Head]

Toyama was a principle story writer for 1 with Owaku, he left after that game was made. Ito doesn't consider Cage of Cradle "canon" because Toyama had no involvement. But he illustarted it and Owaku wrote it as Silent Hill canon. if people actually bothered to read the Book of Lost Memories you'll find several team members expression the desire to leave and make other games. As fans, we actually expect the same people to work on the same series conseculatively for years with no breaks, leavings, or making other games? To me, the fans are being selfish about the series. The games took years to make and they were making them one after another. I feel that, if the fans had their way, the members, the main ones at least, would be chained in the office forced to work on Silent Hill 24/7 in arbitrary slavery.

[what]

Not only that, but if Team Silent were still around, the same people who think filthy gaijin have ruined the series forever would be blaming Team Silent for exactly the same crime. You know, the way those people were doing when Silent Hill 4 ruined the series forever.

I can't stress enough how utterly absurd the Team Silent worship is because I remember a time when it was quite common to see accusing them of losing their touch circa 2003-4. It really doesn't matter who makes Silent Hill. After this many entries, the "true hardcore" fans would hate whoever it happened to be.

[Purramid_Head]

SHT was around in '06 and I remember seeing it. I'm sure a quick search of the posts here from years ago would yield the threads about 4's inferiority. I remember one thread about how 4 was supposed to be a different game early in development and they made it into a SH game and someone who had a negative opinion about it was like "oh so that's why it's different!". I swear that people don't think. I guess ignorance is prevelant among the common people.

[NarooN]

I did quite a few write-ups over at GFAQs a year+ ago about the various ex-KCET members who worked on the games, it enlightened a lot of people but you still had the token Teem Sirent blowhards denying facts anyway, or just outright ignoring them. It still makes me lol to this day how back in the day, people said SH4 was garbage, now after the "Western" games, it's a masterpiece just because KCET made it.

[Mothersdecent]

people said SH4 was garbage, now after the "Western" games, it's a masterpiece just because KCET made it.

I think it's because at the time, they didn't really know what was really garbage.

[Yuki]

SHT was around in '06 and I remember seeing it. I'm sure a quick search of the posts here from years ago would yield the threads about 4's inferiority. I remember one thread about how 4 was supposed to be a different game early in development and they made it into a SH game and someone who had a negative opinion about it was like "oh so that's why it's different!". I swear that people don't think. I guess ignorance is prevelant among the common people.

That's hilarious because 4 was never supposed to be a different game.

[NarooN]

people said SH4 was garbage, now after the "Western" games, it's a masterpiece just because KCET made it.

I think it's because at the time, they didn't really know what was really garbage.

It's more like Silent Hill fans don't know what they want in the first place. In all actuality, they never did. It's nothing more than Japanophile game dev worship.

[Jack Ketch]

SHT was around in '06 and I remember seeing it. I'm sure a quick search of the posts here from years ago would yield the threads about 4's inferiority. I remember one thread about how 4 was supposed to be a different game early in development and they made it into a SH game and someone who had a negative opinion about it was like "oh so that's why it's different!". I swear that people don't think. I guess ignorance is prevelant among the common people.

That's hilarious because 4 was never supposed to be a different game.

That's an interesting thing to say, why do you think that?

[keeps]

i guess i've forgotten the stereotypes of SH fans people talk about all the time

[NarooN]

SHT was around in '06 and I remember seeing it. I'm sure a quick search of the posts here from years ago would yield the threads about 4's inferiority. I remember one thread about how 4 was supposed to be a different game early in development and they made it into a SH game and someone who had a negative opinion about it was like "oh so that's why it's different!". I swear that people don't think. I guess ignorance is prevelant among the common people.

That's hilarious because 4 was never supposed to be a different game.

That's an interesting thing to say, why do you think that?

It's a common bit of misinformation in the fanbase. A lot of people seem to think that SH4 was originally gonna be some spin-off or something, and that they were like 80% complete with the game and then pulled a 180 and started almost from scratch and just slapped "Silent Hill" on the cover. This is in fact, untrue.

They were thinking of a spin-off initially, hence the game taking place far from Silent Hill and have completely new gameplay elements and such. However, it was VERY early on in development that they decided it would be a Silent Hill game. Many elements from the initial concepts were kept, thus, SH4 was created.

[Jack Ketch]

They were thinking of a spin-off initially, hence the game taking place far from Silent Hill and have completely new gameplay elements and such. However, it was VERY early on in development that they decided it would be a Silent Hill game. Many elements from the initial concepts were kept, thus, SH4 was created.

Thanks, that's what I always thought. I never knew people thought it was 80% complete, but I had read that the initial concepts were for an unrelated project called Room 302. That's why I was curious when Yuki said it was never supposed to be a different game.

[Purramid_Head]

Yamaoka did say it was gonna be another game. But he never said it was 80% complete, and seem to imply that it was in it's infancy when they decided to start on it as SH4. A lot of the team didn't even know he was making it when they were making 3.

[Yuki]

http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/feat ... _sep04.asp

Kikizo: One of the first things I wanted to ask was about the origins of the concept for Silent Hill 4, the idea of this apartment with a tunnel to an alternate world of horrors - what inspired this idea?

Tsuboyama: We wanted to make a sequel after Silent Hill 3 and you could say that was the initial concept, but upon that we needed to implement a lot of new flavour to the sequel, otherwise it would have been the same old Silent Hill. So for that, we created "The Room" as the concept for the game, so that we could use to represent the contrast between the normal and the abnormal life which changes suddenly. For the scenario we got our general influence from a book called Coin Locker Babies, which was written by a Japanese writer called Ryu Murakami. It talks about a baby abandoned in a coin locker. That was the general background.

It has always been a Silent Hill game.

[astro]

I came into the series like, a year ago, but I have a feeling that a lot of people who said The Room sucked had just finished playing it. Like, it isn't a fun game to play, but it has a lot of other redeeming qualities that you could remember fondly, unlike the gameplay which is more visceral and forgettable.

[nur_ein_tier]

I disagree with the wording "broke up."

From what I've seen that is what happened, facts you mention in your article notwithstanding. Sure some people left of their own cognition, and two stayed for a while to some extent, but half of Team Silent were still running things though SH4, and there were lesser known people at KCET who'd been on the series for a while too. Yet Konami made the decisions to give the later projects to different developers and to absorb KCET, effectively breaking up Team Silent. As for why Konami did that, I can't say I've seen any official statement on the matter, but given the cooperate culture it almost surely was because they thought the move would turn better profits.

In my post I used the word "displaced." You could argue I meant the very same thing as "broken up," but I see it less as Konami saying "Let's get rid of all of these assholes and get a new team!" than something like a business decision to outsource. Yes, the result's the same, but the seeming intent of the SHH artist dude quote was that it was some horrible malicious act on Konami's part to fuck over the fanbase. I see it more as a business decision (misguided or not) as well as some people (Toyama, Sato, etc) wanting to move on. I'm not into blaming anyone for the fact that many people have worked on it, and certainly I'm not into blaming the devs themselves for not being Japanese.

Despite the fact that I love the first several games, I get rather annoyed by the Team Silent worship. Not because they weren't great devs, which they were, but people seem rather misguided into making it a Japanese vs. the filthy gaijin thing.