Back when we were still watching MTV and waiting for the introduction of the feared 20XX's there wasn't really much for fanboys like me to understand about corporations and how they operate, specially when the medium was permeated by kid's lingo and the american radical approach to teen's "coolness" (at least in the west) which did spread through most of the surrounding countries on magazines, tv shows, etc.
There is not a whole lot to say about Blue Stinger despite being the beginning's journey for a lot of the folks that would come to work on Nier on Cavia after staff moved from CG due to the passing of Shinya Nishigaki, the crazy head of the company and lead director of both Blue Stinger and Illbleed.
There is a whole lot that could be covered, specially the crazy cheese - and I love it - music cd about Nephy energy drink released on Japan... but BS is a game funded by SEGA, why wasn't it released by SEGA in the west and not Activision? It is a fact that Activision did force a lot of bad decisions on CG for the western release, just like EA did with Shadows of the Damned, SUDA51's last decade's magnum opus.
Let's think about it for a second. An outsourced first party game (would be a second party, then?) not being published by the own company that ordered (which, in fact is not the "same" company, more on that later"), then getting completely bastardized by a big american publisher which pushes mechanic changes like they made the game themselves. This is like saying as if Nintendo, which funded Astral Chain by PlatinumGames, refused to release it in the west, then Ubisoft picks it up and fills it with tower sidequests and so on.
And... ON RELEASE. Yes, Blue Stinger was sharing the shelves on 9.9.1999 with its bigger brother Sonic Adventure, House of the Dead 2, NFL 2K. Feels life a kid going out with his father's children but from another mother. I know, business is business.
You see, if we use Nintendo as example, we can figure out that Nintendo of America and Nintendo Europe (and any other Nintendo that ever comes to be, Singapore, you name it) are naturally under Nintendo of Japan. This means that the chain of command is pretty tied to the Osaka office and the local culture. This has good and bad sides, and proves always to be a challenge. If you work in a multi-national or has already worked on, this may sound familiar when doing international meetings and documenting translation. Boring stuff of course.
SEGA, on the other hand, despite being a born american company, emerged in the japanese market, so it is natural that the rising sun arm would become the head and SEA and SEur would be eventually created down the line properly speaking. But they are parental companies, which means that they are part of the operations but are not exactly under that flag, in a similar fashion on how Nisamerica is to Nippon icchi, Aksysis is to Ark System and so one.
These companies are partners, which means that whoever makes something needs to prioritize "selling" the publishing rights to the other one. Yes, correct me if i'm wrong - I love talking to SEGA employees btw - but SEGA America is and has always been a client beyond a partner. That is why you didn't see Sakura Wars translated to English.
It wasn't a decision from japan like Nintendo's take with Fire Emblem, which saw it not being fit for western audience (just like chibi robo, custom robo, you name it, the list is ginourmous). SEGA America director board didn't see the appeal of this product to even consider localizing it. And when I mean localizing, read 'SEGA America buys the publishing rights from SEGA Japan for their region and banks the marketing, localization, etc.'
I mean, could someone else do it instead? Maybe back then no, but it did happen with Sakura Wars V, as SEGA of the 2000's was too good to publish anime girl stuff, they preferred western silly games instead.
So, due to the nature of companies not being as rigid as we think they are, these kind of insanely strange events occur. Of course some times the publishing may happen by another corpo because of contracts, like Nintendo with some Dragon Quest games on 3DS, but the bottom line is that... SEGA America felt Blue Stinger was shit.
But... Well, it isn't. You see, from the outside, it may look like a funny goofy crazy take on the thing mixed with Resident Evil, but it kinda is... but it is also good.
Do watch HyperBitHero's video on how Activision downgraded BS to bottom tier SEGA game, and people still don't know why to this day. If you have ever beaten it, you may not know.. but the savefiles are readable on both versions.
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