• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Is Wattam vaporware?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Datajoy

Datajoy

use of an alt account
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
12,081
Angola / Zaire border region.
EDIT said:
I know there were recently fresh impression on the game, I mention that in my (admittedly lengthy) OP.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


Wattam is an upcoming game from Keita Takahashi, the designer and artist most famous for the Katamari Damacy games. It was announced in 2014 and since then it seems to have entered a development wilderness. It was supposed to be published by Sony, but they seem to have cut ties with the game a few years ago and now Annapurna Interactive is attached as publisher.

I'm just wondering what the hell is going on with the game? It seems to have entered a development black hole. I saw there were fresh impressions on a demo recently from PAX East, but based on those write-ups, it seems to be the same demo that has been kicking around for two years or so.

What gives?
 
ForestL

ForestL

Member
Feb 12, 2018
44
IIRC they had some problems developing it and rebuilt the entire thing. Keita still posts on twitter about working on it.
 
ShadowAUS

ShadowAUS

Member
Feb 20, 2019
2,107
Australia
https://www.gamerevolution.com/features/508387-wattam-interview-keita-takahashi
GR: Wattam has been in development for a long time. Are we in the final stretch here?

KT: Yes. Almost. [laughs]

So do you know what has been holding it up for so long?

KT: I don't know. [laughs] One thing is that we got canceled like two years ago so that is one of the reasons. We got the cancellation from Sony so we had to make the game from the beginning. But that was good for me because the previous one was so bad because Unity was so old. It's not capable to make this happen and my core ideas happen. I'm kind of glad. I'm happy and unhappy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
aiswyda

aiswyda

Member
Aug 11, 2018
3,093
Keita posts updates on twitter pretty often. There's no reason whatsoever to think it's vaporware, it just seems like it took longer than they expected.
 
DocSeuss

DocSeuss

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,784
Games take a long time to make. Wattam will be here when Keita and Annapurna (afaik they're still publishing it) are ready.
 
juxjuxjux

juxjuxjux

Member
Oct 27, 2017
356
Bay Area, CA
Fat4all said:
vaporware usually relates to stuff announced and not seen for a long ass time
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Not true. It usually means that the product never releases, or is only a concept that never gets a full development cycle. Both could be argued in Wattam's case (one more than the other).

Edit: That said, I've played Wattam a few times, and it seems like it could come out at any time.
 
FelipeMGM

FelipeMGM

#Skate4
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
3,012
Nah. And I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about a release date/window soon-ish
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

Woke up, got a money tag, swears a lot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
92,751
here
Considering they switched engines, the 2019 gameplay looks pretty similar to the 2015 gameplay

still a very Noby Noby Boy looking experience
 
daveo42

daveo42

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,251
Ohio
I was in a wedding with one of the programmers at the beginning of the year and it seemed like it wasn't vaporware when I talked to him at the time.
 

PinballRJ

Member
Oct 25, 2017
858
Wow I had no idea Sony had canceled a version of it, I'm guessing the new version is multi-platform?
 
Green Mario

Green Mario

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,319
Funny seeing this thread pop up because I was just thinking about this game last night. Good to know it's still happening.
 
salromano

salromano

Mr. Gematsu
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
2,924
delete12345 said:
Small world, you're at PAX East too? I was also there watching people play Wattam.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yah I was there on Friday and Saturday though admittedly didn't do too much. Generally not a fan of conventions because too many people + my job is mainly covering news. My buddy Claudio wrote up our Wattam feature on Gematsu (spoiler: he really liked it). I thought it was cute / weird.
 
MDSVeritas

MDSVeritas

Gameplay Programmer, Sony Santa Monica
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
1,026
Datajoy said:
I'm just wondering what the hell is going on with the game? It seems to have entered a development black hole. I saw there were fresh impressions on a demo recently from PAX East, but based on those write-ups, it seems to be the same demo that has been kicking around for two years or so.

What gives?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It is not. The demo they have is just the start of the game, so the content is similar but having played it the past two years at PAX East it has indeed changed (characters have voices, there's new interface elements to it, the music system appears to work slightly differently, and there's new content to the demo as well near the end).

On top of that they were hiring some new people several months back to work on it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.