WayForward Employee Who Worked on Re-Boot Camp Speaks Up

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⏰Timestamps⏰
00:00 Intro
00:55 What was your job at WayForward?
01:26 What was it like working for Wayforward?
02:07 What were the devs opinions on the graphics?
02:49 What were the biggest problems with developing the Reboot Camp?
04:00 Why wasn't online multiplayer prioritized?
04:52 Was there any cut content?
05:54 Do you know how much the game sold?
07:15 If you could go back in time, what would you tell the devs?
08:53 Can you tell the story about the removal of Sami's jiggle physics?
10:40 What are the biggest reasons the Reboot Camp failed?
13:25 Post-interview thoughts
Interviewing a WayForward Employee Who Worked on Re-Boot Camp
#switch #advancewars #nintendo

[@Mangs1337]

Why I think the Reboot Camp failed: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jp-0hWOugNJnrpI ⏰Timestamps⏰ 00:00 Intro 00:55 What was your job at WayForward? 01:26 What was it like working for Wayforward? 02:07 What were the devs opinions on the graphics? 02:49 What were the biggest problems with developing the Reboot Camp? 04:00 Why wasn't online multiplayer prioritized? 04:52 Was there any cut content? 05:54 Do you know how much the game sold? 07:15 If you could go back in time, what would you tell the devs? 08:53 Can you tell the story about the removal of Sami's jiggle physics? 10:40 What are the biggest reasons the Reboot Camp failed? 13:25 Post-interview thoughts

[@clownplayer7265]

Besides the Sami issue which seems a bit...odd...this video overall is...well...sad honestly. I guess the meme of "Advance Wars lives on Fire Emblem's shadows" will continue for a while.

[@simest45]

Sorry for the duplicate but: you want an Advanced Wars indie resurrection? You want Warside (on steam)! Full Funded and in closed alpha now.

[@ZX-Gear]

@clownplayer7265 It is not like Advance Wars can pull the Waifu Dating Sim thing like Fire Emblem. Honestly it may have been introduced in FE4 but it didn't get bad till Awakening.

[@clownplayer7265]

@@ZX-Gear "Waifu stuff" is besides the point tho. Between the presentation, the impact of the bugs, the delays, it seems the game wasn't treated as well as it should. The franchise has been remaining dormant for various reasons so it's natural its fanbase, big or small, want to have a return to the form. And it is not that the franchise should become a "juggernaut everybody speaks here and there" like Fire Emblem, or FNAF or many games like that, but it can stay strong and still grow.

[@ZX-Gear]

@clownplayer7265 Honestly with how the Fire Emblem Fanbase turned out,it would help to not get too big. But still,Nintendo screwed this up anyways. We will never get Dual Strike,Days of Ruin or even Battalion Wars revisited now cause of this.

[@Mito383]

I’m 90% positive the only reason they titled it “reboot” is because it sounded like boot camp. Not because they actually wanted to reboot the franchise.

[@dyll_pyckle]

Yeah exactly. I’m kinda surprised people are caught up on this point…

[@lpfan4491]

It's literally a common remake naming-trope at this point. Spyro Reignited, Spongebob Rehydrated, etc. People calling it "the reboot" was always rediculous because one does not reboot a series with a straight 1:1 with some QoL, it would have some relevant story and gameplay-changes.

[@Purrfect_Werecat]

100%, it seemed pretty obvious from the start i thought

[@leestrz4153]

Agree. That's the trope. Sad I was pretty hyped for this

[@TomJacobW]

I absolutely agree with you and the other people’s sentiment, want to add though, that there’s a bit of our collective Stockholm syndrome in that. These companies get away with literal false advertising for ever just because of “it’s just a pun, bro”. It *does* have the word reboot in it; I care more about truthful naming schemes than some edgelord “I am so smart” naming puns.

[@NCHProductions]

who knows maybe cause advance wars by web was never touched by nintendo's lawyers really means its a "we close 2 eyes and our mouth and ignore that it exist" show how less they care about advance wars as a game lol.

[@dangermouseuk78]

Or I dunno call the game something else, you can make an inspired game without stealing intellectual property.

[@berugich]

Counterpoint is that Pokemon Showdown is like 12 years old (13 in october) and is still extremely alive while being popular, even having KZbinrs that have Nintendo's eyes on them mention it (most notably WolfeyVGC), and Pokémon is Nintendo's most safekept IP with Zelda and Mario 🤔

[@furiouscorgi6614]

@@berugich iirc, Smogon has a deal with Nintendo that lets them keep Showdown up- they aren't allowed to profit (advertising revenue goes to server maintenance and upgrades), and besides, they aren't emulating what makes people buy the games. People by Pokemon for catching and story and whatever, and to go to their competitions, you need a copy of the current game anyway. It appeals to a niche audience of players, unlike an emulator that gives you the full game

[@misbegotten3508]

you make animations for every game i like. you even did this one and also red alert, even when the former wasnt popular. thank you

[@captainnomekop5056]

I’m glad you kept their identity anonymous, I’m sure Caesar and the legion would be quick to try and harass them.

[@Donlot_]

AVE! TRUE TO CAESAR!

[@-ism8153]

He might have said too much about what he worked on, when he was fired, what he's doing now, so I'm a little worried anyway. I get the feeling the company could pin him down if they tried.

[@naranjorm1277]

Uh, this game didn't release late in Japan - it was not released here at all. There's no physical or digital version available in Japan, there's no Japanese localization.

[@lpfan4491]

Probably mistaken for Days of Ruin, which actually did have that situration of infact releasing in japan, but 5 years late.

[@lndetective]

In hindsight, I wonder if the company was passionate about the IP. It sounds like they created a remake with updated graphics just to cash in on the series and not actually to reboot it.

[@7sonicmario]

Its all about the money.

[@papastalin4545]

It is a company operating in a capitalist system, after all. Profit over everything.

[@brandonwilliams6119]

Such a shame how most problems in Society always boil down to Money.

[@ToddHoward76]

The employee said something which really stuck with me “Despite record profits, they did not seem to give to much focus to a legacy series by a well respected developer”. Nintendo should be investing and capitalizing on their games because thats the only reason to buy their products. At least other consoles can run modern games without severely restricting them and they are viable multiplayer platforms. If Nintendo continues to cheap out and do the bare minimum with most of their games it will not be good in the long run. They can skate by on Pokemon, Zelda, and Mario games even if the games are mediocre through sheer nostalgia alone, but their beloved secondary franchise are starting to slip by the wayside as they cheap out and go for quick easy cash grabs instead of actually trying.

[@GritterTheBuckethead]

The people who worked on the music were passionate, considering the callbacks to Super Famicom Wars, and Famicom Wars. Not so much everything else.

[@Jacob-ko2li]

I am absolutely devastated to hear that there is another official Adder theme that was apparently BETTER than the one we got and will likely never see the light of day

[@neonoah3353]

Probably because it had vocals, once the va was changed, they probably couldnt keep on using it.

[@user-zq1eo2pp5s]

That is easily the most depressing part of this video yeah

[@GoaFan77]

I think the current Adder theme in RBC is an absolute banger. Definitely curious what the other version is, though I'm not a big fan of lyrics most of the time so perhaps this would have ended up being.

[@WillieDangerously]

Holy shit I am so hopeful for this lost media to be recovered one day.

[@JamesTDG]

Honestly, I would gladly breach NDAs by preserving a lot of info for the future.

[@ToddHoward76]

The meteor strike within me burned stronger than the delays from Nintendo.

[@Neftali2194]

But The meteor strike from the Game destroy the nintendo switch😅

[@hemmydall]

The contracted workers view holds up. QA in general basically gets the shaft consistently, despite being the first group of people outside of development to experience and give critiques of a game during development. Even more when QA has experience in programming or other areas of game development.

[@Cameo221]

Yeah I think thats a very important distinction. If a QA role can understand the pipelines of the other roles like programming, it makes their opinions so much more valid when critisizing "bugs taking days to fix"

[@Noxmare]

@@Cameo221 As a QA Engineer myself I never blame development for "bugs taking days to fix". Bugs and defects take as much as they require to get fixed, there is no workaround. And most of the time it takes an extensive deep dive into the root of the problem so even throwing multiple people at a single bug won't help it get done quicker. "One mother births a kid in 9 months but 9 mothers won't give birth to a kid in a month" kind of situation.

[@Cameo221]

@@Noxmare Yeah, though I can see how an outsiders point of view from outside the industry could be influenced to think in this way against the programmers, when there doesn't need to be any blame thrown anywhere at all. In the video, it's what anvil says and it didn't sit right with me, even it is the reality that fixing bugs can take awhile, especially console crashes 😅 Good points 🙂

[@Dralchemy]

I had no idea that Joshua Graham was a developer behind the scenes at AW: Reboot Camp

[@Fernybun]

That explains his anger issues

[@gabrielbercot3728]

"I treat my employees badly and I make money anyway", yes, but if they were treated correctly, they would be much more motivated to work and do something better, which would obviously give MUCH more profit. Is the main sin of these companies greed? Sometimes yes, but I dare say that their main mistake is laziness: they get comfortable with easy money and refuse to look for virtues that will give much better results.

[@Fernybun]

Laziness is the mother of all sins after all

[@birdbig6852]

It wasn't their employee. Nintendo has a big reputation to treat very well their internal employees (Japan) . They unfortunately don't treat well their contractors.

[@Testbug000]

Eh, the issue here is likely one more of higher up at the studio, not Nintendo directly for the **funding** provided for this game. Is that still an issue? Yes absolutely as it points to plenty of different issues. But something Nintendo would directly control vs. the studio inside Nintendo…. That would be on the studio leadership. Which isn’t meant to defend a corporation. Just the idea that Nintendo bean-counters would know better then what the studio was telling them about money is issues.

[@ardantop132na6]

Greed + Sloth

[@clownplayer7265]

@@Fernybun In fact sloth is considered worse than greed because of that. It is not just that they want money, it is that they don't even put care in how they try to get it. Considering you can get many more earnings with positive word-of-mouth and quality stuff, you essentially squander everything by being apathetic.

[@dmtrsgrksrphl2501]

If Reboot Camp accomplished anything, it got me to buy the two GBA games over a year ago.

[@VNYoshi]

bro took all that effort to hide his identity and the first thing he did was to describe his exact job and a documented bug report that can be used to track down who he is exactly bruh

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

I caught that right away, I'd be worried about if they were gonna come after me over my NDA breach if I were him. The guy strikes me as not particularly smart, but it's still nice to get a bit of insight into the bullshit behind the scenes.

[@ArjunTheRageGuy]

Well, at least he's transparent about it

[@dainbaril2934]

Could be a red herring.

[@MASHDAT]

I know QA testers often come up with fish stories to make their work seem more impactful / interesting but damn. Big "trust me bro" energy.

[@pokechamp3987]

The idea of remaking it with a table top aesthetics made it a train wreck from the start. I always saw the original games as stories about real wars, just (mostly) presented in a light way. I wish they would have aimed for something like Octopath Traveler instead. Realistic lighting and shadows, improved animations and sound. They could have made the map and battle screens look more dynamic and interesting with many different variantions for mountain ranges, grass plains and forests. They could also have focused on releasing the first game first, with a solid multiplayer platform. Then spent a year or two developing the second game/campaign as a DLC, along with all the new COs as a free update for MP. Could have been epic.

[@doesntmatter6736]

I know that they are gacha games and to be scoffed at because of that, but look at how the camera moves in Archeland and Girls Frontline 2 and imagine an Advance Wars title done in a similar fashion ... If the relatively inexperienced developers behind those titles can pull it off, then surely someone with the resources of Nintendo and Intelligent Systems can do it too. It's a shame that closest we have to this fantasy is Tiny Metal or the dating sim that is Fire Emblem Three Houses.

[@Eichro]

I think I understand why; when you get to it, Advance Wars' portrayal of war as something cute and colorful is kinda off. Whoever had the tabletop visuals idea was probably trying to resolve this weird contrast. The other alternative would be going for a darker tone, and we all saw how well that went. At the end of the day the better idea would probably be not to try to resolve the issue at all.

[@doesntmatter6736]

@@Eichro trying not to resolve it is the way lovers of the source material would have had it. A 3D update to such a beloved game should have had a better camera system and even camera customization. Final Fantasy Tactics allowed the player to charge perspective because the true 3D terrain could obscure parts of the battlefield, but in a game with developers as passionate as those of Girls Frontline 2 (and as passionate as those of Advance Wars Reboot Camp should have been) a free roaming camera option would allow for greater appreciation of all the details in the game...and the default camera system in Girls Frontline 2 is so good that it shows off the sophistication of the graphics engine, the battle animations are not cutting away to a special battle scene (except ultimates), they are actually zooming in on and swinging around the battlefield!

[@SheezyBites]

The tabletop aesthetic could have worked if they had anyone on the team who had experience making tabletop games, but if you put a boardgame with minis that looked like that on Kickstarter you would just never make funding. They have niehter detail nor consistent human design, are kinda lacking in charm, and are very samey... Like, every third comment or so would be about how indestinct units were and that's just the people who actually backed it. The execution was just awful because Nintendo didn't care to put the required effort into it.

[@johnpaul-kz6bq]

Not gonna lie octopath traveler s graphics looks crazy. Shouldve been something at that calibre but still were talking about square enix. I think it was developed by se

[@linguotgr]

If I could throw one minor disagreement up here... there was definitely a vibe that the CO's were just playing games in the original. not the entire time, like when you are going after the "bad guys" its shows as more of a real war, but like the Sonja missions frequently had a vibe that she was just testing you, or messing with you, and when the mission ends it was all "Oh that was fun we should do that again someday". Or missions where no one really wants you dead but they are fighting you because they were bored or something. Now I will absolutely agree that making the soldiers look like toys is a bad call from someone who didnt care about the originals. But the source material sort of demands a bit of a loose interpretation of death and the horrors of war. So going for something realistic would probably be weird too.

[@lpfan4491]

Rivals remains hilarious in that way because bro goes "Hey bud, the war is over, want to yeet another bunch of resources and soldiers into the dump?" and Andy goes "yeah sure, man. Let's go."

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

I agree strongly.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

@@lpfan4491 This can easily be abstracted as military exercises, which is something done in real life, where units within the same militaries, or units between allied militaries, engage in practice battle to train each other, but without killing each other or destroying shit. Blank ammunition, signal flares and chalk puff charges for imaginary explosions and bombardments, etc, etc. It'll cost some money and resources to do that, but it's very productive, it can help you discover and then try to figure out how to overcome weaknesses in your military.

[@lpfan4491]

@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine Tbh, due to limitations in detail and complexity, stuff was still blowing up in-game as usual in training content and this mission. They probably could/should have adjusted that in the remake, but that would require adding additional detail that didn't exist before, so we can't have that.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

@@lpfan4491 It wouldn't be all that much work for those kinds of details, but it sounds like this project wasn't necessarily managed too well.

[@Khorvalar]

The situation with contract employees at Nintendo is completely inexcusable. I work a sanitation job in a factory and I'm sure if they took me off my job and assigned it to a new hire telling then to just "figure it out" it would definitely cause problems and while we have both seasonal and full-time employees on my crew, we're all treated with the same respect.

[@alexmendez3681]

Contractors are a cheap way to hold temporary positions that you know will be eliminated. If you ran a business yourself, you would do the same after doing the math. There’s no point in paying for a full time employee to do nothing. Bottom line is, if you don’t want to be a contractor then don’t accept the job. It’s that logical. What’s the issue here?

[@KasseCoronet6556]

@@alexmendez3681 The issue here is that there's a difference between contracted workers and full-time employees beyond the simple cost of hiring them, the biggest one being the the difference in work experience from being with a company for a long time. Take educational institutions, for example. For many schools, classes are not taught during the summer months, during which teachers are not effectively doing anything. But it doesn't make sense to fire all the teachers at the end of the school year and hire new ones at the start of the next, mainly because the "old teachers" will already be familiar with the curriculum; Similarly, a video-game development company would want to keep some of their workers as employees, even if they're not actively working on a project, because they'll already have experience with the work-flow and be able to work on tasks faster than a new contractor.

[@PikaLink91]

What hurts my soul is that contractors or substitutes are rarely treated as equals by their fellow employees. Even if you aren't equal in terms of status, salary, or workload, to make people feel wanted and appreciated and keep a high morale, I would always treat someone, regardly of their job status, as my equal.

[@WillieDangerously]

The "Nintendo Red Badge" discrepancy is something I've heard talked about multiple times. I've heard that contracted workers are treated starkly and negatively different from regular company employees and given such dubious job security. It's an absolute shame, and I pray this is a model we can work away from in the coming future.

[@mfmr200]

typical japanese company. typical japanese culture too

[@Zyaire286]

Whoa! I didn’t expect an employee would discuss the information all of a sudden!

[@hemmydall]

Former employee, and let go at least a year ago now.

[@fieldystick]

Former employee, and clearly former for a reason.

[@hemmydall]

@@fieldystick I don't begrudge them their opinions, or that they gave recommendations to the dev team. That's fairly common in QA. Talking about it after NDA is totally fine too.

[@quirbiefe7544]

I still play Reboot Camp all the time at this point (I want to get a 100% completion, 300 points in literally everything), so hearing how much the reboot failed overall quite hurts. This was my favourite game back in the day, and still today. It feels so bad knowing that the Dual Strike and Days of Ruin remakes (or even a completely new sequel) won't ever be released. However, the fact that his game bring so many people to AWBW and helped build such a nice community... I guess that it wasn't as bad, I guess. Thank you for the video Mangs! I'm glad to find your channel years ago. :) That direct when the Reboot was announced still resonates in my head. Keep up with the good work.

[@ZX-Gear]

I have to admit. I kinda like the spinoff that Days of Ruin tried to be and how they did their COs and CO Powers. Having a CO hijack a unit to play on the battlefield was a fun addition.

[@DarkArrowKAiN]

M@@ZX-Gearme too. Only reason why i dont Play IT that much are many Missing classic maps and too few COs

[@ZX-Gear]

@DarkArrowKAiN Well Days of Ruin was a Spin-Off/Reboot of sorts.....yeah.....I am pretty depressed now.

[@lehran2516]

IDK how anyone thought this game was ready to launch without a complete multiplayer. It was sent out to fail.

[@Clavus]

This Anvil guy went through so much trouble to keep his identity secret yet immediately gives identifiable information in his first answer by describing the exact bug he reported. Wayforward would only need to check their bug database to find the person in question.

[@Ardefisty]

Oooh boy it would be SO BAD if an employee ACCIDENTALY LEAKED Adder's original theme. That could be the worst please don't do that nooooo please doooon't!

[@RatedB1]

man this did a great job of clarifying my dislike of the new artstyle that I had a hard time putting into words.

[@Mintcar923]

Seems conspiratorial how this being a war game is an issue but isn’t with all the gazillion other war themed games..

[@GaussianEntity]

It's Nintendo logic. Nintendo really, REALLY hates bad press so they avoid it at all costs, even if the potential for bad press is unfounded.

[@A-ii5dp]

IKR, this always felt bad to me. Like they really think Advanced Wars is going to get flak, but now CoD, Battlefield, or ANY of the other hundreds of wars games released around that time? Its just so much nonsense. I'm almost convinced that the 'real' reason was they needed to work on it more because it was a buggy mess.

[@GameAW1]

The second that Anvil essentially said Shantae is only successful because she is sexy is the second I disregard any and all that this person says as irrelevant. We've seen many, MANY games with very sexified designs and characters go nowhere fast, and yet Shantae manages to get some representation in freaking SMASH BROS. Its not because she has boobs, Anvil. Its because she has fantastic games. And you would know this if you actually played them instead of dismissing them as fanservice with no substance.

[@TARINunit9]

I can see both sides of the argument here. Anvil claims the original jiggle physics were outright broken, like in a "would have been changed regardless" kind of way. And remembering classic Sami, she was not really a jiggly kind of character; the bouncy "WayForward Energy" works way better on Nell than Sami. But the notion that WayForward was "too comfortable" with "disrespectful" content doesn't match up with changes they have made to Shantae herself. I've been a long-time fan of Shantae and they have been knocking it out of the park in every way. The fanservice is obviously there but she has never been a "slobber all over this hunk of of meat, big boy" kind of character, Shantae got her beloved status by being GOOD. (ok after the literal dragon slobber in Pirate's Curse that might be a bad example, but you get my point)

[@i-dont-burn-under-the-sun]

What hooked me to Shantae was that the first game was very similar to Dragon's Trap. Fuck this tester dev-wannabe.

[@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS]

Yes, I'm thinking not having a red badge isn't the only reason these people are looked down on.

[@SagaciousSilence]

I’m fine with the toy like graphics, but my issues with the game are that it’s hard to distinguish the units and the multiplayer options are disappointing.

[@SheezyBites]

If these were made as toys (or tabletop minis as they seemed to be attempting) they would be a laughing stock, if they wanted to make that style they needed to hire someone with experience in the field to oversee. Obviously the style their going with isn't going to compare with something like a Bolt Action minis on the map (although they could have gone for something like that when they zoomed in to the battle animations), but when Memoir '44 has more detailed and destinct minis that's a sign they hadn't actually looked at tabletop wargames when trying to design a game that was supposed to look like them.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

I think the 3D models are animated like shit, they look really floaty and weightless, which doesn't help when everything looks like plastic.

[@shinyrayquaza9]

Yeah I didn't like it at first but the idea of the "war room" grew on me, still would have liked a universal sprite option though

[@maximilian3544]

The problem wasn't "toy" per se, as the originals are heavily based on scale modelling plastic models. The problem is this new interpretation was made by people who are too arogant to actually look into what that entails and just used a gross stereotype of "toys" and not something like a tamiya 1/35 scale diorama (as it should look)

[@Twisted_Logic]

A friend of mine did animation work for the CO power activations. I should really ask him about his time at the company

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

Please do. Ask him if Sami's animations still exist somewhere.

[@Markynaz]

War, war never changes...

[@magicalcapi9148]

From the interview, it sounds to me it was meant as a quick reskin of an old game, like we have tons nowadays. Even when problems occurred, they still had to release it because it's Nintendo, and cancelling it this late, would look worse (in their opinion). Their main goal was probably to contribute to the idea that "Nintendo hadn't forgotten the classics", and that's pretty much it. We were never their target audience, in my opinion. "Company paying attention to its legacy" sounds good, so they did it.

[@SoushinSen]

I was a contracted QA tester myself and what the employee was described sums up the overall experience of being one. Our opinion mattered less than playtesters. The devs never take us seriously.

[@Alloveck]

Same here. It was always clearly a two-tiered system between contractors and full timers.

[@i-dont-burn-under-the-sun]

Or maybe the devs don't have time for everything because management and prioritization is crap. If you see devs like that, they'll only see you as someone that keeps throw shit on their plate to work on, nothing more, and ignore you because bills needing to be paid is the real priority one.

[@GURGLEGUY12345]

0:39 My therapist: Unbandaged Joshua Graham isn't real, he can't hurt you. Unbandaged Joshua Graham:

[@citramate3633]

All the information provided would be enough for the 'in the know' managers to pin down exactly who this guy was.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

Detailing the exact bug alone tells them exactly who he is. He's dumb as a door.

[@misterpayah7723]

A tabletop aesthetic CAN work fine if done correctly. Diofield Chronicle has a gorgeous art style mimicking a war council tactical diorama. I actually think something similar could have been pulled off for Advance Wars very well.

[@Pm3m_Dia]

It could work for a completely new IP not for an already established series.

[@Hone_mor2525]

6:56 This part hit me the most

[@ChillstoneBlakeBlast]

Same. One of the few times I think #TOTKSWEEP did more harm than good

[@hadoukenfighter]

The main good thing I have to say about this game is the amazing Music and that It helped get my Dad into Tactical games, honestly the time spent on the latter makes me happy it does exist. But damn do I wish we could've gotten a much better experience because this remake did the absolute bear minimum outside of it's music and it should've been atleast three times better than what we got.

[@andersalbertsson215]

The soundtrack alone was worth $60 to me

[@Chad-oh5ik]

@@andersalbertsson215 can I have some money

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

I'm sorry Mangs, but while this source may be legitimate, a LOT of his gripes really aren't. I'm former gamedev QA myself, and I've worked for both big publishers and directly at development studios. Stuff like there "only" being new builds every 3 days? That's actually quite fast depending on what phase of development you're in. Early on in any game dev cycle, you're not going to see new builds nearly that fast, probably once a week, and later on you'll probably be recieving builds every day or every other day. On average, a 3 day cycle is actually EXTREMELY normal and if that was what it was for the bulk of this tester's experience, that's actually pretty good. As for graphics: by the time a game gets to QA the graphics aren't changing in any major way. Assets were made many months or years in advance, as core QA is generally the LAST segment on any game dev project (there ARE exceptions, I've seen some and even been on some projects that had QA staff essentially in on the project nearly from the beginning of development, though usually these are online multiplayer only (or primarily) games that need to QA teams from the get-go to act as players to constantly test maps and server load etc). So saying he sent messages to WayForward or Nintendo after he'd been playing builds and they'd publicly released video to marketing is basically just an admission that he was being a jerk about something that couldn't be changed at that point. It's like going to a friend's house after it's burnt down and they've lost everything and saying "you know, you REALLY should've not left that pilot light on." Well, OK, maybe you're right, but that "advice" is way too late to do anyone any good. Complaining about Nintendo making "RECORD PROFITS" is also just irrelevant griping. Once you start looking into how Gamedev cycles are budgeted, these budgets are decided, WAY, WAY in advance, and while there can be some flexibility (it all really depends on the situation the studio has with the publisher, which is rather variable) just saying essentially through implication that Nintendo should've kept throwing money at the project becomes a silly and childish statement. Partially, because as a contract job by WayForward for Nintendo, whatever money was allocated to this project was basically all already spent by the time major delays or the war began - WayForward would've made a pitch to the Big N about how long this project was going to take, and they would've presented a budget, Nintendo would've signed off on that budget years in advance of development, given WayForward the bulk of those monies in advance and aside from possible bonus structure elements, there would've no more money coming out of Nintendo for this project to WayForward. They would have money for their marketing department and other elements related to selling the game budgeted and allocated, but the WayForward money was undoubtedly given to WayForward to then be managed by WayForward, so if WayForward wasn't hitting their deadlines, that ends up on them beginning to dip into their own funds and to start losing their reserves of operating cash to keep development going - this is how it is in the vast, vast majority of publisher/developer arrangements that I've seen, and I've seen many. Secondly, the *reason* Nintendo makes profit pretty consistently (but not always, as bad turns with the N64, Gamecube and WiiU have seen the company lose money for multiple years on end in the past) is that they DON'T throw money willy nilly at every game, every time and often cut their losses when something isn't working out, for whatever reason. Aside from the fact that throwing money at problems doesn't actually work unless you actually have a solution in mind ("moar munny plz" isn't an actual solution in and of itself), this whole project was very obviously a budget title for Nintendo. Nintendo just doesn't usually give Western Devs their IPs (and I should know, I once worked for a Western dev that worked with Nintendo on one of their IPs). They only do so when they see: A) enough potential international (re:western) interest in the IP in terms of projected sales figures, B) a REALLY good pitch from a Western Dev, and C) essentially, a promise that this isn't going to cost them all that much money (and this "promise" will be legally binding as stuff like budgeting is all written into contracts at the start of these projects). Since Nintendo sold Rare, Nintendo, as well as most Japanese publishers to be honest (though not, in my experience anyway, SEGA) treat Western Devs as budget game dev studios. They give them few resources and expect minimal though still profitable margins. Essentially, they absolutely expect less from these projects, so they don't put many resources into them either. So I can absolutely guarantee that there was never going to be any more money given to WayForward for this game by Nintendo at any point once those first contracts were signed - this was a budget title for them with low expectations for a niche audience, but hey there had been surprises before when this has been done (Punch-Out on the Wii, and Metroid Dread to name a couple), so they do occasionally take these gambles. Frankly, the Advance Wars community is lucky the game even came out - Nintendo has absolutely just totally shelved games they've essentially completely finished in the past (StarFox 2, for example). Finally, yeah it sucks being gamedev QA. Talking about the issues between permanent and contract employees (as he put it, the 2nd class status) is all true enough. I've lived through it myself and there's a reason I moved out of QA long ago, and would absolutely recommend to pretty much every tester to do the same. It's an energy trap with a very low, low chance of advancement, and aside from some potentially useful relationships you might make (some of my longest lasting friends are still with me from my years in QA), you're probably not going to enjoy your time there. Get out ASAP, and if you still want to work in gamedev, learn to have a sellable skillset - could be anything, art production, sound design, programming, marketing, legal, whatever - because QA is just gruntwork for warm bodies that know how to type up reproduction steps in at least halfway decent English (and often, not even THAT decent). But the thing is, that's NEVER going to change. Because QA work is, for the gaming industry anyway, the equivalent of being a factory worker who pulls the same lever all day - i.e. it's *unskilled* labor. And no unskilled laborer is EVER going to have the same negotiating power as skilled labor, and THOSE are all those "first class" employees. Those folks all went to schools or built up portfolios to demonstrate that they have legit skills in *something* so they're able to negotiate their value with management by withholding their potentially very valuable and harder to replace skillsets if they don't get what they want. Testers, on the other hand, are eminently and completely replaceable. Especially since nearly every 18-24 year old male in the past 30 years hears "you get to play video games all day AND you get paid!" and says "sign me up please!" You'd never be able to unionize such a workforce because 99% of the market is going to scab on you in a heartbeat and even if you attempted it, you'd see the company just switch their QA solution to a new group of employees in a different country (I've been a part of and seen internal American QA teams that have been replaced with QA teams in Canada, Ireland, India and Hong Kong). And while I didn't mean to get into the fundamental labor politics of this angle of GameDev, Mangs, it's kind of important because you really need to realize that this guy is, again, probably totally legit, but he's also REALLY, really, got some blinders on. He's spouting a LOT of naive stuff, and while it's pretty unlikely anyone's going to care enough to sue him to death over breaking any NDA contracts (I once saw a fellow tester write a full GameFAQs guide early based on their experience with an in-development title and not even get fired for it), and I'm going to wish him well in his endeavors to make his own game, I'd suggest his current attitude is rather inexperienced and will not take him far in gamedev if he ever wants to work with more people than just himself.

[@Mangs1337]

I literally say in this video "Anvil is just one guy, and it's not fair to judge a game from the opinion of one developer" This is just an interview with someone who worked on the game, and thus may have some insights into it. I never said all his criticism was 100% valid, this was never implied in any way.

[@claudio3431]

Thanks for the detailed input. I see your comment as a great way to balance this source of information from someone who also happens to work in the industry. I personally have some issues with his complains about being a contractor but also breaking the NDA disclosure. Not like it should invalidate his opinion but it just gives a bad impression and actually works against what he is complaining. By acting with such irrational behavior, he is making a point for companies to never trust these employees and tream them as disposable or as second class workers.

[@rishnix]

@@Mangs1337 I don't think this guy was criticizing you Mangs. I think it was more of a "Okay, you heard Anvil's side of things, well now here's the other."

[@HerrCron]

Any leaks on any project I've ever worked on has always come down to a kid in QA with a chip on their shoulder, @mangs1337 just found someone that shares the same chips that he does and was tangentially involved with the development of the game. Pretending that this is "just some guys opinion" is a joke.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

Thanks, your input is a million times better. Anvil is honestly just a stupid a$$hole judging by his words and attitude.

[@DarkOrderSolDjango]

This is why I've quit being a playtester for big names: In the end you get no respect for your work and most of your suggestions can just be tossed away, then they complain because their game flopped, meaning your hard work on the project was just a waste (well you get paid but the game is garbage), that's why one of my hobby is being a playtester for indie devs, with a big imagination and the hunt for finding secrets even dev/devs don't know about (bugs/glitchs). As ANVIL said checking the pulse of the game and knowing what kind of players you are targeting is important, but sadly on the chain of commands we are just footsoldiers so they don't care what we have to say on that matter because they are the strategist, then when their game flopped you can even get blamed for their mistakes, meanwhile you just want to scream "I TOLD ! I F******* TOLD YOU BUT YOU DIDN'T LISTEN !", it's very frustrating knowing that you were right but because a damn idiot have more power than you in the project it get destroyed. In the end I think I've avoided the worst: While we don't get any glory at least all of our hardwork don't go into one person as if he made the game alone...... so I understand ANVIL this is a hard job where there is no glory and during Covid I can imagine how bad it must have been. I'm glad I didn't buy reboot camp, for 40$ maybe, and that's a small maybe because I could just play the GBA version since online is garbage (and we got AWBW), so imagine paying 60$ for that ? Lol. There is one question I would have liked to see: Does ANVIL think that Nintendo will do another Advance Wars game ? While we can guess than the game flopped they can cut a lot of corners for AW:DS, by that they can re-use the same engine and units, cut VA for cost unless they have the rights to re-use voices for activating power but can cut VA in the main story (granted it's not even fully voiced), also doing all of the above they can have just a little QA team just to test the new units and mechanics so basically they could make a low cost AW game that could bring them cash, and they could use more time to make a better multiplayer game which would be a strong point. Now some would say that Nintendo would never continue with AW but a few years ago when I told that Konami would make an MGS3 game no one believed me, guess what ? Now they are doing a remaster/remake called MGS DELTA, even my contact at KONAMI was surprised when I've said something like "Alright tell me about that MGS3 game :3", he probably was pale when he confirmed me and asked where he could find the leaks and I said that I was guessing because Konami could cut corners and still make a profit, so AW can still have a futur even without spending GTA6 budget and they could even earn more cash with AW:RC if they did something.... :3 Good luck in the futur ANVIL.

[@clownplayer7265]

You think part of the reason why a lot of current days are released in such a bug infested state is because less people decide to become testers because of the stigma?

[@DarkOrderSolDjango]

@@clownplayer7265 Well sadly it's more complex than that, QA teams evolved just like video games evolved, we had console games and PC games, then mobile games, internet, microtransactions, MMOs, so just on that the video game industry changed, from 2D to 3D, solo games to multiplayer games, and there is more context that need to be included for an accurate answer but yes it's one of the reason why nowadays we have games that are buggy and not just on PC, on PC it's even harder to have a bug free game because on PC you have like an infinite setup, between OS and graphic cards it's a mess so for PC usualy expect some patch because there will be day 1 bugs that usualy get fixed quick, so on PC it's quite complex. Nowadays due to how expensive a game can be some big company may just go with Early access games, so players can report bugs and such, if the player find a bug in EA they can't really get mad at "the devs" because the game is supposed to improve as it's not finished, we can't even blame the devs because they tend to "crunch", the deadlines may be unrealistic but the higherups won't hear it because they focus on the money side. QA teams have a hard time nowadays too because there is a difference between testing an NES game like Castlevania and testing an open world like say Metal gear solid 5 (I did discover a funny bug there), it's even harder in an MMO, a good exemple would be the infamous "The day before", it was made by volunteers and if you know about the game it's clear that there is no QA team, or only in names, because you could get past the elevators doors and one of the most basic thing a playtester do is test the collisions, I've bumped so many hours into objects just to be sure that the player can't break the game by going OOB, in The day before some people immediatly dropped out of the map...... all of this means that the bigger a game is the more playtesters it may requiere so that's one factor. As an exemple I've participated in an open beta from an indie dev, the game is called Vlad Voievod Dracula and I did find a critical issue: When you pause a moving platform can well...... continue moving in one direction forever.... I show it in a video on my channel called "Ignore this video". Finaly (sorry it's probably very long) but back in the days you had to release a game without much gamebreaking bugs because there was no internet so no patchs, a game can have many bugs and still be a success (Cyberpunk2077), so the short answer would be kinda yes but honestly it's a lot of things that affect videogames nowadays and you may have noticed but I didn't talk about mobile games: I've never tested a mobile game and it's only been recently that I'm playing them because I was afraid of getting addicted but If I got hired in a QA team I could tell you how the market is: It's cheap to produce and overall cost effective, but if you make a gacha game you'll need more content than a singleplayer game, so you need microtransactions especialy if it's a multiplayer game, then you.... OOPS sorry I'm writting a huge wall when it come to this ^^' Well nowadays gamers are more tolerant towards buggy games since they will mostly be patched in the futur, as long as it's not gamebreaking it's fine and since players report bugs most huge names won't have a huge QA team so it really depend on the context, but yes if no one playtest a game you'll usualy have some surprises and even with a good QA team speedrunners (and sometimes random players) can find a bug +20 years later, like the Boba skip in metal gear solid 1, named after the streamer who did discover it. Since there are also tricks like this in MGS2 (2 door skip) I always keep these tricks in mind, so being in a QA team is not such an easy job and I could write a lot more about that hence why I feel ANVIL. If you have more questions feel free to ask and if you can stand the wall too. (You have completed chapter 2 :p).

[@clownplayer7265]

@@DarkOrderSolDjango It's ok. Yes, it is admittedly a mouthful to read but I agree, if anything sorry if it feels I was trying to oversimplify the issue. I can tell there's many issues involved so it seems we are gonna have issues for a while. I do think the invention of patches resulted in some people using them as a crutch rather than use them for what actually were supposed to be: fix small but significant stuff to make the game much more stable.

[@oof5992]

​@@DarkOrderSolDjangobased

[@DarkOrderSolDjango]

@@clownplayer7265 Oh don't worry your question is legit, I didn't take it wrong or something it's just that it's a topic quite big and I prefer to be honest when I give in answer so this was the short version. Yes video games have evolved to this, that's kinda sad but like with internet we got good stuff and bad stuff, back in the days games were shorter and less complex so the bigger and more complex a video game is the more it can have issues, Star Citizen do have issues but it's on EA so players excuse it and honestly it's a big project, that's why people are more tolerant with bugs now because the playtime are bigger and we can always count on patches, and modders. While having betas where players can play the game they won't find as much bugs as a QA team would, because a playtester will really test the limits and check everything they can think of, but EA/Open beta doesn't cost much for a company but as such they get "a casual feedback".

[@newcheesegrater]

I think an interesting company to pick to make reboot camp would've been Nippon Ichi Software, the ones behind Disgaea, a game that's similar to fire emblem, but it takes the whole stats thing to insane amounts.

[@Alloveck]

Now THAT is an excellent idea. No doubt they could have matched the original art direction better, and even if they didn't try to match the original aesthetics at all and just did AW characters in Disgaea style I'd still have been quite pleased. Plus, they have almost nothing but turn-based battle experience, and from what I've vaguely heard about their business these days, I bet they'd have jumped at the job.

[@HanakkoLove]

Uncle at wayfoward Lets GOOOOOOO

[@GregAtlas]

The tabletop look never bothered me. The looks of the units looking super bubbly plastic-like did. If you want an example of a game that does the tabletop look done well, check out the wargame series, warno, and Steel Division. As for the contract work, i could see that happening. QA is often outsourced and it's easy to think less of the QA team when working on code or art for a project since some devs or team members might just think "oh, they're paid to play our game and have no idea how difficult our side of development is." Especially if outsourced to a QA studio where most of the team doesn't even have interaction other than through a liason. I'm not saying any of this to defend the company and its failures either. It's just a sort of reality in many parts of the game industry, especially when it comes to budgets and deadlines. Also the likely reality that since they probably won a bid to make the game as a sort of pseudo first party developer, not only were there likely budget issues, but also a matter of passion towards the project since it wasn't their own.

[@rebutterfly]

Unrelated to the anonymous speaker, I've followed endling, the Lead Character Artist of Wayforward, back when he was on deviantart. He had/has so much love for tactical rpgs and you can see his influence on the character art and animations on Reboot Camp.

[@benedict6962]

If they ONLY screwed up the artstyle or ONLY screwed up the bug stuff, you'd have a more sizable population defending the game. But music alone can't keep Advance Wars afloat. It's not like there aren't other games with decent gameplay and amazing music.

[@erichzannbusoumuzan]

It's surreal hearing Joshua Graham speaking about Wayforward with more spite than he had when discussing Ceasar.

[@yoshimallow]

Perhaps this was before he was covered in pitch and thrown into the Grand Canyon

[@simonteesdale9752]

Having bought the game myself, a huge issue was that it was a remake with almost no new content, especially at that asking price. I enjoyed playing it, sure. But I enjoyed Ephraim's romhack more. Because I've already played AW1/2. I've got my strategies, know how to beat the missions and how all the CO's work. I've heard the story before and know how it ends. A remake done right should have extra nuggets of content for dedicated players, inside jokes, the option to include preferred aspects of later games, new goals to accomplish and generally expand on the original. Not just paint it up pretty and call it a day. But, hey. It's still better than Pokemon BDSP, which had the same bugs as the original, and actively decided to eschew all the quality of life upgrades from Platinum.

[@trevorburton3290]

It also just looks worse than the original game. They added nothing, botched the one saving grace (multiplayer), and managed to make the game feel slow and look bad.

[@simonteesdale9752]

@@trevorburton3290 I will disagree on that. Sensei's new CO theme is absolutely fire. But basically nothing, yeah.

[@suntzu6122]

Honestly I would have considered buying the game if it were the original art style.

[@ADHadh]

While I agree that jiggle physics on Sami would have been a bit gratuitous, I am happy WayForward is still not entirely afraid of fanservice. That said back when I was a teen and played the GBA version I found Sami's pose very neuron activating and felt a little disappointed it was nerfed.

[@Prodawg]

To add upon the games pricing point made in the pre-interview thoughts reminds me of a quote by Justin Welsh; "You aren’t rewarded for hard work. You’re rewarded for creating something of value." and sadly this release wasn't something of value, maybe by the real world circumstances, or by issues during development. But after hearing what happened and how it went, I'm starting to believe that it's all just Nintendo's fault.

[@magicalcapi9148]

I think "all" is an exaggeration. Way Forward is not into strategy game at all, AND online. I totally believe they were also caught out of their element.

[@ChillstoneBlakeBlast]

True @Prodawg. Wayfoward did not help too

[@Prodawg]

@@ChillstoneBlakeBlast Blake Blast

[@imachangedname2978]

Blake blast​@@ChillstoneBlakeBlast

[@monsterchief117]

LOL Joshua Graham As someone who left the game industry, all this sounds legit. Contract workers and lower end employees aren't held to high regard. Most jobs in the game industry are dead end careers that never get any respect. I know plenty of people who never truly moved up and are stuck in the same spot when they just entered the industry nearly a decade later. Over saturated industry. He obviously was involved in earlier stages of the game if he was a tester, so it's no surprise he sees a lot of bugs and weird stuff. That is normal. It should be mentioned that a lot of assets seen early on can be placeholders. If I had to guess, the Adder voice and music were placeholders. I have seen at times that placeholder assets are better than the final assets. It is very likely that the placeholder Adder voice and lyrics were just done quick and cheap to get the idea and mood down but also just being good. It's unfortunate that Wayforward went with... KZbinrs for their voice acting. Hearing ProZD and Egoraptor in the game makes me cringe. The art direction they went with, especially the 3D and gameplay stuff, was obviously a result of design by committee. One thing that is truly sad today is that art teams have no agency (at their own job!) and have to simply listen to higher ups that are not artists. This is why despite better tech and bloated budgets today A LOT of modern games are so fucking ugly.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

Yuck, they got Prozd?

[@SukacitaYeremia]

Wtf? I thought Adder's theme was already really good

[@ZombieRommel]

I used to work in QA for EA circa 2011-2014 and what this person stated about Contract QA was true back then at EA, too. Contract workers were not "purple badges" and so your general level of respect in the office was low, your pay was bad, the level to which you were micromanaged was high, and you were overall treated as disposable. In my time, there was also a rule that forbade testers from talking directly to developers on many projects despite the fact that the testers were regularly inputting bugs into ticketing systems that would be directly addressed by devs/engineers. So it created this unnecessary buffer system where the person who found the bug would have to communicate to devs through some kind of management mediator. Basically a game of telephone. And this also led to a kind of serfdom hierarchy. A truly awful experience. I was eventually fired for showing up a minute late while hobbling to my desk on crutches. Getting fired was a blessing in disguise. It is sad to hear from Anvil that not much has changed in the interim since I did QA.

[@RollingBobbyJones]

I find it surreal that ALL of my quams of this reboot is addressed. In a small counterargument to "why the game looks tabletop" i feel that the game could use both a tabletop and real battlefield presentation because AW storywise has always had that problem of "whats real what isnt because soilders are treated like drops of water sometimes"

[@viviblue7277]

I’m glad that they make their bias very obvious and don’t try to hide it.

[@starflame34]

When I first saw this game announced, I only ever expected it to be $40 to begin with, even WITH a fully functional multiplayer. I never played the original, and just figured, "It's a cartoony war game made by Nintendo, it can't possibly go for more than $40." But you're telling me it's $60!? Yeah, I'm just gonna go back to playing Battalion Wars.

[@DeusExDraconian]

Anvil's hatred of fan service tells me everything I need to know about Wayforward today. They would have never made Shantae in a million years if it was brought up in a pitch meeting today. I hate those who hate fan service.

[@Krysnha]

indeed, Shantae make them money and make them what they are, also fan service, give fans what they want, because is fan who give you money, and buy the product but modern corporation, who are manage by people with silver spoon dont understand what work is and beleive all modern crap and beleive fans are disgusting beings who only want see sexy womans, totaly forgeting games are for escape, not to engange in more modern political bs. Not only Shantae, many games, of the past can not be made today, Dragons crown, one of the few good games in PS3, Variable Geo, many, many arcades characters wouldnt even be made today, watch street figther 6 all female characters fill off, and even to a degree ucgly compare with old version of the game. And yes also compare old Shantae with modern Shantae, old Shantae have bigger boobs and yes her hip in old versions are a bit more enfasice, also compare her dance, in modern Shantae she only move her hips, in old Shantae she has a dance for every transformation, with some be very suggestive, now modern videogames are more and more censorious to point i genuenly beleive they hate sexuality, but like Romanian tvee said, look in ay social media of people that hate fanservice, they have gay porn or furry porn and some fetiches that are quite disgusting, and nearly always gay. For me i am an old gamer i live in the golden age of games and i am happy for it, i just dont care modern game, even modern anime is bs, so well everything dies at the end

[@ZX-Gear]

@Krysnha I don't hate gay people but the community at large are some of the biggest fucking hypocrites I have ever seen. Is there any surprise each Pride Month gets less and less supporters each year? Especially with the Harassment Campaign of Pikamee earlier this year.

[@holdenroberts6973]

Imagine being mad that a turn based strategy game doesn't have awkwardly animated bouncing boobs

[@BuffPuffer]

I couldn't care less about fan service, but this former contractor claiming that "Shantae literally carried them by just shaking her hips" shows a lot of disrespect for the company that brought him on board. Breaking the NDA is another red flag. Entitled millennial attitudes have absolutely ruined the entertainment industry, and Wayforward probably did the right thing letting this dude go.

[@ZX-Gear]

@BuffPuffer Yeah....either Way Forward is out of touch with the licenses they are dealing with or that maybe the layoff here wasn't as unwarranted as we thought. I mean the guy did leak the game sometime between the Russia Ukraine Delay and thr game's release.

[@novaeclipse139]

I'm so glad Anvil spent a while pointing out the glaring issues with contracted workers. It really is a terrible system that Companies are just using to take advantage of workers who just want to follow their passion. Something needs to change desperately with contracted workers. I've had my fair share of feeling completely like a second class worker too. It sucks, it's scary considering you can get canned at anytime for no seemingly no reason, and you lose your passion for what you want to work on. This then affects the final product. Companies are too comfortable treating human lives as robot workers, and it needs to change. Or else there's going to be plenty more of underwhelming projects such as this one.

[@birdbig6852]

Unfortunately contracted workers is becomming the norm. I hate the idea but being employed in a company will be a thing of the past.

[@novaeclipse139]

@@birdbig6852 this is why we as workers need to band together and fight for our working rights across the world. We can't let them force us into this. The writers strike of this past year shows us that we can fight back against this "move to Forced Contract work"

[@alexmendez3681]

@@novaeclipse139Contract workers are a great way to employ seasonal workers or positions you know will be eliminated. You don’t want to pay a full time work to do nothing after the project is over. You also gotta remember that these workers like anvil ACCEPTED the position but then turn around and complain. I would tell Anvil, don’t take the job if you don’t want it. Give it to someone else.

[@novaeclipse139]

@@alexmendez3681 "If Anvil didn't want to be contracted they should have just not taken the job" Do you think Maybe Anvil tried to find a real full time job working with a video game company? It's not like people who work contracted don't try to get full time. Most of the times they physically just can't, so they take contracted work to A) Get into the field they want to be in and potentially be hired from within, and B)To financially support themselves as you can't live off of nothing. It's a very VERY competitive field. A lot of times companies will only hire full time positions FROM their contracted workers (as seen in this exact video) Sure contacted work may apply well to some time sensitive positions. But it is definitely not a good thing generally when company's try to hire Majority contracted work to avoid paying real benefits. It's worker exploitation 101.

[@KasseCoronet6556]

@@alexmendez3681 I understand what you're saying about Contract workers being a cheap alternative to Full-time employees for filling temporary positions. However I think that these points are somewhat contentious, especially the last one about complaints about the job. I'll try to break down these points and explain why they aren't applicable to game development. The first thing to understand is that, from the start, contracting is very different in the video-game industry compared to almost all other industries. Many game companies have adopted a development strategy that is as follows: When a game is being developed, in order to get the game onto the market as soon as possible, the management will force very tight deadlines and rushed schedules, and they will attempt to achieve this goal by making workers work long hours over an extended period of time, and quickly _contract_ (not hire) more workers to finish the project. This has resulted in these companies adopting a culture where the workers are crushed by long hours and unreasonable deadlines. (This is colloquially known by workers, media outlets, and consumers as "Crunch Culture.") As a result, company employees become burned out during and after the game's development, and contracted employees have it worse because they'll also be out of a job when the project finishes. That's the biggest problem with many game development studios right now; Put simply, workers are seen as disposable, and their mental and physical limitations aren't considered, especially so for contracted workers because the company doesn't have to care much for them, because as the nature of their contract, they won't even _be_ at the company afterwards. Finally, I want to address your statement about how you "don't take the job if you don't want it". Fundamentally, it doesn't matter if the job was given to you or to someone else; At the end of the day, they are going to suffer because the company made the *deliberate* decision to make them suffer, whoever that worker shall be. Workers aren't complaining about the job despite accepting the terms, it's that the _terms themselves_ are completely unreasonable. And that's not even mentioning the fact that a contractor might not even _know_ how bad the experience will be because, if the company has a bad culture or atmosphere, they won't be too keen on putting that on the job listing.

[@PassionFlame64]

I think Nintendo as a whole goes with the mindset of 'if it's not a Mario or Zelda title, then our focus won't be on it'. I really wish they invested real effort in it, especially considering the delays and all.

[@BigBlueandWhite]

I would like to hear that first version of Adder theme.

[@jean-bastienjoly5962]

"We can't expect God do to all the work" Honestly (lol), Graham voice with the music really add a lot.

[@Alexcobra861]

What's the story behind the jiggle physics removal ? I watched all the trailers and I didn't see anything. Or was it in the leak video? I didn't look at it. But at the same time, I'm only half surprised by this childish art direction and cancel culture in video games for too many years.

[@SchemingGoldberg]

They renamed "Yellow Comet" to "Gold Comet" because they were terrified of "racism", even though the name "Yellow Comet" is not offensive at all, and it was invented by the original Advance Wars developers, who are Japanese. That tells you everything you need to know about WayForward's mindset.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

@@SchemingGoldberg They seem like kind of a shit studio tbh.

[@GottaFistDemAll]

Yep, same here with the exact question in mind. I couldn't find anything different in those trailers on KZbin dated back 2 years ago.

[@iamLI3]

i tried reading all the comments here and searching but i still don't know , but many people are talking about this as if it is a thing that did indeed happen.... i still want to see exactly what was done , because while i never had an interest in sexualizing the aw girls , this bs is giving me a reason to want to now...

[@TheFinalChapters]

Oh dear, 90 seconds in and already putting identifiable information...

[@Forever_Zero]

It's sad for a series with such a passionate fanbase, but yeah, these games are just an afterthought for Nintendo, the fact that has very little presence in Japan is probably the biggest factor for the lack of attention and founding, and even then other legacy titles like Mother/Earthbound or Star Fox are also treated very poorly

[@MilesTheMan]

Dang, I was really hoping to get a Dual Strike DLC for Grimm's theme.

[@samuelanderson7992]

Holy shit I would kill for this game in a Batallion wars art style. That would fucking slap!!

[@poohbear01x48]

Battalion Wars gets no love and was SO SO fun to play. Really wish we got more in that series/vein

[@monsterchief117]

Honestly really baffling they didn't just make the art style a successor to BW's style.

[@times.new.ramen.]

Man they could just do an update with original sprite work and it would sell double what it did

[@zynux8252]

6:45 Advance Wars Reboot Camp never released in Japan. It's why it's so hard to find sales for it since there's not the usual Famitsu weekly sales report for it. Why they never released it in Japan is still a mystery to this day.

[@lpfan4491]

It was probably just determined that it was not worth it to keep supporting the IP in japan. For reference, the japanese version of Days of Ruin(The last game of the IP before it went into a hiatus before this remake) existed because it was the original basis for western localization, but was just...not released until 5 years later, when it happened to be convinient to release it as a Club Nintendo-reward. So yeah, if the series ends up proceeding despite the meh results of this, it will probably not release in Japan for a long time, if ever again.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

That grim, huh. They really had zero confidence in it as a product, and they really did send it out to die, which makes the $60 pricetag even more infuriating. If they already figured it would bomb, they might as well have put it out as a $20 digital only release, it would probably have made more money that way.

[@globalistgamer6418]

I believe the GBA Advance Wars was scheduled to come out in Japan shortly after 9/11, but when that happened the game was withdrawn and only belatedly released years later in a compilation with AW2. This probably had knock-on effects limiting the popularity of subsequent installments and might be one reason why DoR and RC essentially didn't get released. The series subject matter, as anodyne as it is portrayed, is clearly something Nintendo has a huge problem with, especially their Japanese HQ, and makes it hard to imagine the series ever having a solid future.

[@yamatoko219]

Damm.....Joshua Graham really got around after new vegas.

[@merechimera9271]

Using contractors for QA is quite standard practise. Often you need periods of intense QA followed by lulls when you don't have something immediately coming out, so working with an outsource company that you can contract when needed makes sense. The alternative is an aggressive hiring / layoff cycle. Also, is it really the general feeling of the community that the game needed to look 'gritty and realistic'? I always thought the original games had a Saturday morning cartoon vibe, and that comes across perfectly in the aesthetic of reboot camp (i think the game looks amazing for what it is - though I agree it was overpriced).

[@rdrouynriv]

Yeah the soldiers and tanks always looked toy-like and the characters had a cartoony aesthetic. Could the style been executed better? Sure, but the style was in line with the original.

[@makohidari4723]

yeah. Last thing i would want is for advance wars 1 and 2 to suddenly be remade into gritty and realistic games

[@portalguy2246]

Yeah the one thing that turned me off of days of ruin for a while were the graphics, didn’t like how gritty and brown everything was. I didn’t like the graphics of reboot camp but that’s cause I don’t like the cheap 3D plastic look, I would’ve loved if this game was 2D but still looked colorful like the older games

[@lasselen9448]

So uh... Every single issue he talked about... We have that same issue where I work. Except the Sami bit. It's like every non-indie developer has these issues. It's scary...

[@Fernybun]

Hubris, my friend, it crashed the game industry back then, it will crash it again in the future.

[@MrMariosonicman]

damn, im amazed you also experianced unloading a tank into a mountain.

[@AtillaTheFun1337]

Am I the only one who doesn’t see anything wrong with the game’s graphics? I always saw the series as colorful and cartoony (days of ruin nonwithstanding…) I also like how they put a lot of details on the combat environments, especially how they varied in appearance depending on what other kinds of tiles are nearby (fight on a plains tile near an HQ and you will see the HQ looming in the background) Cycling back at the board graphics, it look makes sense to me that it’s taking place on a war room map. I mean an infantry is not as big as a city…

[@AtillaTheFun1337]

I will say the lack of proper online multiplayer is a HUGE knock to its longevity and super unfortunate.

[@FloofPuppy]

Even though I still am enjoying the remake, Wayfoward being like this is concerning... Them working on Clock Tower remake is now more concerning

[@rashidisw]

Modern dev rely too much on telemetry that they became less attentive to any proper manual QA testing reports.

[@masterchiefkenobi4821]

funny enough I'm playing New Vegas this christmas season and just yesterday finished Honest Hearths

[@agaifi]

If he said one bug he specifically found and reported to the team... Wouldn't that expose who he is to the higher ups? 👀

[@RedRemover5000]

I don't have strong opinions on Re-Boot camp, but my response to "go ahead and hate me [for pushing for jiggle physics to be removed from Sami]", my response is to do so. I don't really care either way, but the reasoning is trash and frontloading that by acknowledging that you know it will be unpopular doesn't make the decision better or worse than it would be, it's just another form of "inb4." Showing you anticipate something is not the same as refuting it.

[@Revkor]

complain about it beign too childish but remove the one clear unchildish thing means your complaint is crap. Sami is an aldult, a tomboy that wear tight tank tops. there is goign to be jigles

[@StarForceBelmont321]

​@@Revkorshe's only 16

[@Revkor]

@@StarForceBelmont321 since when?

[@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS]

@@StarForceBelmont321 physics still apply to 16 year olds

[@TheRealLarcin]

I am once again reminded that piracy is morally correct vs big companies.

[@lero4827]

Mr. Anvil gave us some good information about of the development the the game. I sure hope that someday a indie developer will one day will make an game that is as good as advance wars.

[@OmnipotentJC]

WarGroove is heavily influenced by Advance Wars. It's not as good as Advance Wars, but still really fun.

[@ADHadh]

Here's hoping for Warside.

[@PenumbraVIII]

You mentioned that the community can be strong for a long time to come, and were it only up to the players, that would be true; but how has AWBW dodged a DMCA from Nintendo or IntelligentSystems for so long? When looking at things like other fan projects, say, featuring a blonde in power armor or capsules creatures, Nintendo has been swift and savage...

[@brandonwilliams6119]

If you’re aware of the Mother/Earthbound series, the Mother 3 Fan Translation has been up for a whopping 15 years now and a recent remake of the first game called Mother Encore, just some other Nintendo fan projects I wanted to mention that have dodged a DMCA.

[@makohidari4723]

to be harsh. Metroid and pokemon are far bigger IP for Nintendo than Advance Wars and Mother / earthbound. They have far more reason to go after the bigger IP and thus smaller ones dodge the DMCA...for now

[@drrobotnik5265]

To be fair this one is a unique case, nintendo cant enforce this because they might be sued back over a long running unsolved issue relating ro rights with that specific game in the west. I recall a video from moon channel about it a while ago. @@brandonwilliams6119

[@ZX-Gear]

@brandonwilliams6119 To be fair,Mother 3 will never be localized due to some subject matters like the Okama Island not aging well for gamers today and do not get me started with how HATED localizers are these days. Plus Itoi himself has more or less jumped ship on video games entirely. Mother 3 will never be able to be localized officially cause Nintendo cannot be bothered to.

[@kingarthur3236]

How you gonna bring up Pokemon but not Pokemon Showdown, a site made to host online pvp It's the pokemon version of awbw and it's been going strong for years

[@brandonwilliams6119]

I’ve learned so much stuff from this, despite it being a lot to take in and think about, it was still very fun to watch. The Anvil Voice felt fitting with all he had to share with his time and experience on the development of the game, also I wouldn’t put it past Nintendo for caring about it just because it’s not big like their other franchises, still doesn’t excuse the $60 price tag, Sega did the same thing with Sonic Superstars which is just another 2D side scroller like all other classic sonic games from the 90s.

[@anonanonymous9670]

The funny thing about Superstars is that it's $60 even though Mania was only $20 and had much more effort and care put into it

[@poohbear01x48]

I would be super curious to see if there’s a way to remake advance wars, but have a CO power that allows you to go into battalion wars mode for like 60 seconds and tear shit up indiscriminately

[@KuroiRenge]

I don't mind the tabletop aesthetic. Imo Advance Wars was always fucking goofy. To me, Days of Ruin's more realistic and dark atmosphere made it feel LESS like Advance Wars than the Reboot Camp does. That being said, my issue is, especially Yellow Comet, units don't look nearly as distinct as they used to. Recons, tanks, and md tanks all look the same, and the bombers and fighters look too much like the same thing. It actually made me take a few days longer on the last mission of AW1 because I kept moving a fucking recon and not a tank. Also the dumbest of nitpcks but why can't I play the color of the CO in War Room? Just sucks that I can't.

[@CR-Nova]

So on that bit with Sami...whether or not a game has jiggle physics is irrelevant to me. I take issue however, when it's done in "solidarity" or as part of some political issue (and in my experience, when something seemingly harmless gets "fixed" like that, it means the developer or publisher has an objective that is self-serving...especially when other areas of the game that need tending to get passed over). If something was intended originally and does not harm the game itself, then there isn't a need to remove it for the sake of only a *handful* of people. This game just deserved better.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

RELEASE THE SAMI JIGGLE ANIMATION, WAYFORWARD!

[@JJAB91]

Yeah that part stuck out to me too. The Q/A guy gave off similar vibes as one of those insufferable twitter types in that segment.

[@globalistgamer6418]

He should have had his request to be voiced by Joshua Graham denied.

[@metalsonic8888]

Sami didn't have jiggle physics in the original games, so clearly jiggle physics were not intended orignally. So you should have no problem with her retaining her original and developer intended behavior and not undergoing a pointless change

[@CR-Nova]

@@metalsonic8888 I did say "whether or not a game has jiggle physics is irrelevant to me." They still didn't give the game much needed help though (like in the online department, or adjusting enemy units for instance)

[@silvermasked0]

This video made me a subscriber. Keep doing content like this and you have a bright future. Salute Soldier! 🫡

[@arabiansensation]

At Microsoft, and other companies in WA (and maybe across the US but I am not a labor law expert or lawyer), you can only be a contractor there for 18 months. Then you have to wait for 6 months before being granted access again if not hired as an FTE. This is because Microsoft lost a court case where workers who were contractors for long periods of time were demanding the same benefits as FTEs. During COVID they did grant an extension to 21 months though. These big companies tend to leverage contractors and small firms to staff up for specific projects and then they don't have anything for those people to do after so they don't need to hire them as FTEs and can let their contracts expire.

[@GottaFistDemAll]

9:00 Way forward. A company known for their pretty/cute/hot female casts that provided a balanced fan services.... *removed the jiggle physics?* The same company that INTENTIONALLY made the 3D effects focus on nearly all of the girls boobas on Shantae and the Pirates Curse? HUH???

[@SonicFanDU]

Sad how this game turned out to be. This game & it’s initial hype got me into replaying the first 2 campaigns on GBA, war room maps in Dual Strike & watch AWBW replays.

[@UmbreonMessiah]

Oh. It's really depressing to hear how awful Way Forward was as a company after all the great things they've created :(

[@SukacitaYeremia]

I think the awfulness was just a snapshot of the company at the moment it was taken. Things all around were bad back then, so I would still give them the benefit of the doubt. Still, I won't forgive them for butchering the remake, that point stands.

[@iLegault]

That's just how most IT companies operate, honestly.

[@birdbig6852]

They scored an 82 in Metacritic so they "did nothing wrong". In that context, they delivered a good product.

[@jacobp.2024]

WE NEED THAT PROTOTYPE ADDER THEME.

[@HippieInHeart]

Very interesting and insightful interview, thanks for doing it and putting a video here.

[@DanBottiglieri]

I'm a software developer who was let go a few weeks ago, it's prevelant at the moment.

[@Demonhornz]

Re: jiggle physics - "Some women felt it was just egregious." Me: DIDN'T ASK.

[@RoyalKnightVIII]

The animation was not great so it makes sense it was cut but sexiness was always a part of the series, the US localizations always tend to be freaked out by it and censor it more

[@Demonhornz]

@@RoyalKnightVIII Western Devs: Women have to be ugly or covered up in current year. Japanese Devs: Well, the Western Devs seem to like censorship, so we'll approve that in our localization. in conclusion, I miss the old days.

[@victorvandermilte5857]

I don't think Anvil's experience being a contract worker is necessarily unjust. Contracted devs often make more money and get paid by the hour, in exchange for less job security. They are usually also employees of a contracting firm, who are the ones in this situation responsible for his career wellbeing, not Nintendo. Contracted devs are usually seen as "second class" in development projects because they are transient "hired help." It's like hiring movers to help you and your friends move. Of course you will naturally see the the hired movers as "second class" to your friends, because they won't be sticking around after the job is done. Obviously everyone should be treated with respect, but as Anvil describes he wasn't really disrespected, just not really seen in the same light as the full Nintendo employees, which is natural. From Nintendo's management perspective, he didn't even work from Nintendo. This is pretty typical and is a somewhat misleading thing to complain about. At the very least it is a bit naïve. The issue, and Anvil said this himself, is that hiring contract work is riskier for Nintendo as well, and it looks like it adversely affected the product. While you have labor flexibility, a huge amount of project knowledge could instantly evaporate. imo it is inexcusable for a company that primarily develops software to outsource the development to contractors -- you know that you are going to have a constant need for developers, so trying to be cost-avoidant with flexible headcounts in exchange for lack of talent retention is an insanely bad deal in the long term. YOU are the software company, YOUR EMPLOYEES should be developing the games. Otherwise you are not a software company, you're just a bunch of middlemen trying to orchestrate disparate interests and probably introducing a lot of friction to the process. Also Anvil was QA, which is a position that is usually seen as orthogonal to Developer. I resist saying that QA is considered to be a less prestigious position than Dev (because in my experience QAs are way more important and usually control the release operations more than Devs), but a lot of people use more easily acquirable QA positions as an "in" with companies that they want to be developers for, so it can give off the impression of being a more junior or less desirable position.

[@JamesTDG]

8:33 I think he's looking for Days of Ruin's style on the DS, and NGL, I must agree

[@ihatetheantichrist9545]

Well boys I’ll see you all in 20 years for the next one

[@LtCunningham]

It oddly felt like Joshua Graham(Anvil) was talking about The Legion(WayForward).

[@Raymond-Wu]

I'm concerned about Anvil's safety. It seems like he's pretty new to the industry and he may have given personally identifiable info in his response. For example, he specifically talked about a bug he reported - being able to unload vehicles onto mountains. While other QA team members could have reported the same, I imagine this narrows down the list of candidates and might be idenfiable with all the info in this video. Plus you pointed out that he was the one that leaked info before release...

[@rdrouynriv]

NDAs for contractors usually last for a year or so. He's probably fine if he read his contract and waited the proper amount of time.

[@drrobotnik5265]

Anvil specified they are now working indie, probably because of shit treatment from working in industry.

[@Raymond-Wu]

​@@rdrouynrivdoesn't discount the concern about info being leaked before launch

[@rdrouynriv]

@@Raymond-Wu Yeah, he could get blackballed if his bosses find out but I doubt he revealed anything important here. Higher ups are mostly concerned with trade secrets and sales numbers not office drama.

[@arcturus64]

Joshua's voice makes this sound so badass. New Vegas for life.

[@vaulttraveler]

I am not a particular hardcore fan of yours but I stumbled over you channel years ago and got nostalgic about Advance Wars, when the Reboot was announced the first thing was looking for your reaction and I was blissful that you got your favorite game remade. I am playing videogames for over 3 decades and I also had lots of good and bad memories from this hobby. Anyway, I am sorry that version f advance wars disappointed you so much. Just speaking from one fan to another here. Anyway wish you all the best, cya.

[@Kagawwy]

Damn, I didn't know Joshua Graham worked at WayForward.

[@increbidel4685]

Mildly suprised to see Nintendo Union-busting Edit: hmmm maybe not actually

[@hemmydall]

I wonder if this is from the NA side of things, or the actual main branch. NA Nintendo doing union busting wouldn't surprise me at all.

[@rdrouynriv]

Tech and business/corporate jobs aren't unionized in the US. I have no idea what this guy is talking about.

[@X2011racer]

​@@hemmydallReggie Fils Aime hinted that that was the case, and he had no say in it.

[@yoshimallow]

I'm shocked. SHOCKED. ...well not that shocked.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

There can be no unionizing for basic playtesters because they're virtually always unskilled and replaceable labor with zero negotiating power, there'll be millions and millions of scabs who'll defeat the point of your union if you try.