Does anyone think...

[zygirl]

Maybe I am just crazy here, feel free to call me out.

Obviously, Natsume has known they weren't going to be publishing Story of Seasons for quite some time. Does anyone else think they might try to publish their own Harvest Moon? After all, they do own rights to that title. Obviously, they can't use marvelous' content.

They created Hometown Story, which I always thought was weird to bring out a game kind of like Harvest Moon, but not really... For anyone who played Hometown Story, we know it was rough and riddled with errors and issues and well... Not that great.

Ideas? Speculation? Rumours...?

What is this mysterious "Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley" that has been cropping up in distributor lists?

[runefactor]

Hometown Story was not created by Natsume. It was made my ToyBox.

I don't think they'll start making their own Harvest Moon games. They're a publisher/translator, not a developer.

[JunkerFarmer]

I don't think they'll start making their own Harvest Moon games. They're a publisher/translator, not a developer.

THANK YOU. I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO REALIZED THIS. SERIOUSLY THOUGH. Translators don't really have the resources to make their own games. Most likely, Natsume got abed of themselves and went ahead and registered the trademark before knowing if they'd gotten the rights or not.

[zygirl]

Ah, I did not realize that Toybox made Hometown Story. I seem to recall Natsume posting various pictures of development process so I assumed they did the whole nine yards.

However they are listed as the developer for the Gabrielle games, along with a handful of other games I have never heard of. Looks like (according to wikipedia) they also helped develop kirby: squeek squad along with flagship. Interesting.

Also, Natsume has the rights to the brand "Harvest Moon" which refers to any Harvest Moon name, not this upcoming one. They more than likely did that many moons ago (no pun intended).

[luph n joii]

If they do make their own HM games, most likely it would be one of those puzzle games (Puzzle de HM, Frantic Farming), not a "true" HM like we usually have.

I think you're probably confused. There's a difference between Natsume and Natsume Inc.
Natsume is a Japanese game developer and the parent company of Natsume Inc., while Natsume Inc. is an American game publisher (who published HM) and subsidiary company of Natsume (« Harvest Goddess », that's confusing).
When we say Natsume, we often mean Natsume Inc. (American publisher), not Natsume (Japanese game developer). I can see why you mistake the two, though.

I think the Gabrielle and other games that you mentioned were developed by Natsume, and then localized to US by Natsume Inc.

[zygirl]

Wow... I hate to be right

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/06/03/h ... -announced

Take that non believers

[LanceTheTurtle]

What is this nonsense
They are not the same game
The intellectual property of the other Harvest Moon games is incongruent with this one as to be completely misleading
as in people will think this is the new HM when in reality it's Story of Seasons\
I would sue

[zygirl]

What is this nonsense
They are not the same game
The intellectual property of the other Harvest Moon games is incongruent with this one as to be completely misleading
as in people will think this is the new HM when in reality it's Story of Seasons\
I would sue

I am confused as to why you're confused.

Marvelous' game (Bokujō Monogatari) is being translated by Xseed into Story of Seasons.

Natsume is developing and publishing their own Harvest Moon.

Two separate games.

[Getaris]

The new Harvest Moon is whichever of the two is named Harvest Moon of course.

I think you meant the new Bokumono.

[LanceTheTurtle]

What is this nonsense
They are not the same game
The intellectual property of the other Harvest Moon games is incongruent with this one as to be completely misleading
as in people will think this is the new HM when in reality it's Story of Seasons\
I would sue

I am confused as to why you're confused.

Marvelous' game (Bokujō Monogatari) is being translated by Xseed into Story of Seasons.

Natsume is developing and publishing their own Harvest Moon.

Two separate games.

I'm not confused at all about the difference between the two. I just think it's stupid for Natsume to be releasing this obviously as a form of retaliation for being let go as the publisher of NA Bokumono. (And/or probably more motivated by the need to make money, because what do they really have other than HM and RF (which may be dead itself? (not really, but still))?)
Also, as fans that are aware of Bokumono, we all know that the series is going to be forwarded to XSEED and retitled. The others who will know are gamers subscribed to magazines or who've read online about niche 3ds games.
Casual fans, however, won't know the difference, and will pick up the thing that says "Harvest Moon" without realising that it's a different game from a different publisher. Make no bones about it: Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley is not in the same family as its predecessors.
My definition of the game is: if it was made by Marvelous, then it's "Harvest Moon" (a necessary moniker to make it easy to talk about in the West). In this new case, it's The Lost Valley, because the title is no longer just a substitution for Bokujo and is now it's own free-standing thing...
If it is necessary to just go back and rename all of those other games "Story of Seasons" to make it supremely obvious which offshoots are stemming from which source material, I would prefer that to any of the other options.
But, as it seems that Natsume is being a B.A.N., the likelihood of that helpful ret-con seems bleak.

Of course, just because I don't agree with Natsume's decision to keep a draconian grip on the alternate title (natsume would say otherwise I'm sure) doesn't mean that I will let that affect my judgement of the actual game. But still. I mean, this whole beef is so silly, Natsume just should have sold them the damn name, it's not their game. I understand not wanting to go out of business, but isn't it better to relinquish your power with grace? And all of this "so excited to be releasing another HM installment!" from Natsume is just annoying; if you're angry, be angry.

[zygirl]

I am not sure why people are upset that Natsume is using their trademark and brand and creating a new game. Natsume is much more in contact with their fans - I believe that they can use this to their advantage to tailor to North American fans. It will be a real shame if Natsume puts out a great game, and people don't buy it because of some weird video game publishing politics.

Harvest Moon belongs to Natsume. No, it might not be Bokujō Monogatari, but let Natsume take a stab at it. They know their fans, they know what we like/dislike and they have listened to our criticism on games that they only translated for years. Now, they will finally be able to take that information and hopefully incorporate it into a great game.

I highly doubt it's any form of retaliation. These are professional companies, and as a business owner myself it makes sense to me on a financial level. Natsume needs Harvest Moon to survive, it's the bread and butter of their business. If one of my distributors stopped selling something that my clients purchased and demanded (think of us as Natsume's clients), I would do everything in my power to ensure that those clients got what they wanted from me, as they always have. I would not want or tell them to go elsewhere to get something I could provide. It would be a poor business move.

[runefactor]

I'm sorry about my previous post. It seems I was very very wrong...

[Kam]

I am not sure why people are upset that Natsume is using their trademark and brand and creating a new game. Natsume is much more in contact with their fans - I believe that they can use this to their advantage to tailor to North American fans. It will be a real shame if Natsume puts out a great game, and people don't buy it because of some weird video game publishing politics.

Harvest Moon belongs to Natsume. No, it might not be Bokujō Monogatari, but let Natsume take a stab at it. They know their fans, they know what we like/dislike and they have listened to our criticism on games that they only translated for years. Now, they will finally be able to take that information and hopefully incorporate it into a great game.

I highly doubt it's any form of retaliation. These are professional companies, and as a business owner myself it makes sense to me on a financial level. Natsume needs Harvest Moon to survive, it's the bread and butter of their business. If one of my distributors stopped selling something that my clients purchased and demanded (think of us as Natsume's clients), I would do everything in my power to ensure that those clients got what they wanted from me, as they always have. I would not want or tell them to go elsewhere to get something I could provide. It would be a poor business move.

That makes sense, but you also need to look at it from the POV of the consumers. To (some of) us, it kind of looks like Natsume is mad at the loss of one of their main titles and so they're being a bit ultra-competitive, which is not at all unusual. Basically:



Again, I'm fairly certain that's probably not it because Natsume is presumably staffed by grown-ups, but that's sort of what it looks like from the perspective of an average idiot consumer like myself. Though I would also argue that is not to far outside the realm of possibility considering these are the people who put their logo ahead of the logo of the company that actually made the damn game, and that's just not cool.

In any case, I'm probably going to get Lost Valley anyway, I'm just not going to go into it with particularly high expectations. What little they've said about it seems awfully ambitious for a company that a) has never made a full game before that I'm aware of, and b) already has a history of releasing products that are so glitchy as to be nigh unplayable. I'm not saying Lost Valley is doomed to failure, but the odds are definitely stacked against it.

[zygirl]

It's true, the game might not be that great. Hopefully next week when more information and screens are available we can decide for ourselves.. However I think that there would be a lot of pressure to do well, this is a long standing series with a lot of fans. They would not want to destroy future opportunities by bombing this one.

To me it's like a bonus. We are getting Bokujō Monogatari AND a "Harvest Moon" game (even if it isn't "really" Harvest Moon). It's win-win. If it's terrible, then it's terrible. I am going to remain slightly optimistic, I think it could be a really good thing for a fresh set of hands on Harvest Moon.