Telltale's Sam & Max games getting remastered

[Laserschwert]

Well, season 1 has been review-bombed to death on GOG (at a ridiculous 2.9 out of 5), and unlike on Steam, hasn't recovered from it. I wouldn't blame them if they'd avoid GOG's abusive rating system (where you can up- and downvote ratings, I think?) for the time being.

[Lagomorph01]

The sad thing is that the review bombers are actually “fans” of Sam and Max that care enough to review bomb it, but don’t understand they actually destroy the thing they love.

 

I hope Skunkape’s sales aren’t hurt to much by it. You can agree of disagree with their decisions, but it’s pretty clear the remakes are a labour of love and care.

[Thrik]

Indeed. Disgraceful behaviour from anyone who considers themselves a fan in my opinion. It’s one thing to provide balanced feedback and maybe knock a bit off, but rampant one-star bombing is nothing short of nasty. 

 

I mean heck, we all disliked Guybrush’s hair in the special edition so much we created custom patches for it, not to mention the numerous poor art execution — but I wouldn’t dream of trying to destroy its saleability and effectively end interest in developing the franchise.

[Udvarnoky]

As reported on the front page, the game got its GOG release. Special thanks to Skunkape for putting up with the usual brigading pre-adolescents so I could buy my offline installer.

[Scummbuddy]

My orders from the Limited Run Games releases of Sam and Max - Save The World arrived recently! I haven't opened them up yet, but I am very impressed with the work that went into these physical releases so far. The PC box edition is especially fabulous on display. I can't wait to get the rest of the series for my collection.

 

 

 

 

 

[Laserschwert]

Box design perfection by @Jake

[SGTflippy]

 i ORDER 3 OF THE PC VERISON

 

Edited March 28, 2022 by SGTflippy

[Jake]

On 3/27/2022 at 7:21 PM, Scummbuddy said:

My orders from the Limited Run Games releases of Sam and Max - Save The World arrived recently! I haven't opened them up yet, but I am very impressed with the work that went into these physical releases so far. The PC box edition is especially fabulous on display. I can't wait to get the rest of the series for my collection

Glad you like them!

Know that the Switch version has an outer slipcase around it that required a modified design to meet Nintendo’s certifications for game packaging, but inside the slipcase it has the same full two piece box with the same layout as the PC version (but the platform sticker says Nintendo switch).

[Jenni]

On 3/29/2022 at 6:49 PM, Jake said:

Glad you like them!

Know that the Switch version has an outer slipcase around it that required a modified design to meet Nintendo’s certifications for game packaging, but inside the slipcase it has the same full two piece box with the same layout as the PC version (but the platform sticker says Nintendo switch).

I got the PC Big Box, the Switch Big Box, the Switch 3-game case holder and a regular Switch version of the game to go in the holder.

 

I noticed that the PC Big Box and the Switch Big Box were different as the Switch one had the Nintendo Switch logo on it. I only opened the PC Big Box, so I hadn't seen that it was a slipcase. That's a great compromise.

 

I also have the Thimbleweed Park Big Box from Limited Run and that one doesn't have the Switch logo on it and doesn't have a Switch logo on the top either. I wonder if Nintendo made a fuss about the Thimbleweed Park box causing them to be sticklers with this one.

 

I actually like the 'feelies' in the case file better than the original Telltale ones. They are made with sturdier material yet look the same.

 

I might do a video comparing the two at some point (although I'll have to do a bit of improvisation on two of them as I lost the original Bosco Tech napkin and my sister's puppy ate my original Ted E Bear magnet).

Edited April 6, 2022 by Jenni

[Jake]

55 minutes ago, Jenni said:

I wonder if Nintendo made a fuss about the Thimbleweed Park box causing them to be sticklers with this one.

Yep. The Thimbleweed release sort of snuck out without Nintendo certification. The snapcase inside met the requirements but not the outer box, so now they do the sleeve thing. 
 

Glad you like the feelies!!

[Zaxx]

I'll just post a reply to ThunderPeel2001 here since I don't want to derail the RtMI thread.

 

Quote

I don't understand how these two sentences can co-exist. Perhaps you just went off half-cocked in your first post, but if so, you can see how someone can misinterpret your intentions.

 

I think the trick is that I'm looking at it from the perspective of what I prefer and that makes me able to distinguish between me agreeing with the sentiment behind the changes while disliking the fact that they actually happened.

 

For example if I look at your previous post about this then my guess is that you strongly feel that Skunkape was right to make these changes and since they made the right decision you're fine with whatever those changes are.

 

Meanwhile you also say this:

Quote

I do prefer the performance of the original Bosco actor, but I also understand and agree with why it was changed. Same goes with the line alterations. 

 

So you're basically putting your preference and your personal taste aside because you agree with the changes while when it comes to your preferences you most likely would just switch back to the original voice actor if you could. This is nothing new, it's how basically every old fan feels like, I see this same sentiment time and time again and I feel the same way with the difference being that I don't want to play the game like that. And I don't buy things out of support or respect, that's affecting my decisions to some extent of course but I buy the things that I want to play, that's the basis from where other factors can come in.

 

What I think is an interesting thought experiment is just trying to find out why we prefer the original actor though. I think it's because Bosco was written for that type of performance, like it or not he is a somewhat dated stereotype that benefits from the original more stereotypical performance. That's a lesson for the future that if there is another Sam & Max game with Bosco being in it then he should be different, less stereotypical and funny in a different kind of way. On the other hand completely rewriting him for a remaster is out of the question so there is no point to making any changes to his past iteration.

 

So they way I see it the good solution would have been to leave every line of dialogue and all the voice acting intact and work the changes in as optional extra content sort of as a proof of concept for a future iteration of Sam & Max. I think it's a lot more valuable to make people understand why Bosco is dated in the way he is in these old games instead of just trying to mitigate that. Also "extra content" just sounds a lot better than "we removed the old thing and added something new instead".

 

As for other aspects of this I don't think Sam & Max was benefitted by any of this controversy. I may be wrong here and just have unrealistically high expectations for how much a remaster of an old Telltale game should sell but I just don't see why these are doing worse than even Full Throttle's remaster. Both seasons look really good, I've yet to see one complaint about them and Sam & Max is pretty high profile stuff in the adventure game world but nobody's really talking about any that. It's always just the subject of the voice acting, even if I go to a website like PCGamingWiki that's usually for fixing technical issues one of the key points listed is that you should go and download a mod because the voice acting is different:

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Sam_%26_Max_Save_the_World_(2020)

 

So I really, really hope that when season 3 comes out it will have the original Bosco voice too and we'll get a patch that just adds that back to the first two seasons as a toggle option because it's a very unnecessary hill for Sam & Max to die on. It might be too late, who knows but I think it would do a lot of good.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Zaxx

[Remi]

5 minutes ago, Zaxx said:

So I really, really hope that when season 3 comes out it will have the original Bosco voice too and we'll get a patch that just adds that back to the first two seasons as a toggle option because it's a very unnecessary hill for Sam & Max to die on. It might be too late, who knows but I think it would do a lot of good.

 

Bosco didn't appear in season 3.

 

I'm also curious how you know the remasters' sales numbers.

[Zaxx]

3 minutes ago, Remi said:

 

Bosco didn't appear in season 3.

 

I'm also curious how you know the remasters' sales numbers.

Oh right, he isn't in DP, what a relief, it will be a controversy free season.

 

Just Steam review numbers, Steamdb estimates when it comes to sales figures. Those give off the impression that season one was a rather slow burn but eventually people picked it up on a sale while nobody bought season two as of yet.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Zaxx

[s-island]

After Valve made having your game collection be public an opt-in feature instead of opt-out, those statistics sites have become wildly unreliable, especially with smaller games. They usually take the amount of people playing a game and make a wild guess.

[Zaxx]

12 minutes ago, s-island said:

After Valve made having your game collection be public an opt-in feature instead of opt-out, those statistics sites have become wildly unreliable, especially with smaller games. They usually take the amount of people playing a game and make a wild guess.

Yeah, it's unreliable at best, even Steamdb displays 3 different estimates and you can just sort of make up your mind from there. With that said I think it's useful if you're looking for a comparison instead of actual sales figures (for a comparison even just looking at the number of reviews can help though). 

[Niemandswasser]

1 hour ago, Zaxx said:

What I think is an interesting thought experiment is just trying to find out why we prefer the original actor though. I think it's because Bosco was written for that type of performance, like it or not he is a somewhat dated stereotype that benefits from the original more stereotypical performance. That's a lesson for the future that if there is another Sam & Max game with Bosco being in it then he should be different, less stereotypical and funny in a different kind of way. On the other hand completely rewriting him for a remaster is out of the question so there is no point to making any changes to his past iteration.

 

So they way I see it the good solution would have been to leave every line of dialogue and all the voice acting intact and work the changes in as optional extra content sort of as a proof of concept for a future iteration of Sam & Max. I think it's a lot more valuable to make people understand why Bosco is dated in the way he is in these old games instead of just trying to mitigate that. Also "extra content" just sounds a lot better than "we removed the old thing and added something new instead".

 

So I really, really hope that when season 3 comes out it will have the original Bosco voice too and we'll get a patch that just adds that back to the first two seasons as a toggle option because it's a very unnecessary hill for Sam & Max to die on. It might be too late, who knows but I think it would do a lot of good.

 

I registered an account just to finally respond to you on this, because I'm tired of reading this disingenuous "Why can't everybody just be reasonable and admit I'm right while giving me everything I want" argument over and over again. 

 

You know why they made the changes. I know why they made the changes. It wasn't as a proof of concept for a "future iteration." It wasn't "extra content." It wasn't that it used to be okay to cast a white guy as a black character and have him do a broad stereotypical accent, and now it isn't; it's that it was never okay, but it used to be acceptable not to care. In recent years a whole lot more people have decided they're not willing to just sit back and accept a bad decision because it was handed to them, and Skunkape made a conscious choice to update the games in line with that. They're not going to render it back down into an optional patch or a toggle switch or downloadable content, because it's not a cosmetic choice--it's an informed decision that they made for clearly stated reasons. They knew there'd be people who wouldn't like it, and they did it anyway. You can choose to live with that and move on, or you can wring your hands and pretend you're just concerned about the non-existent damage being done to the poor, poor Sam & Max IP.

You argue that change is fine, but only if it happens *later*, in a hypothetical product that doesn't and may never exist rather than in one that's in front of you forcing you to think and feel things; it's a wishy-washy attempt to insist that everything you're used to should stay just the way it is--i.e., the world where you didn't have to care--while still trying to cast yourself as being on "the right side." You go to great lengths to insist that you understand the original performance was stereotypical and wrongheaded, but if you keep going "It was *my* stereotypical wrongheaded performance, and I want it to stay the same!" then guess what? You're not on the right side! You keep appealing to what "basically every old fan feels like" to argue with people *who have stuck with a LucasArts fansite since the mid-'90s* about decisions in remasters *that were made in part by one of the founding voices of that fansite.* If you don't like it, I can't make you like it. But stop pretending like you represent some silent, long-suffering majority. 

Edited April 21, 2022 by Niemandswasser

[TimeGentleman]

Pretty much all of my thoughts have been covered over the two threads, but I'd also like to add that "because they might make decisions that anger Nazis" is a shoddy reason to NOT want a dev company to do a remaster.

[Zaxx]

1 hour ago, Niemandswasser said:

 

I registered an account just to finally respond to you on this, because I'm tired of reading this disingenuous "Why can't everybody just be reasonable and admit I'm right while giving me everything I want" argument over and over again. 

 

You know why they made the changes. I know why they made the changes. It wasn't as a proof of concept for a "future iteration." It wasn't "extra content." It wasn't that it used to be okay to cast a white guy as a black character and have him do a broad stereotypical accent, and now it isn't; it's that it was never okay, but it used to be acceptable not to care. In recent years a whole lot more people have decided they're not willing to just sit back and accept a bad decision because it was handed to them, and Skunkape made a conscious choice to update the games in line with that. They're not going to render it back down into an optional patch or a toggle switch or downloadable content, because it's not a cosmetic choice--it's an informed decision that they made for clearly stated reasons. They knew there'd be people who wouldn't like it, and they did it anyway. You can choose to live with that and move on, or you can wring your hands and pretend you're just concerned about the non-existent damage being done to the poor, poor Sam & Max IP.
 

You go to great lengths to insist that you understand the original performance was stereotypical and wrongheaded, but if you keep going "It was *my* stereotypical wrongheaded performance, and I want it to stay the same!" then guess what? You're not on the right side! You keep appealing to what "basically every old fan feels like" to argue with people *who have stuck with a LucasArts fansite since the mid-'90s* about decisions in remasters *that were made in part by one of the founding voices of that fansite.* If you don't like it, I can't make you like it. But stop pretending like you represent some silent, long-suffering majority. 

Honestly I've seen a lot of these "oh you're disingenuous and a secret bigot" comments and I could never really place them. Yes, my opinion is one that doesn't really fit into the "us vs. them" thing that is going on culturally now especially in the US but I'm not saying I'm right or wrong, I just think that we'd need time travel to correct the mistakes of the past and we're not living in Day of the Tentacle where that would be possible.

 

For some context about me I guess: I don't live in the US, I'm from Europe, Hungary to be more specific. Now here sadly you can find a lot of people who don't speak foreign languages so dubbing over American movies became the norm and that's a thing still to this day as most people just prefer that over reading subtitles. There's also a thing about us: the vast majority of the population is still white and I can honestly tell you that I have never met a Hungarian black voice actor in my life. Because of that any black actor will be voiced by a white actor in the movies that are released here... and absolutely no one cares about that.

 

I'm only telling you this because I think it's important to see that these games are for a worldwide audience so people from different countries will react differently to changes like this to the point where some people won't even understand what the problem is with the original performance. To them the change just comes off as "oh they replaced the thing that I got used to" and there's already a disconnect that wouldn't be there if there was an option for the old performance.

 

There's also an issue with just learning how to deal with these things on a personal level I think. You know, when I'm replaying an old Leisure Suit Larry game and encounter something that's blatantly homophobic then I guess I deal with that differently than how others do. I don't see it as something I'd erase, I cringe, acknowledge that this was a thing people (including Al Lowe) found funny back then and reflect on how things have progressed for the better and that I'm no longer the stupid kid who laughed on this and thought nothing of it.

 

This can be related to the different culture too of course since Europeans have different demons, what slavery and racism against black people is for Americans is pretty much the Holocaust in Europe. We don't deal with that through forgetting and making amends as much as by "remembering so that it wouldn't happen again." So I don't think that an issue like this could be solved by removing said content but by establishing the context that lets people to reflect on things.

 

Quote

You argue that change is fine, but only if it happens *later*, in a hypothetical product that doesn't and may never exist rather than in one that's in front of you forcing you to think and feel things, is a wishy-washy attempt to insist that everything you're used to should stay just the way it is--i.e., the world where you didn't have to care--while still trying to cast yourself as being on "the right side."

 

No, what I'm arguing is that there is nothing in front of me in that sense because a remaster is not a new product: the audience has already encountered that before and it's better to respect that connection. And yes, there are people who want to live in a world where they didn't have to care too and in that sense there is a purity to things you first experienced as a kid. If you're a super manchild about that then anything that disturbs that purity will offend you and I think that's what we saw at the initial backlash.

 

As for the notion that I came here to argue with Lucasarts superfans because I want my Bosco back: no. I've been reading Mojo articles for 20 years, I was part of a bunch of Lucas and Telltale related communities up until the early 2010s mostly because of Monkey Island. So I know this community rather well as a lurker who got "re-activated" thanks to Monkey Island's return. When it comes to this subject I just think that it was handled pretty badly by everyone involved (including me because I sure have made some comments I'm not proud of back in 2020) so I just feel that it might be worth for the community and Skunkape to have another go at it with the power of hindsight.

 

Yes, I'd love it if Skunkape restored the games and no, I won't hold a grudge if that won't happen (in fact I'm pretty sure I'll pick up season 3 if there won't be anything similar to the Bosco situation in it). Yes, I think that the Sam & Max IP was hurt by the controversy, that's my opinion that I stick too and it would be great if anything similar could be avoided if Tales of MI got remastered by Skunkape. By this I mean that I want to see Leilani Jones Wilmore return as the Voodoo Lady in a ToMI remaster BUT they should keep the original voice in as an option.

 

That's all there is to it, I don't want to change anyone's mind, I just wanted to express my perspective and views on it.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Zaxx

[Zaxx]

34 minutes ago, TimeGentleman said:

Pretty much all of my thoughts have been covered over the two threads, but I'd also like to add that "because they might make decisions that anger Nazis" is a shoddy reason to NOT want a dev company to do a remaster.

Calling people nazis because they didn't connect with the new performance is also very shoddy reasoning I might add. Some people, for example people who have been on anti fascist rallies because they hate the antisemitism and the homophobia they sometimes see in their countries might find "but you must be a nazi because you want the old Bosco voice back in an adventure game" to be an offensive argument even...

 

But hey, we've been bringing back the radical right by calling random people nazis for decades now, we certainly won't stop until they come back to power and cause another world war.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Zaxx

[elTee]

23 minutes ago, Zaxx said:

But hey, we've been bringing back the radical right by calling random people nazis for decades now, we certainly won't stop until they come back to power and cause another world war.

 

I think this undermines your point in the previous post about the holocaust. You're entitled to your opinion and I'm grateful that everyone is trying to keep this civil, but I think the truth is that the Mojo forums are probably not the place for this discussion. I hope one day you can find a way to enjoy the Skunkape re-releases, and if not that's okay, because you will always have the original version. But let's all try and move on from this if we can please.

[Niemandswasser]

30 minutes ago, Zaxx said:

Calling people nazis because they didn't connect with the new performance is also very shoddy reasoning I might add. Some people, for example people who have been on anti fascist rallies because they hate the antisemitism and the homophobia they sometimes see in their countries might find "but you must be a nazi because you want the old Bosco voice back in an adventure game" to be an offensive argument even...

 

But hey, we've been bringing back the radical right by calling random people nazis for decades now, we certainly won't stop until they come back to power and cause another world war.

 

See, this is why people are calling your argument disingenuous. He didn't call you a Nazi--he said recasting the role is a decision that would upset Nazis, which it undeniably is. He said that saying "But people will review bomb the game, which is bad PR, so better to just not do anything!" isn't a good enough argument against doing it, because review bombing a game over something like this is a favorite tactic of the radical right and we shouldn't worry about what they think. As to what could be an "offensive argument," how about saying that, despite your not being in the US, you have a pretty good handle on what the history of American race relations is "pretty much" like and know the best way to handle them? As to bringing back the radical right by calling people Nazis--if somebody says they became a Nazi because somebody insulted them, buddy, they were just waiting for a good excuse.

Incidentally, just for context, the timely gentleman you're responding to is one of the developers behind Ben There, Dan That!, Time, Gentlemen! Please, and Lair of the Clockwork God--i.e. games inspired in large part by his own die-hard LucasArts fandom--so again, you *may* want to consider that your finger isn't as on the pulse of "what the fans want" as you think.

EDIT: Apologies to elTee, I posted before seeing your reply. This is the last I'll say on the subject.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Niemandswasser

[Udvarnoky]

42 minutes ago, Zaxx said:

Yes, I think that the Sam & Max IP was hurt by the controversy, that's my opinion that I stick too and it would be great if anything similar could be avoided if Tales of MI got remastered by Skunkape.

 

The Skunkape remasters are fantastic, have exposed new fans to Sam & Max, have instigated collectible physical releases by Limited Run Games, have come with the explicit approval of Steve Purcell, have sold well enough to guarantee that all three seasons will receive the upgrade, and have garnered excellent reviews on balance.

 

Everything about these remasters has served to renew and steward the brand. But you've managed to develop the intriguing impression that the brand was in fact hurt by it, somehow.

 

One can only pray that Tales of Monkey Island gets "hurt" like that some day.

 

[Zaxx]

32 minutes ago, Niemandswasser said:

 

See, this is why people are calling your argument disingenuous. He didn't call you a Nazi--he said recasting the role is a decision that would upset Nazis, which it undeniably is. He said that saying "But people will review bomb the game, which is bad PR, so better to just not do anything!" isn't a good enough argument against doing it, because review bombing a game over something like this is a favorite tactic of the radical right and we shouldn't worry about what they think. As to what could be an "offensive argument," how about saying that, despite your not being in the US, you have a pretty good handle on what the history of American race relations is "pretty much" like and know the best way to handle them? As to bringing back the radical right by calling people Nazis--if somebody says they became a Nazi because somebody insulted them, buddy, they were just waiting for a good excuse.

I didn't mean that the developers or the public should avoid doing anything because of a fear that they might upset nazis. What I meant is that calling random people nazis has become a "boy who cried wolf" situation where the term "nazi" was devalued so much that it no longer has any punch to it. The only people who you should be calling nazis are the actual neonazis and chances are they don't care about Sam & Max.

 

Of course I can't say if that's actually true for everyone but what I wanted to point out with basically all of my previous posts was that the backlash was caused by a varied group of people who for one reason or another didn't like the changes. That's all there is to it, it wasn't an organized mob, they weren't mythical internet nazis or evil, just people and review bombing is certainly not something that is identifiable as a "radical right trait". I know that it's very easy to antagonize people in a way that ensures that whatever happens we're always right but that's really bad if we want to understand their reasons.

 

And just like how it wouldn't be wise to be scared of doing anything that might upset nazis it's also not the greatest idea to NOT do something "because then they'd win" when "they" actually don't even exist.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Zaxx

[TimeGentleman]

10 minutes ago, Zaxx said:

I didn't mean that the developers or the public should avoid doing anything because of a fear that they might upset nazis.

 

When I said "I'd also like to add that 'because they might make decisions that anger Nazis' is a shoddy reason to NOT want a dev company to do a remaster", I was referring to you saying "Backlash, less sales, an army of trolls review bombing and warning people who'd want to buy everywhere, people calling each other racists or nazis in the community just because some people happen to prefer the old voice actor etc. I saw that once, it was really stupid, I'd rather not watch the rerun thank you very much." as a reason for not wanting Skunkape to remaster Tales, in the RTMI thread.

I won't say anything else, because elTee has already asked us to move on, but I wanted to clarify that.

[elTee]

By all means guys, feel free to discuss the Skunkape projects however you like. I didn't want to shut the discussion down, but I had started seeing references to things like the holocaust and slavery, and those subjects are not up for debate, that's all. I think we're all mainly on the same page here, anyway!