Kingdom Hearts Series Not Relevant?

[WarpChaos]

So I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but to me, it seems like the series is not as culturaly relevant as it could be. What I mean by that, is that, of course the seriesis popular, but the majority of the fanbase is among late teens, or early twenties people. Pretty much any younger kid knows halo, or call of duty. But many kids nowadays don't know the series. I believe the major problem with this is that the series has been largely absent from the mainstream market. Sure, we've had a few handheld games, and whether or not you call them spin-offs is irrelevant. Sure, new games are always great, but handheld games don't have as much of as an impact as console games would. So, in this sense, we haven't had a "true", or console, KH game since KH2. There was reCOM, but that doesn't really count. Plus, the 3 years inbetween KH2 and Days didn't help either, but again, games like days and bbs are really only huge news for established fans. I remember reading an article in Game Informer a couple years ago about characters that shaped this decade. Sora was absent from that list. Why? Because he has been largely absent for much of it. Now of course, I don't want KH to turn into Call of Duty, or Assassin's creed and have yearly releases, but it does need to get back out there and in people's faces. Make itself known. I think this can happen by doing 3 things:

1. Releasing KH3 (Obviously) Now, other than the fact that fans like us have been crying for this for close to a decade, another "mainstream" KH game could push the series back into the limelight. We know it's coming, and hopefully it is not too far off. A decent date would be 2015.

2. The wait between KH3 and KH4 shoulld be no longer than 2-3 years. As I said, I don't want yearly releases, but If any series, even a movie series is absent for longer than that, it seems to lose people's attention. (Well, non diehard fans, anyway)

3. The series needs more prominence. Now this one may be more on Disney's end, but lately we have seen a lot of promotion for 1.5 at the Disney events that we weren't seeing for the other games. This is a good thing, and can help make more people aware of the series. And, as much as a part of me doesn't want it, if Star Wars, or Marvel were in KH, I bet Disney would be more willing to push the series forward, and possibly more into their empire (no pun intended). Anyway, more prominence is always a good thing.

So I think in this way, the series can become more aware to the public, and gain new fans, besides our friends or siblings/kids that we introduced the series to. So what do you guys think? Have you guys noticed this problem as well? Do you have any ideas on how to hrlp the series?

 

[ajmrowland]

Well, I've seen younger kids into KH.

But this seems a cultural thing. 21st century nerd culture seems only really valued in technology by general public, with very few general phenomenons being recognized by the likes of, say, the Today Show.

But I know that's not what you're aiming for. Point is, in America, even the likes of Dragon Ball-which is a name I've known longer than being part of the online KH community, despite not being a fan-will easily be invisible to people not really looking for it. It's due to japanese stuff being considereda niche in the west. Not to mention grown ups used to mispronounce Pokemon all the time when I was a kid,

Meanwhile, americans cant go anywhere without being advertised a Halo or Call of Duty game, because those are advertised everywhere and they are always treated as AAA, even being recognized by the News. But those games appeal to very general American tastes. Tons of people here value guns, the Army, and many only buy games that have multiplayer. I don't mean to generalize.

 

[rockram198]

I agree in the sense that there's been quite a large time delay on the subject of Kingdom Hearts III. Though in my opinion, all these "spin-off" titles appear to be setting up a premise for something greater and I wouldn't have wanted them to make the 3rd console game or "numbered title" without a decent story to go with it. Now that they've had all of these games, I think they can achieve that. And with the release of the HD remixes, the series' relevance and popularity is sure to increase.

I was pretty bummed when KHIII didn't come to PS3 since I bought the thing specifically for that reason because I assumed they would make use of the next-generation technology to make a more advanced and amazing game. But now that the PS4 is in the picture (yeah I know there's the XBOX ONE as well but as far as I'm concerned it isn't worth my mention) and we've had a taster off the amazing "Kingdom-shader", the game promises to be everything we've been wanting from a third instalment.

What would really help the series now and boost development for KHIII is for SE to finally finish FF versus XIII or FFXV as it is now known since lead Tetsuya Nomura has been committed to the project for what feels like forever. Once FFXV is out of the way KHIII should become more of a priority. I hope we see both games out as soon as possible!

 

[Wander]

Honestly, I prefer the fanbase as it is. The KH community has been pretty good, take a look at the Halo/CoD community and you see a stark contrast, yearly released franchises have that problem. So bigger community =/= a better one. As for being more prominent in culture, yeah it's not as relevant, but it's not completely obscure either, I have more friends who know KH than Final Fantasy (Which bums me out but okay), so I don't think it's completely irrelevant to pop culture.

 

[Moonlight Aqua]

I agree with you, and sorry to the younger members here, but your generation is lazy as hell!

I have two older nieces, one is 11 and the other one is 10, and they are starting to get cranky and acting... teenager-ish. They play KH, oh they do, but they don't want to play the whole game... all they want to do is beat the heartless... they don't want to read anything, just skipping the story. It gets frustrating because then they ask me, why does this happen? and it's like, "he said it, you just skipped that part."

Anyway, enough ranting, I just think they should promote KH a bit more, maybe in the mainstream channels or even in Disney Channel, I only saw ONCE, only once, something KH related being promoted in Disney Channel... I think it was KH2... so I mean, why not again?

 

[The_Echo]

Now of course, I don't want KH to turn into Call of Duty, or Assassin's creed and have yearly releases

Actually, that's exactly what's been happening with Kingdom Hearts since Days (and since Re:CoM in Japan). It just doesn't feel the same because of a difference in marketing and (in the case of Call of Duty) the games actually being different.

Honestly, I don't think Kingdom Hearts needs to be in the spotlight. I like having it be known, but not omnipresent. Popularity often ruins creativity, and I think this franchise is right in the balance where it's popular enough to keep it going, but not so popular as to keep it going forever.

However, the aggressive marketing of 1.5, and indeed just the existence of 1.5 will bring in new players and new attention to the franchise, and I can only imagine the hype for KHIII (once it starts being advertised) will be immense and nearly unavoidable to those in gaming circles.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some new faces show up here once 1.5 drops in the US and Europe.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

When I am completely honest I do not even want the series to become completely mainstream and overly popular.

When I hear Moonlight Aqua's example and add to this my own experience with "gamers" who play only mindless shooter games like Halo, Bioshock, Counterstrike or Call of Duty, I'm not even sure I would want players from these genres over in the KH fandom nor that those players would even want to look at KH.
After all, they're completely different genres and have differently philosophies behind their themes. KH is, even compared to Final Fantasy and Disney itself, a heavily idealistic series and one has to admit that in some cases it requires a willing suspension of disbelief and some deduction skills that go beyond looking for the silver platter with the information.


The fandom is already pretty divided and fierce as it is, and as The_Echo pointed out, besides the announcement of KH III the overseas release of 1.5 HD Remix (as well as 2.5 HD later on) will surely flush in some more new faces along the way.
KH by itself is popular enough to go on, but (to me) luckily not too popular in the terms of having to change too much to cater to mainstream wishes.

 

[SRKTAVRXAYGDM]

No younger kids? I have a three year old brother who knows who everyone in the game is.But yeah,
I see what you're getting at. Sometimes it seems there making the games for us and ignoring the new audience. Advertising somewhere where it'd get attention would be a first step.

 

[Moonlight Aqua]

When I am completely honest I do not even want the series to become completely mainstream and overly popular.

When I hear Moonlight Aqua's example and add to this my own experience with "gamers" who play only mindless shooter games like Halo, Bioshock, Counterstrike or Call of Duty, I'm not even sure I would want players from these genres over in the KH fandom nor that those players would even want to look at KH.
After all, they're completely different genres and have differently philosophies behind their themes. KH is, even compared to Final Fantasy and Disney itself, a heavily idealistic series and one has to admit that in some cases it requires a willing suspension of disbelief and some deduction skills that go beyond looking for the silver platter with the information.

While I do agree that concept of people that don't want to play, maybe it would good to give new players a chance at the game. If they advertise and show it, it could get a new generation of gamers that will love the series as much as we do.

If you want a good example of a new generation, look at my younger niece and nephew, they are only 5 and 2, but they love Kingdom Hearts. I occasionally play the first game with them and because they can't read, I read the story to them when they have the speech bubbles. They like the story, and the 2 year old goes nuts when he sees Donald and Goofy, so I mean, while the older kids are just being kids and their generation is just so ADD that they can't sit there without killing anything, there's still a chance for the younger kids and the other kids who actually want to try the series. So while I don't like the idea of other type of fans, it's still fans and it can help grow the fandom more.

So I think advertising is key and if they do commercials of the games on Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and Nick, it can bring a lot of profit to them and more fans to the series.

 

[Ruran]

Honestly, we're too young for the whole "my generation is better than the younger generation!" brewhaha. Most of us are barely twenty, I doubt much has legitimately changed in the past decade. I can assure you that when this generation was younger it had the same "problem" of gamers that were impatient and only wanted to kill things too, they're just more apparent now with this generation because of nostalgia and enhanced observational skills. Not to mention that a lot of the games being complained about here, the mindless shooters, ARE last gen. In fact, most of them came out around the time KH did. That speaks more of the last generation than the current one.

As ajmrowland said, it's more of a cultural thing than anything. Americans love their guns, the Army, etc. JRPGs are well...JRPGs. They're meant to appeal to the Japanese market more than anything and people who happen to be into Japanese culture, which is nitch. Even Final Fantasy, which is arguably the most popular JRPG in the west and is just popular enough that it can be considered a household name is still beneath many other titles in the west.

/rant

KH hasn't been relevant since KH2 and even then it wasn't enough to sky rocket KH in Mario levels of popularity. Although, as some people mentioned I don't think it strictly needs to. It not a mainstream game but it's above cult classic and isn't in any sort of "danger" of being cancelled or anything. The people who enjoy it will most likely have it until the end.

Then we really have to ask ourselves: is it worth that much popularity? Many of us here will right away say "yes!" because we're fans of the series. But many of us are also aware that KH is a very, very, very flawed series. imo, I think KH is about right where it needs to be. It's very popular but I don't think it needs to be mainstream popular. It's not relevant to the gaming community as a whole but it's relevant enough to SE that's it's one of their bigger money makers because the fans do keep it afloat.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

So I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but to me, it seems like the series is not as culturaly relevant as it could be. What I mean by that, is that, of course the seriesis popular, but the majority of the fanbase is among late teens, or early twenties people.

That's not a cultural thing. It is a age demographic--a generational thing. Disney and even Final Fantasy continue to gain new fans every year BECAUSE of their "cultural" relevance, but the core of the fandom has grown up now. It's not attracting a younger audience like it used to mainly because the games aren't intended for children anymore.

Pretty much any younger kid knows halo, or call of duty. But many kids nowadays don't know the series.

Like I said in my statement above, it is because the series isn't really intended for children anymore. The core audience has grown up, and while the game is still rated E10+ and has Disney which children love, the series has long since moved on from actually being aimed at kids. Children certainly do learn of the series. If that were untrue, we wouldn't have 11-15 year olds on this website and the internet right now who like the series.

I believe the major problem with this is that the series has been largely absent from the mainstream market. Sure, we've had a few handheld games, and whether or not you call them spin-offs is irrelevant. Sure, new games are always great, but handheld games don't have as much of as an impact as console games would. So, in this sense, we haven't had a "true", or console, KH game since KH2. There was reCOM, but that doesn't really count. Plus, the 3 years inbetween KH2 and Days didn't help either, but again, games like days and bbs are really only huge news for established fans.

I think even if they had released KH3 years ago, and had been releasing more games now, there would still be the same problem though probably not as bad as it was. Each generation has something that they grow up on. Somethings transcend that (like Disney, Pokemon, etc) but not everything does. For 90s children, they'd say they grew up on the Rugrats and Sailor Moon and all that kind of stuff, but you'll hear a child born in the 2000s say they have grown up on iCarly and Hannah Montana, etc.

I'd beg to differ about handheld impact considering Days sold well over 1m at launch and remains one of the highest selling handheld KH games, and one of the highest selling DS games in general. So no, it isn't because it was handhelds though that does play a part in it. There was also a lack of advertisement of these games, a lack of importance put on these titles, declining use in PSP, barely emerging audience in 3DS, brand exhaustion, and so on. There is a delicate balance with all of these things and it is a mix of timing and interest that determines if a series will be successful.

I remember reading an article in Game Informer a couple years ago about characters that shaped this decade. Sora was absent from that list. Why? Because he has been largely absent for much of it. Now of course, I don't want KH to turn into Call of Duty, or Assassin's creed and have yearly releases, but it does need to get back out there and in people's faces.

There have been so many lists released throughout the years with Sora on and off them. By this point they don't even really matter because each writer and every news site will have their own opinion on a series and its characters. There are so many characters to choose from, anyways, and so many factors come into play when choosing these kinds of things.

KH already does a game a year, though. Nobody has really noticed for some odd reason. Days: 2009, BBS: 2010, Re:coded: 2011, KH3D: 2012, HD 1.5: 2013, and it is possible we will see this trend continue.

1. Releasing KH3 (Obviously) Now, other than the fact that fans like us have been crying for this for close to a decade, another "mainstream" KH game could push the series back into the limelight. We know it's coming, and hopefully it is not too far off. A decent date would be 2015.

Well...if we go by the whole "game a year" deal Nomura had set in place with Days, expect something next year and then something in 2015. The development team in Osaka is good with a schedule so if they are aiming for 2015, it'll come out 2015.

2. The wait between KH3 and KH4 shoulld be no longer than 2-3 years. As I said, I don't want yearly releases, but If any series, even a movie series is absent for longer than that, it seems to lose people's attention. (Well, non diehard fans, anyway)

We've been getting yearly releases, though. I doubt they will continue this kind output because the Osaka team will need a break and might even want to work on something not KH, but for now it has been the standard. I'm also pretty sure Nomura will have a more solid plan for the next saga when it gets to that point, so I doubt it will take long to get it out of they are determined to keep the ball rolling with the series.

3. The series needs more prominence. Now this one may be more on Disney's end, but lately we have seen a lot of promotion for 1.5 at the Disney events that we weren't seeing for the other games. This is a good thing, and can help make more people aware of the series. And, as much as a part of me doesn't want it, if Star Wars, or Marvel were in KH, I bet Disney would be more willing to push the series forward, and possibly more into their empire (no pun intended). Anyway, more prominence is always a good thing.

I can agree with it needing to have more promotion. The handheld games had a smaller budget, and Disney pays for most if not all of the marketing, so for those handheld games they weren't going to spend extra money promoting it. Disney hardly even promotes their own games unless it is a console game. The ad budget for 1.5 was probably a bit larger because it is a PS3 title, which is why we've seen more of it around. Also SE and Disney probably really need this HD Remaster to be a success since both SE and Disney Interactive saw some massive profit loss their past financial year. I'm not sure how big of a cut Disney gets from Kingdom Hearts, but I'm sure they would still benefit from whatever they get.

I...don't think Disney's motivation would increase from the addition of SW or Marvel. Their own films from their animation department should be strong enough motivation, but like I explained handhelds meant smaller ad budgets so they didn't really care. KH ended up selling fine on its name alone, so the brand is definitely strong enough.

KH3, a PS4/XB1 title that has been long-awaited by a huge amount of fans, will warrant more attention from Disney purely because they know how much money there is to be found in the game. Because of that, they will be more willing to open their pocketbooks for advertisement and events and whatnot. Of course, the game needs to be made before we will see what Disney will do. I would expect a completely different attitude from Disney now, of course. They have just as much to gain from KH3 as SE does, regardless if they add SW or Marvel.

Do you have any ideas on how to hrlp the series?

The only thing TO do is to continue supporting the series. Buy the games, catch up in the games, buy the manga, buy the art books and pre-order and tell them on Twitter and FB you want to see more merchandise and OSTs and love the series. Square Enix made the first move by announcing KH3. It is now up to the fans to show just how much they care.

It was always really up to the fans. 


 

[LightUpTheSky452]

To be honest, I also think what the main problem is marketing. Disney really hasn't advertised the games since KHII and partly because of that, a lot of people (who don't follow the series religiously) have no idea that games are even coming out. If they began marketing games a bit better (and it does seem like Disney's planning to do that with the HD collections and III), I think the fanbase will begin growing more steadily again.

However, I do agree with the people that say that the KH fanbase is fine where it is. It's very niche, and frankly... I'm kind of glad that the spotlight isn't on us, and that we are a closely knit, nice sized group. After all, KH could get a lot of hate from people for some of its aspects, and I'd much rather play my games in peace, thank you.

Also... I don't even really think that they'll need to worry about promoting the series too much until the next saga (when a lot of the fans that have sustained it all this time will be jumping ship). Right now... right now it's good. And though I think the HD collections might bring some people in, I don't see too many fans joining in at the end of a series (especially one as convoluted as KH). The next saga, though, where Nomura will have a clean slate and the games will be relying less on established canon... I think that's really when they need to start marketing like crazy again.

 

[Launchpad]

It's all in the advertising. If Square wants to hit the numbers, they've gotta advertise KH3 HARD. KH1 scored the highest sales in the series, and a lot of that was due to their advertising.

 

[WarpChaos]

Actually, that's exactly what's been happening with Kingdom Hearts since Days (and since Re:CoM in Japan). It just doesn't feel the same because of a difference in marketing and (in the case of Call of Duty) the games actually being different.

Honestly, I don't think Kingdom Hearts needs to be in the spotlight. I like having it be known, but not omnipresent. Popularity often ruins creativity, and I think this franchise is right in the balance where it's popular enough to keep it going, but not so popular as to keep it going forever.

However, the aggressive marketing of 1.5, and indeed just the existence of 1.5 will bring in new players and new attention to the franchise, and I can only imagine the hype for KHIII (once it starts being advertised) will be immense and nearly unavoidable to those in gaming circles.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some new faces show up here once 1.5 drops in the US and Europe.

See, that doesn't really count. Recom was a remake, and like I said, handhelds don't get that much attention. Not to mention this "yearly release" is another remake.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

See, that doesn't really count. Recom was a remake, and like I said, handhelds don't get that much attention. Not to mention this "yearly release" is another remake.

Remake or not, it is still something coming out and that is what matters. The series has never left the scene. It was the fans who left.

 

[Moonlight Aqua]

Remake or not, it is still something coming out and that is what matters. The series has never left the scene. It was the fans who left.

Which is why we need more fans, no matter the generation. I can't speak for my nieces age group, but I bet there would be some children of their age that would want to play it and others past that age. It doesn't matter if it's a yearly release, at least something is coming out and getting more fans.

 

[WarpChaos]

Remake or not, it is still something coming out and that is what matters. The series has never left the scene. It was the fans who left.

Yeah, but you get what I mean by mainstream, right?

 

[Sign]

Which is why we need more fans, no matter the generation. I can't speak for my nieces age group, but I bet there would be some children of their age that would want to play it and others past that age. It doesn't matter if it's a yearly release, at least something is coming out and getting more fans.

That's not exactly relevant to her post, nor is it solving the problem. At the end of the day, more fans is not something we need.

And uh... isn't your niece like 4 or 5 years old?

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Yeah, but you get what I mean by mainstream, right?

Of course, but Kingdom Hearts was never a "mainstream" title to begin with. Both SE and Disney were probably shocked that the game became as popular as it did when it was first released. They had no clue if they'd even be able to make a sequel because it was such a gamble of a game. It followed no formulas, was nothing like anything that came before it. It is a niche game that happened to get a very large audience because of how it attracted Disney and Final Fantasy fans to it, not to mention the all star cast.

You've been asking for what kind of solutions can be done to make the series relevant again, and this remaster coming out this year is going to help with that as will the second one. This is all a way to build hype for KH3, and we'll be sure to see more fans join the fandom because of the remasters.

So all that REALLY needs to be done is for people to start buying the game again and support the series. A fandom is only as strong as its fans, and new fans won't join in until realize there is a big presence of the already existing ones.

 

[WarpChaos]

Of course, but Kingdom Hearts was never a "mainstream" title to begin with. Both SE and Disney were probably shocked that the game became as popular as it did when it was first released. They had no clue if they'd even be able to make a sequel because it was such a gamble of a game. It followed no formulas, was nothing like anything that came before it. It is a niche game that happened to get a very large audience because of how it attracted Disney and Final Fantasy fans to it, not to mention the all star cast. You've been asking for what kind of solutions can be done to make the series relevant again, and this remaster coming out this year is going to help with that as will the second one. This is all a way to build hype for KH3, and we'll be sure to see more fans join the fandom because of the remasters. So all that REALLY needs to be done is for people to start buying the game again and support the series. A fandom is only as strong as its fans, and new fans won't join in until realize there is a big presence of the already existing ones.

Well yeah, no doubt the HD remixes will help. But in order for the series to become truly relevant again, I believe a brand new entry is needed, not counting the handhelds.