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MonkeyPaw on the educational upside of Class of Heroes 2 Kickstarter
MonkeyPaw Games recently experimented with Kickstarter for a physical deluxe edition of the PSP game, Class of Heroes 2. The funding drive ended with $96,951 raised of the company's $500,000 goal."Our Kickstarter for Class of Heroes 2 didn't reach our funding bar but I think it was a great experience," MonkeyPaw CEO John Greiner told Joystiq, during an interview about the announcement of Tomba! for PSN. "Class of Heroes isn't a well-known brand but we were able to educate people about the game and its features. That will help immensely when we release the digital version."The drive may not have worked out to get Class of Heroes 2 onto UMD, but it served in an educational capacity about more than just Class of Heroes, Greiner suggested. "This drive was the first time a console game had been pushed on Kickstarter so that also entailed teaching people why we needed $500K. Not a small sum but not really that much when you consider this was a physical, deluxe boxed version of a console game."
Interview: John Greiner introduces MonkeyPaw Games, a localization firm for digital releases
John Greiner was president of the US-based Hudson Entertainment for five years, and worked for Hudson Soft in Japan for fifteen years before that. Now, he's taken his expertise in the Japanese game industry and applied it to a new project, the digital distribution-focused publishing firm MonkeyPaw Games, a company that will specialize in remaking and localizing Japanese games from the past and present. In an interview conducted during E3, Greiner explained the new company's plans, opined on 3D and his favorite "lost" Japanese games, and provided valuable insight on what it's like to do business in Japan. Joystiq: Details were scarce when you made the announcement of MonkeyPaw Games earlier this month. John Greiner: The reason we didn't want to release many titles -- what we're doing -- is because we are having another release shortly, but first we wanted to show who the company was and what we're trying to do. The foundation of the company is the bridge that we give between Japan and the West. As you know, there are lots of Japanese games that never made it to the West, and should have made it to the West, but for whatever reason -- usually a lack of understanding on the Japanese side that there is a market for Japanese games in America and in the West. What we plan to do is form a community of like-minded gamers, people who want to see a lot of these great Japanese games come to the West.
Hudson US president resigns post
There's been a changing of the guard at Hudson Entertainment, the North American flavor of Konami-owned Hudson Soft, as president and CEO John Greiner will take his leave of the company on May 15. Hudson notes that it currently has no plans to look for new blood to bring in to replace Greiner, instead stating that the U.S. division's senior exec and chairman Seiichi Ishigaki will step in to fill his shoes. Citing the reason for his departure, the 20-year exec noted plans to "spend time with his family and pursue personal interests," which knowing Hudson as we do probably means hemming them into a corner with a bomb before admiring the carnage from a safe distance. Once the smoke clears, we wish Greiner the very best.
Rengoku moves from PSP to mobile phones
Ah yes, remember Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory? Doesn't register a blip? How about its sequel, Rengoku 2: The Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N.? If neither game registers anything resembling warm or fuzzy, the metareview scores say you are not alone. It would seem that after two lackluster efforts on the PSP system, Hudson Entertainment has decided to stake its claim on the mobile phone market with yet another of their franchise titles. This Rengoku go-round has the cybernetic hero GRAM, "searching for the truth behind his existence." John Greiner, CEO of Hudson Entertainment believes its new home on the mobile platform is "a perfect fit" since it "features a healthy dose of action and adventure that cell phone gamers are sure to relish." Good riddance to bad rubbish, we say.
