of.fen.sive adj
causing displeasure or resentment <offensive remarks>
Frankly, I find that comment offensive.
Put away the pitchfork for a moment. You're assuming that being "offended" specifically denotes an extreme and overzealous reaction, a violent retaliation and/or a desire to abolish, or at the very least, some accusation of malice by the offending party. None of that is by any means true.
Then why do I see the complete opposite in so many Mega Man fans today? They've given me sufficient context to define how they've been offended better than a dictionary can.
I may take offense to the fact that you are telling others how to feel
By the way, I think it's a little odd that you're telling me I'm the one with the pitchfork. That's the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it?
but that doesn't mean I'm going to join a bandwagon against you, ostracize you, otherwise be a dick to you, encourage my friends to boycott your business, or any other such nonsense. Holding intelligent and constructive conversations with you does not require that you personally approve of my feelings, and there's no reason for me to pretend that it does. Finding something offensive is a personal, subjective matter. To what extent that offense goes and what type of reaction it warrants, that too, is up to the individual.
The problem is that with this state of affairs between Capcom and Mega Man fans, it hasn't remained personal. It's become endemic and paraded around for the wrong reasons. I'm not liking what I'm seeing, and I wanted to call people out on that. I know what people are mad about, but as far as I can see it, something like BBAMM is just an available scapegoat.
Parodies are only funny if they are not being passed as a replacement for the original work, otherwise they are seen as ridicule.
What reason does anyone have to believe that a parody like BBAMM would replace Mega Man? Maybe for an incredibly short stint that some Mega Man fans won't live down, but so far a lot of people enjoyed what was pretty much a cameo throwback. And some of them are Mega Man fans who wanted Legends 3. To each his own, I guess, but I think a lot of Mega Man fans are overreacting.
And that's why many a gamer find BBAMM to be offensive: Because the "genuine" Mega Man has been MIA in video games for the last couple of years after numerous lost opportunities.
Which is a shame, but Mega Man is far from gone. He's shown up in NamcoXCapcom and TatsuVSCapcom and starred in Mega Man 9 & 10, and now ([tornado fang]ing finally) X is showing up in Project X Zone. I'm not saying people should be satisfied with all this, but suffice it to say that Mega Man is not MIA. Just on hiatus.
It should come as no surprise that context plays a huge part in what does and doesn't bother someone. For the last 23 months gamers have been looking to Capcom for some sign of the blue bomber's stability after Inafune's departure, and Capcom's answer has been the cancellation of everything we looked forward to, plus BBAMM in a fighting game. Why is it surprising that such a situation upsets people?
Honestly, it isn't surprising. It's just a bit disappointing. Why grump about it when you can try enjoying it instead? It is at least
a Mega Man in a fighting game rather than no Mega Man. It's also the most appropriate Mega Man for that kind of game: a silly grabbag of characters in a wacky fighting game. BBAMM was just the best fit for SFxT, even if he doesn't perfectly appeal to our hero worship. If you would've rather have had no Mega Man there, that would not have made sense. Who else would they have gotten to counter Pac-Man's appearance in the game? Captain Commando? Then all 5 of the Commando fans would've been happy, but we'd still have a shitload of pissed of Mega Man fans who are (understandably) desperate for attention, but don't understand that Capcom doesn't revolve around Mega Man--especially not now. They don't have to like him, but they can at least acknowledge him as *a* Mega Man. Specifically a different Mega Man than has ever been in a fighting game before.
Speaking of which, just about every iteration of Mega Man has shown up in a fighting game already. The entire MvC series sans MvC3 has had at least two Mega Man characters if not three, and Mega Man also cameo'd as a fully playable character in Cannon Spike some time back. Then Mega Man EXE showed up in Onimusha Blade Warriors alongside Copy Zero, who also showed up in Capcom vs SNK: SVC Chaos (whereas X showed up in a chibi card battle VS game) Meanwhile, Zero's also showed up in Tatsu and MvC3, and most everyone considers him an honorary Mega Man character because he's
jush sho cooool and got his own spinoff series.
I know this is where you're going to cite bad timing, and that's fine, but beyond reparations for the mishandling of Legends 3, I don't expect anything more from Capcom. At this point, I'd be happy if they did something cool or fun with the franchise, even if it means giving the washed up old cover art man some time in the sun. At least he'll give the franchise's heavy hitters some time to relax, but relaxing seems far beyond what a lot of Mega Man fans are content with. Like you said, that's a personal matter, but personally, I think they should calm down and refocus their anger.
We all know what BBAMM was intended to be: a friendly jab at our fond memories. What he turned into was a mocking reminder of what was ripped away from us. The exact same action holds a vastly different meaning depending on the setup, and the one fully and solely responsible for that setup is Capcom. So why shouldn't the fans be upset with Capcom?
See, but I never said people shouldn't be upset at Capcom. I'm just criticizing what the aim of that anger is. BBAMM isn't the target. It shouldn't even be in the peripheral vision. At this point, he's just a fun cameo that not everybody likes, which is fine. If he becomes more than that, though, I think it'd help if the fans had a bit of lucidity about their own history: every new series beyond either Classic or X was met with some level of extreme negativity or pessimism, and they were all usually around a time of uncertainty for the series. After Classic, people were tired of Mega Man and Capcom had to think of something new to do. After X was headed for the dirt and Pokemon was getting popular, Capcom decided to shift gears to Mega Man Zero and Battle Network, both of which are arguably the most popular Mega Man series to date. This was shortly after Legends came and went without a lot of fanfare. Then we get a slight resurgence of the X series followed by Star Force and ZX shortly afterwards, and after that very brief period of productivity, Capcom just was not seeing a lot of return on the series for their efforts, limp as they might have been. I don't doubt that Capcom painted themselves into a corner when they decided to bank on sequel after Mega Man sequel, but isn't it safe to say that they were responding to what we wanted as fans? Meaning that maybe we're just not as profitable or meriting as much attention as we'd like to think.
Yeah, this is all bad timing, but it also coincides with a resurgence of some other old Capcom franchises that people love: Resident Evil and Street Fighter. It makes sense that they'd be focusing more on where the money is, even if their decisions with how to handle these investments are so short-sighted and myopic that they seem to be sabotaging their own success--like they did with Mega Man. What makes us think in our wildest dreams that they'd treat Mega Man any better, or differently? Is it really reasonable for us to be
jealous of either Resident Evil or Street Fighter, considering all the cock-ups and betrayals people keep harassing them about it for? Look at what they're doing with Mega Man on the iPhone. Neat [parasitic bomb], right? And if I'm perfectly honest, Rockman Online didn't look that great at all. It had some potential, but it needed a good bit of polishing up, and also it's a game more suited to the Korean MMO audience that it is to Western folk. The best looking things about Online were the animated trailers.
So, yes, the people who are pissed at BBAMM, *ARE* pissed mainly because of Legends 3. I just don't see anything wrong with that. If we had some other "proper" Mega Man game to at least attempt to take the focus off, then maybe things would be different. But if Mega Man lives in gaming ONLY as a joke, then that's a problem, and I can't blame any fan who is bothered by that.
That's where we disagree. I understand Mega Man fans are bothered by everything that's happening to the franchise, but sometimes taking it out on everything they see Capcom doing (or not doing) with the character is a waste of effort and makes people look foolish and petty. Capcom just isn't obligated to do anything more with the franchise than what they intend, and fans' only recourse is to show their demand and never let up. The problem is that for all the times fans seemed to have made their voices heard, they've done more fruitless whining and less actual buying than Capcom would've liked, so the big company translates that as "little demand" and starts rethinking what to do. Sometimes that isn't the fan's fault, like when Capcom just puts out worse products than the last ones, but other times the fans don't give decent games a chance (see Legends) or there aren't enough to show interest in the brand compared with fans of other brands. Considering that good Mega Man games tend to outweigh the bad ones, this is probably a prime indicator that the brand isn't that reliable. However, this is also because Capcom's actually pretty bad with talent turnover and franchise management, so that plays a role in how much demand their products generate--and they also don't give some games a chance.
Ultimately this is in Capcom's hands, but we're the ones that are telling them whether they're doing things right or wrong, and sometimes, we're just dead wrong about what we want. Multiply by 5 different subfranchises and you have a situation that is sufficiently [tornado fang]'d. The fanbase is just far too divided, and Capcom needs to work on uniting them. That means giving every subfranchise attention, which is like reviving five different game franchises to please five different fanbases. Pretty tall order, Nordberg! You could cite this as a good reason to refuse any new game starring BBAMM, which I'd agree with, except that BBAMM is a warm-up act at best. Not a heavy hitter.