*Sigh...I severely dislike when people try to over simplify an argument in the face of their own flawed one to try and demonstrate how their point somehow makes more sense, but here goes.
Actually, we're applying patterns to the Nintendo marketing teams. Who are far more predictable and have acted without Sakurai to disconfirm characters at several points.
They only act if there's something to work with. No sign of Ridley's full body what-so-ever means they will not say either way. Chrom also didn't
need a deconfirm, it was obvious that he was not going to be playable after the trailer. Rayman only needed one because a silly Nintendo rep borked his words and literally implied without ambiguity that he was a newcomer. That demanded clarification due to the Nintendo rep not choosing his words carefully.
From a marketing standpoint, this entire tease makes no sense if Ridley isn't playable. Revealing him at a stage boss a year ago would have been poorly received, but would have been seen as just a tease and a disconfirm. Most people would move past it.
This is subjective, because while it doesn't make sense to
you, it certainly makes perfect sense to me, enough to not be convinced of Ridley's chances at all. You hyped something up to be more than it actually is. There's no shame in that, but just don't start whining about Nintendo being deceiving and making bad marketing choices when you don't get your way, because from my perspective they've done nothing to forcefully create hype for him being playable. Only this thread has.
Teasing the fanbase for over a year, giving them no official word for that long, then dropping the "boss" reveal on them just as the game releases in Japan, would hurt the game sales. You're going to argue "oh, no one would actually give up Smash for that". But they would. People would feel mocked, betrayed, and humiliated by Nintendo for over a year, and they would have that feeling right at the worst possible time, directly before release (when it's out in Japan, but not over here). Not all, not even most of them, would boycott the game, but there are definitely going to be a small minority that are going to be so upset at this ****ish treatment by the entirety of Nintendo that they will boycott the game. It's going to happen, any marketing expert will tell you this, and it would be entirely Nintendo's fault, and easily avoided if they had bothered at any time to actually explicitly state anything.
Are you trying to say that he will be in because it will boost game sales?...because you actually have no proof that Ridley being a playable character would all of the sudden coax current non-Smash bros. Players who weren't getting it anyway to buy Smash, especially with Ridley being obscure outside of the Nintendo verse.
Again, I don't feel "tested". You are only testing yourself. In fact this whole paragraph is just emotional speculation. Like a child crying about not getting a toy they want.
"I will feel mocked and betrayed if you don't put Ridley in!"
Even though he made no promises to put him in and is under no rule of law to do so.
"I won't buy the game and I will boycott Nintendo!"
I mean, really? To essentially assert that the game sales overall will be affected by your personal choice to be stubborn over one single character seems pretty self-centered. Sales will be unaffected. I'm sure there will be a few out there, extremist & irrational outspoken people who will speak with their wallet in a way that simply amounts to complaining, but it's not going to "hurt" game sales if Ridley is not playable.
This is part of why the explicit statements exist. This is why NINTENDO, not Sakurai, will come out and tweet that "oh, this character is actually not playable". Because they do not want people getting their hopes up at an ambiguous position, only to have those hopes crushed at the last possible instant, and the worst possible time for Nintendo.
In fact, while we're at it, let's point out that Sakurai wasn't the only one who performed the tease. The tease was made in a Nintendo Direct presentation. Despite what you may think, that's not just Sakurai sitting in front of a green screen going on an unscripted ramble. The marketing team and Nintendo undoubtedly reviews those, checks what scenes and images to pair with them, okays them for quality, works on scripting alongside Sakurai... You do realize that Sakurai is not the only person responsible for this game, right? Nintendo has huge teams, both in Japan and in America and Europe, working on these games. It's not just Sakurai, at any point.
Something I notice is you sure make a lot of assumptions on how Nintendo works in very absolutist ways. Do you work there?
I don't see Sakurai as the sole decision maker behind everything Smash but I certainly don't assume to know how and why certain things happen. It can simply be assumed that much of the direction behind the marketing of Smash is based on Sakurai because he is the director of development. That's a pretty important position by the way. He certainly isn't getting all his info dumps cleared by Nintendo of America, don't seriously try to convince me that any other Nintendo aside from Japan has a say.
Then too, Sakurai has specifically stated that he dislikes this situation personally. That he dislikes people getting hopeful, then getting their hopes crushed. Which, again, feeds in to his attempts to always clarify the fighters positions during every reveal. So even if it was just Sakurai, we would have reason to believe the obvious patterns in the behavior.
But since you're criticizing us for finding patterns, it seems your entire argument boils down to "Ridley breaks the pattern, Ridley is disconfirmed". With that "logic", I'm not sure there's any point in discussing this any further.
Here's the simplification part *facepalm
First of all, it's possible to get your hopes up and dreams crushed by merely anything, it depends on your desires and proneness to be misled or get hyped up.
Sakurai can't possibly manage to work around
everyone's specific measures behind what they consider teasing and false hype-building. Nobody could. Everyone wants something different.
I'm simply pointing out that not all patterns in life are meaningful or telling of something. I can give you many examples of meaningless patterns if you like. The point is you find and seek out these patterns yourself in an effort to use them as "proof" to console yourself or make yourself feel better about a likely possibility (that he won't be playable).
My logic is not that Ridley is an exception, it's that you're forcibly pointing at a pattern that is otherwise insignificant and has no bearing on his playability chances. You think certain things are a big deal that I do not (sounds like being Human).
At the end of the day, it is merely the fact we are human that is why we will always evaluate the situation differently, and we will find out in very little due time who's perspective was closest to reality.
If I unlock Ridley in real-time on my stream, you can be there to say "I told you so" and I won't even be mad
.
That's the thing I'd like to bring up. It's hypocritical to say Ridley can be downscaled, but not Metal Face. People are gonna think you've got warped logic when you say that
Like...you do know that this was the point, right? I was being ironic.