quote:
Originally posted by chronoluminaire:
Mmm, I'm not sure that's fair. I think Nandemonai-san was listing some possible reasons, not from any particular inside knowledge (AFAIK??). Remember that nobody can know the future. When you set out on an enterprise, then certainly try to count the cost and make sure it's something that you think will work... but no plan can predict everything. Whether they're busier than they expected, or the Western buyers are more recalcitrant than expected, or whatever else it might be, it's not necessarily something they could have predicted.
You are correct. The original post said "why would you make a business relationship that you later abandon"? And...well, there are a lot of answers to that. Some devious ("it was an elaborate trap for some third party"), some irresponsible ("we didn't read the contract"), and then some that are totally unpredictable. Megatech tried to release the Dragon Knight series over here, and gave it what was at the time a rather good localization. It failed, I don't know why, but essentially their target market did not exist. Now, a Japanese firm couldn't possibly have known this ahead of time.
There are a LOT of reasons, which don't all boil down to "not thinking it through". The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Even a careful, considered strategy may fail - hidden risks, changing environments, even natural disasters (anyone seen the Island episodes of Nadia?) all can have an adverse effect.