“VOICE” YOUR OPINION!

Dear Mighty Beckers, supporters, and friends,
So! Now that a small chunk of Mighty No. 9 is out there in the wild and playable to our beta backers, we’ve been happy to see more and more folks talking and asking about the possibility of voice work in the final game.
It’s awesome to see folks getting hopeful and excited about what voices could add to Mighty No. 9 (and understand it better, now that they see for themselves how the story is told in-game!), but before we give you an update on that, let’s go back and clear a few things up, shall we? (Warning: big update ahead, you’ll want to get comfy! But don’t just skip to the awesome news at the end, okay?)

VOICES IN MIGHTY NO. 9?

Basically, when we first talked about the possibility of adding voices in Mighty No. 9, we goofed up the announcement. :) Not in the actual substance of anything we said – which we proudly stand behind – but in the confusing language and frankly muddled way we announced it, which came out with other info (like the Mighty No. 9 animated series reveal) and left out some key details, resulting in some people getting only part of the message.
We noticed that most of our backers and others who gathered all the facts were happy with the announcement, but many others were left wondering questions like “Does Mighty No. 9 need more money? Didn’t the Kickstarter already do amazingly well?! Are they just greedy?!?”
So yeah, we did a really poor job of explaining ourselves – sorry about that! Let’s try that again, and hopefully do it right this time! :)

MIGHTY NO. 9 OPENS UP TO SLACKER BACKERS!

This is the simplest, easiest-to-understand way to we should have summarized our announcement: Mighty No. 9 opened up to slacker backers! In other words, we are now letting people who missed out on our Kickstarter campaign get in late, at certain limited reward levels (and at slightly higher prices) via PayPal, just as most every other gaming Kickstarter campaign has and continues to do.
The even better news is that, unlike many Kickstarters (that don’t specify exactly what the extra funds brought in from slacker backers will go towards), we are going the extra step of pledging that all the extra money made from slacker backer rewards would go towards adding even more bonus features to Mighty No. 9 than we had already promised during the Kickstarter campaign, in the form of new bonus content!  
Whether or not you are already a backer, this bonus content can be nothing but a good thing for you! If you aren’t already a backer, you now have a chance to become one. If you are already a backer, there’s a new chance you’ll get additional bonus features for the game you effectively already bought, at absolutely no additional expense to you personally. Either way, it’s all good!

$100K JUST FOR SOME VOICES?!

The first of these bonus features, if we raise an additional $100,000, was announced as full English voice acting (and later changed, based on backer feedback, to $200K for English and Japanese voice acting). Now, here’s where we screwed up on our explanation again: $100,000 is a lot of money, and some folks understandably wondered how or why voice work could cost that much.
We should have anticipated this reaction and, as part of the announcement, posted a full estimate of the costs involved with voice acting...something like this!
In other words, quality English voice acting could actually add up to costing a bit more than $100,000! But then again, we might be able to cut corners here and there -- and even if we can’t, the additional cost is something we are ready and willing to take on if it proves to be something the community is excited about!

SO WHY DO YOU EVEN WANT VOICES IN THE FIRST PLACE?

But hey, let’s back up a sec: Why have voices in a game like this in the first place? We realize now we never explained how or why voicework is even something people should want for Mighty No. 9!
The good news here is that, now that the beta is out and people are playing or seeing videos of the game in action, this one is mostly answered: the idea is that Beck, Call, the bosses, Dr. Sanda, etc. – everyone can be conversing and adding to the atmosphere and story in-game, without stopping the action to have to read text or wait for cutscenes! We also think that, with characters as unique as the Mighty Numbers, voices will add tons of personality and enjoyment to the whole experience.   

SO YES, WE WANT VOICES IN THE GAME!

Sadly, the extra funding brought in from slacker backers so far (thanks again to you all, each and every one of you, by the way! :) is hovering at just around $20K, much less than the $200K we would need to do both English and Japanese voices.
But! We are happy to announce Mr. Inafune has approved us to divert another source of revenue towards this goal: money from backers upgrading their Kickstarter pledges!
Tons and tons of you have been upgrading your pledge as you finalize your reward tier with our partners over at Fangamer (thank you so much!), and Mr. Inafune has decided that all of that money as well – currently somewhere around $80,000 – will also be put towards bonus content, which means we are now just over $100,000! Woohoo!
But wait – the first goal was changed to $200K for English and Japanese, and we only barely made it to $100K by funneling in all this other money...where does that leave us?

ENGLISH OR JAPANESE?

More good news: Rather than stick to the revised target of $200K for both English and Japanese voice acting and close it down short of the goal, we’ve decided to lower the goal back to the original $100K for one language! And, rather than dictate which one voiced language we offer in the game, we want to put it to a vote and let you, our loyal backers decide: English or Japanese!
To be honest, we all initially assumed that most people would want English voices, as it’s the primary language of the vast majority of our backers, but we were surprised at the amount of feedback we got after the first announcement asking for Japanese instead. So is that just a vocal minority, or is that something most of you feel? Now we’ll know for sure! Which side do you fall on?  
You better decide soon, because starting today the official backer survey will be sent to all backers! All of the emails should be out by October 10th, voting will close by the October 12th, and results will be announced on October 14th. Keep an eye out for that survey email!

IN CLOSING:

We hope this explanation clears up a lot of the questions about both our motives and our methods with regards to these bonus feature goals, and we sincerely apologize to everyone for any confusion. SUPER special apologies and our deepest thanks, as always, to our brave Beckers who took it upon themselves to figure out the facts of the matter, and explained them to others better than we had – you guys and gals continue to impress and surprise us with your dedication in new ways every day. :)
(￣^￣)ゞ
-The Mighty No. 9 team
P.S. We can say we’ve learned an important lesson here about how we communicate, both in general, and specifically for how we will announce future bonus content goals – coming soon, by the way! Watch this space! :)
TL;DR: All extra money from slacker backer rewards and upgrading Kickstarter pledges will go toward bonus features all early supporters of Mighty No. 9 will get for free! The first bonus goal was just reached at $100K, and will be for either Japanese or English voice acting – which will be decided by an upcoming backer vote! The next possible bonus feature will be announced soon!
 

Comments

Mighty No. 9028's picture

It was hard to decide, but I

Mighty No. 9028 Tue, 2014-10-07 18:16.

It was hard to decide, but I went with the English voices.

Because of how many Japanese games have received terrible dubs when ported to the west (youtu.be/3IPIPLM8ELY), many gamers have surely been affected in the way how they view Japanese voice acting vs. English voice acting.

I believe the difference in quality is just a result of the difference in budget for the dub and the original.

When asked which language you prefer for voice acting (JP or EN),  I say the one that is done better regardless of the language. It they are near equal in quality, then English, because I can actually understand more of it than just some words and sentences.

@Granganch; Even if you can't understand the language, it helps you notice that something is being said, directing your eyes to the subtitles, and the tone of the voice goes beyond the language barrier. In other words, it is better than nothing.
(helps in learning the language as well if you care about that)
Mighty No. 28336 EGJ's picture

Can't Decide

Mighty No. 28336 EGJ Tue, 2014-10-07 16:00.

I really can't decide, i'd like to have both set of voices in the game, as "scary" as english voices sounds i have great experiences with english voice sets in games like Persona or Tales of Vesperia or Kid Icarus; Uprissing.

I agree with Grangach, stop to read while shooting/ jumping (and diyng XD) would make the action... slower.

Cya around ~
Mighty No. 54256 Josh's picture

English Please!!!!

Mighty No. 54256 Josh Tue, 2014-10-07 13:09.

Japanese Voices would still require me to stop in place and read the text, which was my biggest annoyance with dialoge in the beta!  D:
Plus i think it would appeal far greater to the audience that will see the game after it's release and want to check it out.
 
Mighty No. 5734 Grangach's picture

English, please

Mighty No. 5734 Grangach Tue, 2014-10-07 12:12.

If you put japanese voices in there I'm just going to turn them off. It completely ruins the point of having voice acting if I can't understand what's being said. Being able to run and gun while listening to the dialogue instead of having to read the text would be really great, putting japanese in just because people fetishise it is pointless.

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