The thing is, whether the artist is alive or not, whether they are profiting from it or not, if you enjoy their work, you are always profiting from it. They won’t always, but you can.
…No i’d argue it got more well-known around Hitman: Blood Money, and then Absolution made it more infamous (for all the wrong reasons, but still, it was popular). All WOA did was catapult it into the stratosphere as it both revisited the roots of the series, and improved upon the gameplay so everybody was happy. The Hitman franchise hasn’t been obscure for quite a long time now – certainly not “indie garage band where I slip you my mix for free” obscure.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I do not agree with this mentality of “it doesn’t affect me, therefore It doesn’t matter”, as it basically ignores all context for anything bad the company does, just so you can continue enjoying a gaming franchise.
Hitman is one of the de-facto stealth protagonists, right up there with Metal Gear’s Solid Snake. I admit, the 2007/ 2015 films might’ve made more people look at the series.
And it was a big-name franchise for SquEnix; it consistently got funding because people liked it. and even the worst game in the series has possibly the strongest aesthetic in all of WOA, as well as adding QOL that WOA would expand upon.
When I think of Square Enix during that era, I think of Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, and Hitman. Agent 47 is an iconic character in gaming, even outside this playerbase.
I’m gonna go off the sales numbers here, according to wikipedia. Square Enix revealed these circa 2009, unless otherwise noted:
C:47: 500,000 units
H2:SA: 3.7 Million units (Best-selling Pre-WOA entry apparently)
Contracts: 2 Million Units
Blood Money: 2.1 Million Units (2011 data)
Absolution: 3.6 Million Units (2013 data)
Considering when these released, these are not bad numbers, and the only game that failed to meet expectations was Absolution. Of course, sales don’t immediately translate into eyes-on-your-game in the greater public, but it does show that the game had consistent sales numbers, and thus, a decent following.
How mercenary of you.
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Your agreement with it or not is irrelevant. I’m stating how things are, not looking for validation on it. Right now, Hitman is my number one joy in the world, has been for about the last seven years. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter what the company does, I’m saying I don’t care what they do, so long as they continue to be relevant in providing me with that source of joy. The context of what they might do doesn’t enter into it; they provide me with a service that is a priority for me, and they are the only ones who provide that particular service.
I guess I didn’t really make clear how serious I was on previous occasions when I said my entertainment is my top priority. I am a person who has no interest in anything the real world has to offer, I spend all of my free time indulging in fiction and fantasy across all media, and I intend to do so for the entirety of my life. For me, it is not simply me enjoying a gaming franchise; it is a crucial part of my life. Ergo, my concern with what the company responsible for that franchise does that upsets the rest of the player base is only an annoyance for me, not something that drives me away from it.
Given IO’s recent actions, I feel like this could be a new exploitable meme.
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Make HITMAN Hitman again.
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For the people who are okay with 47 crossing over with stuff.
Would you have him be in cheap mobile games? Or in Fortnite, COD, Among Us, Brawlhalla, etc.
My frustrations with the State of Survival x Hitman. Is cause I held the Hitman IP to a higher standard. I expected crossing over just not crossing over into something like this.
I expected a suit case black bling, and 47 having his requiem suit and signature suit in Fortnite. Not a P2W micro-transaction fest.
It’s not anger, just confusion and disappointment.
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In answer to that question: I’m not going to play those cheap mobile games, so I don’t care if he’s there or not. I mean, hasn’t he already appeared in a mobile board game? The threshold has already been crossed for him to show up in other places besides regular Hitman games. But they’re not ones I’m gonna play, so it doesn’t bother me. If I did play them, and thought it sucked, then yeah, I probably would have a problem.
Quite frankly, I’m more upset that IOI had 47’s rep take a hit by the Disruptor surviving at the end. That’s a bigger insult to the character than appearing in a non-canon joking manner in another game I don’t care about. But, I’m admittedly weird, so that’s just me.
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Are you talking about Hitman GO? Entirely different. Hitman GO and Hitman Sniper were both great spin-off titles with brand continuety and class.
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He’s appeared in HITMAN spinoff mobile games. Which were generally well received by the community. Those mobile games are generally held up to a higher standard within the community cause they’re clearly spinoffs.
The Hitman franchise primarily stayed within its own franchise outside of a few tongue and cheek DLC’s when it was apart of Square Enix. Outside of that HITMAN hasn’t ventured much outside of its own IP til recently.
State of Survival is different type threshold. It’s low effort and put together to churn something out.
If you need perspective here is the Event in full presented by an AI Narrator.
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Are any of these mobile games the same as the games that we usually find 47 in? Are these open world sandbox puzzle solving murder simulators? No? Then it doesn’t matter if these are within the Hitman brand or not. 47 has already appeared in games where a character like him has no place being. Going one step further to where it’s outside the brand isn’t a huge leap.
And whether these are well-received or not is irrelevant to the greater point, which is whether 47 should be shown outside his regular games at all, whether it’s under its own brand or not. Once you can take the character beyond their usual setting, you’ve opened the door for anything else that follows. I’d have had an issue with 47 appearing outside his normal games at all, if I hadn’t heard about them after they’d already been released, so no point in complaining, the line had already been crossed. Whether the brand crosses over with another, and whether it’s low effort or high effort, it’s all beyond the point. These aren’t games I would play in the first place, and nothing in their content is affecting Hitman lore, so I’m not concerned whether he appears in them.
Heisenberg, is, of course, the main protagonist of life.
No, but there’s quite a difference between “shitty mobile game made to wring out money from players via obtrusive microtransactions at every turn”, versus “official spinoff with decent gameplay loops and occasional lootboxes”.
As mentioned by myself and a few people, this will absolutely affect the Hitman brand because it paints IOI in a bad light, and they might not be able to get more exclusive deals later on. You might not care about that, but it matters to a hell of a lot more people (including IO’s own staff), that they are seen as a company without controversies or a bad rep, something which they’ve been steadily subverting over the past year. Deals like this make everyone look bad.
This is the first time since…I believe Absolution that Hitman has had any kind of crossover with another game (as mentioned, there are some Hitman DLC’s for Tomb Raider and such, and some cross-promotion with Team Fortress 2).
That makes it the first time in almost 13 years that IO has had any kind of brand crossover with Hitman, and it’s with a mobile game whose userbase is apparently predominantly not a western one. It is absurd to suggest that it is pointless to complain about this crossover, and especially because IO has transparently obvious opportunistic motivations here that sideline player enjoyment over making short-term profits.
Anything IOI does is up for criticism, especially how they handle their business when players are involved. And my tiredness of their behaviour is gradually turning into anger with their latest dealings. I’m not a happy bug right now, and I wish the company would stop repeatedly sabotaging itself.
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If people don’t see how this is an issue then I don’t know what to tell you.
It’s just mobile slop that dilutes this brand. It may not change how you feel about continuity and the mainline games, but it sure as well can influence IOI’s practices in the future to a lesser or greater extent.
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Also I’m curious why out of all of 47s suits
they chose his only skin in this to be the crimson red suit instead of something more popular like the requiem suit
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I was wondering that myself.
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Absolution Beta(?) concept artwork
And yes. Given the option of more DLC for the current fans to buy… This is a better decision. Branch out and take money from non-fans.
Is there an overlap of current Hitman fans/players and Mobile (whatever type of game this is) players that are also Hitman fans? 
Like a Venn diagram? Non-fans would be too large and impossible… But I guess why not try to sponge a few more up? 
I can’t see why I should care. I’m not going to be playing this game. I already have my fill with the games I currently have.
Edit: Even if IOI were to put 47 in Fortnight… I could only roll my eyes and shake my head. I’ll still never play Fortnight.
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Says the biggest practitioner of projection on the forum.
Not enough of a difference to concern me, as I have no plans to engage with either.
I’m more concerned with their looking bad due to poor vetting of celebrities and lack of game maintenance than in crossing over with something I’d never even heard of prior to this thread.
I’m not talking about merely a crossover, I’m talking about any game that’s not a legit Hitman game. They’ve already done that, doing a crossover is just the next step along a path that shouldn’t have begun in the first place.
Are you of the opinion that Hitman GO and Sniper shouldn’t exist due to them not being “legit hitman games”?
Pretty much, yeah. In a detached way, mind you. I don’t particularly care, but it’s like, why did you do this? Particularly Go, kind of a silly setting for a character like 47. But, I have no intention of playing it, so if others are ok with it, fine. But, now you’ve opened the door to the character appearing outside the usual setting, so what’s next? Appearing in a whole different game outside his usual setting. And the slope just gets more slippery. But, like I said, none of this is a deal breaker for me, one way or another.
Why? I liked that game and found it very in-character. You kill targets, I think in some levels you can try to kill no non-targets, you apply the social stealth as in the regular games and the puzzle character I always looked out for when making contracts is a big principle there too.
It is just more abstract. Like the regular games are more gamey than 47 and all the characters would be in-canon.
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