Alphadream files for bankruptcy

[Aperson]

Sad news today that Alphadream, the developers of the Mario and Luigi series, have filed for bankruptcy

 

Founded in 2000, AlphaDream was originally known as Alpha Star and was staffed with people who had formerly been at Square, including former Square President Tetsuo Mizuno. The studio is best known for the Mario & Luigi RPG series. It was announced today that AlphaDream has gone bankrupt.

According to Yahoo! Japan, revenue was sluggish in recent years and development costs drove the studio into the red. As of March 2018, AlphaDream was 400 million yen ($3.7 million) in debt.

 

 

 

 

After releasing Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for the Game Boy Advance in 2003, AlphaDream went on to do four more main entries in the series: Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. The studio also worked on the remakes Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions and Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey, the last of which is AlphaDream’s final game.

The Mario & Luigi RPG series was praised among fans—and for good reason. It’s a shame that the studio has filed for bankruptcy.

 

https://kotaku.com/mario-luigi-rpg-developer-alphadream-has-gone-bankrup-1838692022

 

This is extremely sad to hear especially given Paper Mario has gone downhill so much, M&L is the only RPG series left that was still managing to remain relevant as an actual RPG, even if you could argue the games are a bit TOO tutorial heavy. But, given the last two games they put out were remakes, now we know why they haven't made a new game since Paper Jam.

 

[Dcubed]

I posted about this in the Switch Discussion thread, but damn... I'm still utterly livid about this news...

 

Goddammit! HD development claims yet another victim 

 

Let's just hope and pray that Nintendo ends up absorbing the Alphadream staff, like they did for both Hudson and Flagship...

[S.C.G]

AlphaDream Files For Bankruptcy

Terrible news indeed not an article I thought I'd be writing, especially the day after reporting on Monolithsoft's 20th anniversary.

Here's hoping that Nintendo can step in and do something decent to save the staff who have been effectively working for them for a long time now.

I know I haven't completed many of their games, but I still hoped to one day and I still bought the titles as well.

Heck, there are plenty of other projects Nintendo could give them to work on, I'd take a Paper Mario remake if Intelligent Systems aren't working on one.

[S.C.G]

A couple of videos about the whole situation...

It's hard to say what's going to happen now, I really think Nintendo would be foolish to just let Alpha Dream fall by the wayside as there's still so much potential from the studio.

Of course HD development would not be easy for such a small studio but I think that if they were absorbed by Nintendo and were given some staff to assist them then who knows?

A brand new Mario & Luigi RPG on the Switch in HD? I'd buy it... or even a spin-off, Wario & Waluigi: Partners in Crime or Peach & Daisy: Sassiness in Sarasaland

Anything except letting nearly two decades of game development expertise go down the drain.

[Jonnas]

Needless to say, these are devastating news. The Mario&Luigi series are such charming, unique, and creative RPGs. Bowser's Inside Story is legit the best writing Bowser's ever gotten.

I actually found a sealed copy of Superstar Saga remake for less than 10€ some time back, but I didn't know this meant the entire team was in jeopardy! This doesn't bode well for Sushi Striker's developers, which I also just found in the same store, with a similar price.

Here's hoping they get salvaged by Nintendo. It's too much talent to go to waste.

[Glen-i]

12 hours ago, Jonnas said:

Needless to say, these are devastating news. The Mario&Luigi series are such charming, unique, and creative RPGs. Bowser's Inside Story is legit the best writing Bowser's ever gotten.

I just want to jump on and point out that AlphaDream also provided the best written Bowser Jr. as well in Paper Jam. I played that expecting paper based shenanigans and instead got an interesting insight into how he feels about being Koopa Prince. The general gist he feels isolated because everyone he knows basically works for him, so when Paper Bowser Jr. shows up, he finally has a friend, in contrast to the two Bowsers, who constantly argue with each other. Which is always funny.

It all culminates in the inevitable beatdown the Mario Trio deal to the Bowser Jr's which leads to the first time we've seen some fatherly concern from Bowser since Mario Sunshine.

AlphaDream showing the world that Bowser is the best Nintendo dad long before that parental controls video made it obvious. Also doubles up as a great "Oh crap!" moment.

Seriously, guys. Paper Jam is great. More M&L fans should play it.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

I've mixed feelings about the games they put out. I adored Superstar Saga and Bowser's Inside Story, hated Partners in Time and thought Paper Jam was fine but not great. I've still not played Dream Team, despite me having it on the shelf for a stupidly long time. Lots of people slagged the game off and I always remember this every time I go to play it.

It's a shame that the studio has ended up the way it has. I'm also baffled by how it's happened. There was a lot of asset reuse in some of these games and they were developed on a non-HD system so the development costs should have been that high when compared to console development. Should Nintendo have swooped in? Hard to say. I mean, just look at CiNG. Nintendo worked with them for years and were quite happy to not bail those guys out. Not that it's their job to do so but it does seem weird that they would work with companies for so long and then not help them out if need be. That's business, I guess.  Makes you wonder if the same thing happened to somewhere like Next Level Games or Grezzo, would Nintendo be willing to step up and help?