So me pointing out your obvious deflection and incompetence to follow up on your own points means I'm guilty of "desperately wanting the attention"? I'm just trying to have a discussion here buddy. No need to get defensive.
1. Something you don't seem to understand is how owning specific IPs in overseas environments works for the native land. I tried to explain it in my original post, but I'll try harder this time:
Say your name was Bob and you owned an ice cream parlor. You called this Bob's Ice Cream Parlor. Now say you had a gentleman with well-kept black hair, a suit and tie, and glasses come up to you with a very pretty looking business card saying he was the American representative for a Swiss advertising agency named Swiss Relations. You give the gentleman a call and he explains to you how his company takes a 20% cut of all your internal margins in exchange for representing your ice cream parlor. This includes marketing, dealing with lawsuits, potentially working with partners to make your product better. All the good stuff. You accept his offer without any additional conditions, and sign on to a 1-year contract. Bob's Ice Cream Parlor is now owned by Swiss Relations, and they agree to take all of your profits and return 80% of them to you on a certain basis; usually bi-weekly, like a standard paycheck.
Now, say Swiss Relations is a really crap company. They hire dime-an-hour lawyers to help you through a lawsuit and you lose because of it, costing you millions of dollars. They run a few internal advertisements but otherwise, there's no real marketing for your product. They come up with no good ideas and because of that, your business is down 15% on the year, on top of the 20% you're giving them. They're a parasite to your company, and that's terrible because they own you now and you can never get rid of them! Right? Well no, not exactly. After the contract runs out, you can not sign a new one and instead take back your company; there's no contract binding your company to them anymore, so the original clause defining the company is the only one that stands, which in this case would be that Bob's Ice Cream Parlor belongs entirely to Bob. Swiss Relations is no longer involved in your company.
Now, the main thing to take here is by signing a contract where you agree to a specific royalty amount, you're not actually giving them 20%. What you're actually doing is giving them 100%, and they're agreeing to return 80% to you. Even though, legally, the contract states that you're forfeiting the entire company, or in FromSoftware's case, the entire IP in exchange for being returned a net sum on a specifically stated basis, the company really doesn't belong to Swiss Relations (or Bandai Namco) outside of that specific contract. After the contract expires, you can choose whether or not to sign a new one. Clearly, you want to be a good supporter of the company or IP in the specific area, whether it be to a certain market or just based on geography outside of a certain area. Otherwise, they can drop you and never look back.
This is how it is with FromSoftware and Bandai Namco when it comes to Dark Souls outside of Japan. No, I don't work for either company, but to say the general logistics of law don't apply to someone handling a specific IP would be foolish. Sure, Bandai Namco WOULD have some representation in the IP outside of Japan, but not as much as you seem to think. This is something Bandai Namco would still, very likely, agree with just because Dark Souls and FromSoftware is huge for them and something they'd rather not lose if they have the choice. Calling Dark Souls and/or Solaire a "Bandai Namco representative" would be correct in some ways, incorrect in others, and as a whole just VERY misleading.
2. Oh, no. I was just bringing up my uncle to explain where I get my information from. He has nothing to do with this situation at all and I fully apologize if I made it seem like I was trying to give him any authority. You can forget I even mentioned him if you'd like.
3. But, do you know how the legal negotiations would go? You seem to be trying to completely disregard my entire argument just because I wouldn't know how negotiations would go, but you don't seem to know either. The fact here is that I'm simply just trying to use the knowledge of the system that I, personally, know to explain how things could go. Nobody here knows for sure, and trying to emphasize legal jargon in an internet forum discussion about a video game is foolish and I think you trying to say I'm the fallacious one in this situation is laughable.
Just to mention, I've already agreed that Bandai Namco would have to be involved in the negotiations, just not in as wide of a scope as you seem to think. So I'm confused as to why you keep bringing it up.
4. I think it's funny that you open up this point by saying "it's nothing more than opinion passed off as fact" because when have I EVER said anything of mine in my original post should be taken as fact? I'm literally just trying to have a conversation, and how do you converse among facts? You don't, you converse among opinions because they're the only thing that can be refuted! This is an internet forum; take everything anyone says with a grain of salt! Why do I even need to tell you this?
4.1 - If I'm oversimplifying something, explain to me how I am, not just that I am.
4.2 - I personally don't believe that we're gonna get 5 outrageous wildcards; I've been saying for quite some time that the last 1 or 2 reveals will likely be very obvious, but surprising just because we were expecting something bigger. I don't really see why I need to have sources when I'm just making personal predictions? Honestly not sure if you even know what you're arguing for anymore.
4.3 - The Sakurai interview is a great point to make, and just shows how little we really know. "It has to be Lloyd" being supplemented by points of how big Symphonia was for the West can be a huge turning point for why he makes it in IF a Tales rep does, but we can never be too sure until it does happen. But looking at the past, the fact that it took Ridley 2 full games to make it in after all the Western hype around him during the Brawl speculation era, despite an onslaught of Fire Emblem characters that not too many people cared about outside of Japan making it in amidst the Ridley-less timespan, leads me to believe that Sakurai still values what his homeland wants over what his Western fans want.
It's ALL speculation and guessing what could happen based off of what little info we have so far. We can both agree with that, right? That none of us know for sure what will happen, and we can only speculate? Unless you have insider information; that'd be great! Then I wouldn't need to argue since it would be factual information, considering FACTS CAN'T BE ARGUED, ONLY THE OPINIONS SURROUNDING THEM. And that, my friend, is exactly why we're even arguing in the first place.
I almost feel like you didn't even fully read my original post when you call it biased, not well-worded, and not supporting of my own points. I feel like I did a great job not inciting any bias into it, and defined my own points quite well (which, let me remind you that I only "accused" you of not supporting your own points because you literally didn't, you quite literally deflected without actually explaining your points). Why do you think I didn't, just because I disagree with you or is there something more to it? Let's have a conversation, man. No need to get upset over a video game.
