The REAL Reason AlphaDream Went Bankrupt...

it all started about a month or two ago when I was still researching for the Big Bang Block video then it finally clicked hey why haven't I looked into the company reviews of alpad dream it would be a good way to get more insight about the place and maybe even an answer or two revolving the mystery that is the last few years at the company obviously yes Alpha Dream simply went bankrupt but it was still confusing beyond that what projects for switch and PS4 games were they hiring for how did they accumulate such an immense amount of debt even in 2018 before the Bowser's Inside Story remake flopped we knew the super star soer remake and paper jam weren't as successful but even then being in over $4 million of debt in 2018 is massive it's those types of questions there was just a lot unanswered and admittedly it bothered me a lot I don't deserve to know I don't need the gritty details I just wanted more closure for the studio cuz they went out sad really sad that was my thought process any more details about the company would be interesting and fascinating to find out interesting and fascinating details I did find does this give the studio more closure yes but is it good closure not really I don't really like to talk about this kind of stuff but if no one else talks about it who will that's what I've been doing with this company for the past year so let's look into some company reviews of alphad dream now this is something I really need to clarify I'm assuming you all know this by now but there's a lot of crunch and overtime in the games and animation industry in Japan because it did genuinely seem like it was rough at Alpha Dream shockingly more rough than normal but we'll get into that later another quick thing to mention these reviews I'll be looking into our machine translated meaning they aren't completely accurate but checking through multiple translators and clarifying specific details with people helped clarify some important things something I was curious about even a few months ago was alpad dreams deal with their planners they seem to have a massive Reliance on them which makes a lot of sense considering a planner needs to make sure everything is organized efficient and on schedule alphad dream had urgent hires back in 2018 and I believe 2019 for planners reportedly compared to programmers and designers many of the planners didn't last along because of how rigorous it was at the company something I've noticed is how bad it was during dream team the audits basically the equivalent of things like communication potential issues and efficiency in this scenario got much stricter After Dream team's development meaning things were a lot more detailed so development got a lot easier based on various time frames it seems a lot of the reviews regarding crunch time seem to stem from dream team which makes most sense B's Inside Story to dream team was a major transitional period for the company they likely had to employ a much larger staff as they were transitioning to the 3DS and generally required more of everything more Sprite artists more programmers and so on I'm unaware of how common this is but at alpad dream they seemingly didn't even hire full-time employees technically everyone besides programmers would be contract workers until they finished their first game which could have been years and were tested to get promoted to an actual full-time employee afterwards another major point that didn't help in their downfall was how outdated their development system was it was seemingly an old-fashioned game Studio that didn't evolve the amount of work for a single employee was a lot note this employees time at the company was dream team and the employee noted that it'd be difficult to work there unless you were very skilled this checks out with how badly the overtime got at the company it was too much work for too little of a team the veterans were seemingly fine with this but not newer and younger employees thankfully overall After Dream Team things like training for new employees reportedly got better between Bow's Inside Story and dream team was overall the studio at its worst ironic because those games were some of the best in my opinion this review brings up a good point motivation you're only going to enjoy working there if you genuinely enjoy making games which shouldn't be the case regardless of whether it's the video games industry or anything else while I get this it's not a valid reason or excuse for overloading employees because they need to be motivated but it is true that it is helpful something I've noticed across reviews is some people bringing up working with Yoko shimora the legendary composer for the series it makes me assume she's a lot more involved than I originally thought she might have been and generally a lot of employees pray raised her in general overall the atmosphere at the company was good reportedly nothing like sexual harassment or badmouthing but crunch was still a real and big thing there so then I finally reached the last review the one bugging me the most which had major implications again important to note the times here this guy was roughly employed around bows Inside Story to Dream Team I'll just read out the review here positive aspects worked on Nintendo games concerns and areas for improvement I joined this company at a project Milestone and was assigned to other ongoing projects which turned out to be a terrible experience for several months with barely a day off up to where I'd be taking the last train home I was tasked with debugging thanks to a senior colleague who would hear me out I somehow managed to cope perhaps these things resulted in the company ending up being reported to the labor standards Bureau fresh graduates tend to consider everything about a company on the games they create but I recommend that you evaluate a company's working Atmosphere by carefully studying its website Etc there's a lot to unpack here this reconfirms the suspicion that most issues within the company were when the company transitioned from the DS to 3DS he says he joined the company at a project Milestone and considering he was employed there right around 2009 it's likely he joined the company right after Bow's Inside Story released the employee Rings up a good point about making sure to understand the actual company environment before you head into applying as there's important details like how would you be a contractor for your first 3 years and such now the big thing despite Crunch and overtime being incredibly common in the games industry it was so bad at alphat Dre while developing Dream Team it likely got them reported to the labor standards Bureau this could have massive implications now I am no legal expert especially when this is a completely different country we're talking about here but there's a few things that could have come out of alfad dream being reported it's very likely that the studio was mandated to do things like tone down the overtime and remember the review about how audits got stricter roughly After Dream Team was finished making things easier that was likely the actions of the labor standards Bureau in fact this helps us answer one of my original questions about the the company even before the Bow's Inside Story remake flopped how did they accumulate so much debt prior again I'm aware that the Superstar Saga remake and paper jam didn't perform as well as their predecessors but they still sold decently with paper jam still selling over a million units in March of 2018 alphad dream was in 465 million yen worth of debt similar companies at the time like intelligence systems were reported to be de free and I generally don't think it's that common to be in that much debt as a game studio in Japan my crazy Theory the labor standards Bureau find Alpa dream which didn't give them all of that debt but some of it and kickstarted their downfall at the end of the day treat your employees fairly and good things will come to you treat them badly and this will happen obviously not pointing fingers at CEOs or anyone there were obviously a lot of key factors involved in this and the higher-ups may not have even been completely aware of the problems within the company but regardless stuff like this is very important I'm making some very big claims in this video and I need to clarify there's still a chance that this review isn't real but considering the timing and how the details line up with all the other reviewers I'm starting to doubt it so what's the lesson we learned from all this love a company for their products never for the company itself I made that mistake and learned the hard way I'll still obviously keep making Alpha Dream related content hopefully not as much because I've been making a lot of it lately but I have a much more different perspective of the studio now it is finally good to have a bit more context even if it's bad context I stated in the beginning I generally didn't want to talk about this and I really didn't generally getting deep into this stuff doesn't stick right with me it feels invasive but in a scenario where it can lead to more context and clues as to what the hell went down in the studio I just couldn't let that opportunity pass trust me I'm trying to get out of making Alpha Dream videos but stupidly enough things keep happening I heard out about Big Bang block I interviewed Mr haki discussed the survey thing which was massive in my opinion and now I'm looking into this I'm going to try and slow down with it and hopefully be able to talk about the games themselves or really anything else I'm still glad I finally finished this video and I promise I'll start making more consistent videos soon I'll see you all next time

Channel: Lizardy

Views: 118,380

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Id: ECvhFoYEp0k

Length: 8min 15sec (495 seconds)

Published: Tue May 28 2024