Clover removed from Okami Wii credits

By Robert Purchese Published 2 May, 2008

Capcom blames legal red tape.

Capcom has confirmed Clover has been removed from the Okami Wii credits, blaming legal constraints for the deletion.

The Wii conversion was handled by Ready At Dawn, and according to Capcom this left its hands tied.

"The credits were removed because they were a pre-rendered movie that contained the Clover logo," said Seth Killian, community manager at Capcom.

"We have no legal right to use the Clover logo in a game they were not involved with directly. We also didn't have the source to the credit movie itself, so we couldn't just use it and remove the Clover logo."

Clover created Okami for PS2 and former game director Hideki Kamiya is upset at the decision; not simply because his name is absent from the credits, but because the ending movie closes the game and conveys all of the emotion the team poured into the project over many years.

"I'm not disappointed because my name was removed from the game. Of course, we all have pride in our work; we all want to stand up and say 'I made this,'" said Hideki Kamiya in a translated statement. "Yet more importantly, I find it extremely regrettable that the [thoughts, emotions and messages] that went into the staff roll are gone from the game as well.

"I wonder who could have possibly been pleased with Okami's staff roll being cut?" he added.

However, even with legal permission, Ready At Dawn claimed it may not have been that easy to include the ending roll due to Wii data sizes - although it was quick to point out it would never "willingly" not give credit where it was due.

"As was noted in many articles about this, here at Ready At Dawn we're huge fans of Clover's work and Okami in particular. We would never willingly tried to not give credit where credit was due and made a point, everywhere we could, in making the Wii version identical to the PS2 version (we even got sh*t for that with people asking for new content)," said Didier Malenfant, co-founder of RAD, in response to the statement by Hideki Kamiya.

"To be completely fair, while part of the issue seems to have been a legal one with Capcom Japan (I don't know the details of that), we did also have a problem with the Wii data being much larger than the original PS2 version. We ended up running out of room on the disc which would have made adding the staff roll back in the game a tough thing anyway," he added.

"On the plus side, the European Wii version contains the Secret Theater that was edited out in the European PS2 version."

Clover Studios was closed down in March 2007 in "an effort to increase efficiency". The team was responsible for games such as Viewtiful Joe, God Hand and Okami. Hideki Koyami is now in charge of Platinum Games.

Okami was released on PS2 in February 2007 and achieved top marks on Eurogamer. The Wii version has motion-sensing controls, widescreen and 480p support.

Okami Wii is due out in Europe on 13th June.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (23) Latest comment 5 months ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • HiddenAway #1 4 years ago

    "On the plus side, the European Wii version contains the Secret Theater that was edited out in the European PS2 version."

    Oh aye. No-one mentioned this :p.

    I take it that is the cut-scenes that appear in the game?

  • InsoFox #2 4 years ago

    Wow, that's really insulting.

  • Rash' #3 4 years ago

    I want to know what the legal hang up is.

  • Hughes. #4 4 years ago

    Well, the credits would probably have had an IGN watermark on them anyway, everything else did.

  • CaoSlayer #5 4 years ago

    Seems that they also removed the epilogue after the credits.

    You can see the credits and epilogue thanks to youtube in the other hand.

  • kangarootoo #6 4 years ago

    @northy

    Midway really did that? That f*cking sucks. Cheeky c*nts.

  • UncleLou #7 4 years ago

    "We have no legal right to use the Clover logo in a game they were not involved with directly

    How very weird. They most probably also have no legal right to publish the game without pointing out who the creators of the original are.

  • ianegg #8 4 years ago

    The secret theatre is rubbish, just low quality video clips from when the game was in development, and japanese trailers. It really doesn't make up for basically removing the ending from the game. Youtube is a tad worse than 480p.

    I don't get why they didn't redo the cutscenes and credits with the new engine, and use a better video codec to save space. The guardian sapling scenes stick out like a sore thumb because they're just scaled and cropped copies of the PS2 version. Blurry reminders of what the game was supposed to look like. The credits would probably have looked the same if they left them in.
    Edited by 1 at 02/05/08 @ 14:05

  • Royal Fool #9 4 years ago

    How could they lose the source files so easily?

    And even if they did, it wouldn't have been hard to remake a standard credits roll on a black background and slap it at the end.

    Seriously. This is highly unprofessional.

  • Retroid #10 4 years ago

    The Wii versions data is bigger HOW? That sounds a bit 'bollocks' to me.

    /Glad he has the PS2 version (and that it works flawlessly on his PS3)

  • kangarootoo #11 4 years ago

    @UncleLou

    "They most probably also have no legal right to publish the game without pointing out who the creators of the original are."

    Only if their contract specifically says so. There is no statutory legsilation that says credits in video games have to be present.

    @Royal Fool

    "How could they lose the source files so easily?"

    Well they obviously didn't lose anything. What they got was the original game source files. That isn't the same as getting all of the raw video editing files and source. The game source files will just include resulting movie file itself. This is entirely normal.

    Whether they could have remade a credits roll is another issue I agree. It does seem a bit lame.

  • UncleLou #12 4 years ago

    ""They most probably also have no legal right to publish the game without pointing out who the creators of the original are."

    Only if their contract specifically says so. There is no statutory legsilation that says credits in video games have to be present.
    "

    Sorry, but it's the other way round, at least in most EU-countries - as the creator, you have a right by law to be mentioned, unless you explicitly waived that right -and you can't even waive it generally, only explicitly for each case. So, unless they asked each and every artist and coder who worked on the original and whose work they used for the port if they agree not to be named in the Wii port, which I doubt, they could have a much bigger problem publishing it in Europe than they could ever have had by using the company logo. Maybe they're all in the manual, but even that would be dubious.

    edit:
    Maybe there's no problem in only applying Japanese law to the whole thing, in which case it might not be a problem. Just pointing out that I disagree with your statement. :)
    Edited by 2 at 02/05/08 @ 16:10

  • Triggerhappytel #13 4 years ago

    "We have no legal right to use the Clover logo in a game they were not involved with directly"

    I'm sorry, I'm of the understanding that this is an exact port of the PS2 which was created by the staff at Clover, so how exactly is this not a 'direct involvement'?! They made the fucking game! I don't know much about this sort of thing, but surely RAD (I'm not blaming them as its not their fault) are merely taking existing coding and adapting it to run on the Wii?

    Shutting down Clover was probably the worst decision Capcom ever made.

  • smelly #14 4 years ago

    This sounds like a perfectly normal problem.

    They'd have to have the permision to use the company logo, the company doesnt exist any more to give permision.

    The company logo was part of a movie - probably wasnt worth the effort to re-render the movie without the company logo.

    Capcom are the publisher, they funded the game.. the game is theirs to do what they want with.. if they cant be arsed to re-render the credits video to remove the company logo .. then they cant be arsed.

    LOTS of games go out without credit to the developers at the publishers request..

    I dont get what's the issue is here?

  • zedzee #15 4 years ago

    3 questions:

    1. Why didn't RAD have access to the source of the back credits video?

    2. What are the "legal constraints" anyway?

    3. Why is the bloke from Clover complaining when he could've given RAD permission to use the Clover logo?

    I hate it when tv/papers/net so-called news agencies report on something but don't mention a single thing about the 'ahy' aspect of the story...

  • Kiigan #16 4 years ago

    Hang on guys. Clover - the company, the name, the logo, the games - was a wholly owned subsidiary of Capcom. If you have the legal rights to port their game to the Wii, you have the legal rights to put the names of the original creators in the credits. This is just a case of someone at Capcom being an utter cunt, and serves as an excellent reason to boycott the impending European release of the Wii version of Okami.

  • Triggerhappytel #17 4 years ago

    @ Kiigan - I thought that too, but after looking it up it seems Clover were an independant studio who were funded by Capcom, hence it was in their power to pull the plug. They were probably a major shareholder too, but apparently Clover were indie.

    Besides, I'd rather see the game do well and possible sequel on the Wii (a console I never plan on owning), rather than an excellent series whimper out and die like it otherwise would.

  • slivir #18 4 years ago

    It was quite a good credit roll, probably the best one I've seen in fact. I can understand why Clover are upset.

  • CaoSlayer #19 4 years ago

    Clover Studio was more or less Production Studio 4 of Capcom renamed, Shinji Mikami is the creator of resident evil and devil may cry and Inaba was the producer of stuff like the three first Phoenix Wright games, they are far from being Indie developers.

    Anyway seems that there was troubles inside Capcom since they decided to port Resident evil 4 to ps2, Shinji declared to cut his own head if the game was ported and I can bet that is the reason behind the creation of Clover.

    Anyway seems that the relation between former Clover and Capcom is not that bad considering that Capcom is employing them right now (I can't find a link to this bit of info).

    ----------------

    If you think that credit roll of Okami is good, you should see the God Hand one.

  • actionfitz #20 4 years ago

    Ran into that issue at Codemasters.
    They decided they werent going to include our names in the credits section of the game manual - apparently afraid that staff would be headhunted... by other studios :(
    Also, anyone who left the company before the game went off to the shops got the 'Special thanks to:' credit, insted of their job role - Artist, level design, programming etc.
    pretty petty imo.

  • FFS #21 4 years ago

    The legal hang up is that they can't be arsed to edit the Clover logo out. Make excuses about getting it right, then fuck up the controls and not only drop the credits but also the epilogue.

    Oh, and the game is 3.9 GB on a 4.35 GB disc. Congratulations for doing a bare minimum conversion job on the Wii's best game. Framerate also sucks balls, and the cut-scenes are extracted straight from the PS2 version which = colour washes out.

    Fuck you, Ready at Dawn.
    Edited by 1 at 02/08/08 @ 01:25

  • okamifan1 #22 2 years ago

    Clover will live on forever their icon is in the game! If they removed that well that just ruins the game for me... As I said before:
    CLOVER WILL LIVE ON FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!! Capcom cannot change that!

  • hardcase_2 #23 5 months ago

    That nice to hear and it would be a plus for Wii very kool thank for sharing