MazokuRanma said:
It doesn't matter, though. The developer can screw up every way under the sun and we should absolutely blame them. But it doesn't absolve the publisher of all responsibility. There are only two scenarios here: Either Sega didn't bother to review the game prior to release, which is negligent and deserving of blame, or they reviewed it and opted to ship it anyway, which is also negligent and deserving of blame. You can't just say Gearbox screwed up and absolve everyone else, the publisher still bears responsibility for the released game. If they were truly committed to ensuring the best possible experience they would have either shifted development to a new studio, or simply cancelled the project. Instead they opted to release that mess of a game in the hopes of tricking people into buying it and recovering part of their money. I'm well aware of the stories surrounding this game and the rumors that Gearbox siphoned funds (And yes, they're just rumors right now, we can't prove anything and it it's up to Sega to pursue the matter at this point if they choose to do so), but Sega doesn't get a free pass just because the dev screwed up.
So really it's just "rumours" and yet we're still pinning most of the blame on the publisher and you;re still going to use the Aliens game as more of a scapegoat to use as your reasons against a Publisher?, instead of gearbox who were the man and the tools, yes I'm well aware what Sega could have done, but were Sega the tools in the game creation?, no that was gearbox, the damage gearbox had done should outweigh the money Sega had given them, it was a contract they were legally binded to, Gearbox decided to just screw everyone else yet trying their best to tip toe with that contract so that they didn't break it so that Sega would then have no actual choice but to sue, of course Sega can still peruse GB but let me ask, what will that accomplish now?, because I can tell you now it's not going to give them 6 years worth of money back and it;s certainly not going to undo the mess that was mostly made by gearbox.
To say it's a completely even 50/50 fault is mostly false, one provides a contract and money, the other has to abide said contract and use said money in order to accomplish the creation and completion of what the contract stated.
I'm not saying Sega should get the free pass here at all, what I'm trying to say is that a Publisher can still help and isn't always the sole cause and gets all the blame by default, the user you quoted was implying that a publisher can help, you mentioned the A:CM incident and acted on that as if it was only Sega's fault and that the users opinion was flat out wrong and false, we have evidence from all sorts of sources, the game failed, tanked even, we know what's true, we don't need some court to tell us the truth when we've got so many sources that provide us the missing pieces as to why something became broken from 6 years worth of money and work.