Working Designs

From Sega Retro

History to do

  • Much of this is already in the article, but I think this article does an excellent job at summarizing Working Designs briefly but succinctly, and more importantly, contextualizing them in the grand scheme of things.
  • More from the article, but this dang press release dude.
  • Everything from the Bernie Stolar To do section.
  • LOTS. Our page here is honestly pretty good when it comes to being objective, but the rest of the internet (and WD's legacy in general) has been absolutely trashed. Now some of that is deserved ofc, but a LOT of it is hyperbole. Now... I think that negative legacy is strong and notable enough to the point where the article WILL mention their common nickname of "Wrecking Designs", and their legacy when it comes to off-putting localization/breaking gameplay with changes/crediting themselves before the original team etc, BUUTTT: They are not bad people or terrible developers. I mean frick the entire Western games industry looked down on Japanese culture via localization with like- disgust and derision sometimes, or ignorance or novelty etc etc. And here comes one of few larger companies to actually do the opposite. Sega's Western history is a history of people trying their best and usually missing the mark, and WD embodies that entirely. Victor Ireland and WD deserves a much better legacy, and one that isn't hyperbolic: one that contextualizes their faults and mistakes within their efforts to respect Japanese culture and bring authentic experiences to kids. Their biggest tripup was when they approached the "how do we respectfully and authentically localize these games" with a liiiittle too heavy of a hand. Remember, you had entire industry of people kicking Japanese games in the mud - WD was one of the few trying to pick them up. Just because they slipped and didn't always do it the best doesn't mean they deserved to be remembered as the bad guys. This is rambling but something like that. Cut through the hyperbole of WD's legacy and show their true motivations.

CartridgeCulture (talk) 00:39, 23 November 2021 (EST)