New Direction of the Nancy Drew games?

[jacie226]

So I wanted to post my opinion on the topic and get opinions on it from this perspective. I am nervous about this new direction thing, but I'm not at the same time. HER is making a business decision. They probably aren't making enough money to keep the people that they need. If I remember correctly, correct me if I am wrong, they fired someone due to budget cuts. From a financial perspective Lani is extremely expensive to hire for a job due to all of her experiences. Maybe this new direction is to bring different ideas and perspectives to the game that in the past haven't been there. What I mean is, I have been a HER interactive fan for around 13-14 years. In those years the games have changed and have not changed. HER is also starting to repeat some of the same mysteries, in my own opinion, if anyone else sees this. The direction they are heading right now in the long run may end up hurting them financially.
As an example a college that I know recently got rid of 6 majors and every minor in that category without really telling the student body. They recently revealed they were in debt 55 million dollars. They never changed the college to meet the demands of the public. Because of this they have a new president and other people coming in to help fix the problem. This means they got rid of people that have been around for years. I am telling you this because when I look at what HER is doing it looks semi similar.
HER has not really met some of the demands that the public wants, what these demands are we do not know, but because the demands aren't being met they have to change. It took my college a month to finally come out and talk about it. They needed to say it the right way. HER is always dedicated to providing what the fans want as hard as they can. Although I am deeply saddened at Lani departure, I realized this a while ago it was eventually going to happen.

Everyone keep in mind that technically Lani isn't the only voice of Nancy. When converted into other languages they have to have a different voice actress. Also to the people that are worried about her personality changing, the other voice actors of others have changed and their personalities have remand the same. I trust HER to make the right decision to keep the games we know and love from coming out. Do not give up in them. We will know what is going on soon. They will not keep information from us because it can hurt them as well. I realize people will not agree with me and I would like to hear others opinions on this as well. Keep in mind I am also upset that Lani isn't going to be the voice of Nancy Drew. She is my favorite Voice over actress. I grew up listening to her voice Nancy Drew throughout my childhood Also if you are emailing HER about this, please be respectful, I have heard of cases where people have been extremely disrespectful and that doesn't help anyone :D

[Lost+Dreaming]

First off I want to preface this by saying I am not trying to attack you. I respect your right to your opinion. I just want to argue with your key point. Yes, Lani is a valuable asset because of her experience and I'm sure she isn't cheap. However, if HER was able to hire starting off as a tiny business there is no way that they couldn't afford her now. Yes, HER did have a recent drop in sales, but they are still making way more money than they were when they started out as an extremely tiny business. Yes, Lani's fee could have gone up, but I guarantee they still could have afforded to have her. They could have done a million other business cuts before firing Lani, and we haven't seen them do any of those. If I would have saw HER struggling and cutting other costs, maybe I could have been more sympathetic to their decision. HER is a business that cares about money, that is valid; however, by firing Lani (literally, the face of Nancy Drew) they are showing us that is all they care about. I think that the fact they have waited so long to release a statement supports my post. They haven't released a statement because they don't have a good reason (other than money) for their decision.

[jacie226]

I understand your opinion and I do wish that they did not fire her because I seriously love her. I tweeted them and they said they were going to release a statement extremely soon. But I seriously wonder what they are going to say and who they are going to find to replace her bc it's going to be hard fillin her shoes

[AutumnMemories]

First off I want to preface this by saying I am not trying to attack you. I respect your right to your opinion. I just want to argue with your key point. Yes, Lani is a valuable asset because of her experience and I'm sure she isn't cheap. However, if HER was able to hire starting off as a tiny business there is no way that they couldn't afford her now. Yes, HER did have a recent drop in sales, but they are still making way more money than they were when they started out as an extremely tiny business. Yes, Lani's fee could have gone up, but I guarantee they still could have afforded to have her. They could have done a million other business cuts before firing Lani, and we haven't seen them do any of those. If I would have saw HER struggling and cutting other costs, maybe I could have been more sympathetic to their decision. HER is a business that cares about money, that is valid; however, by firing Lani (literally, the face of Nancy Drew) they are showing us that is all they care about. I think that the fact they have waited so long to release a statement supports my post. They haven't released a statement because they don't have a good reason (other than money) for their decision.

They already have done budget cuts, though :P I mean they replaced Kevin Manthei for financial reasons, they stopped offering the strategy guides, and they've stopped making extra physical copies of games. Also they keep telling people to order directly from their site, they've put inserts in physical CD's asking people to call local stores and ask them to stock the new Nancy Drew games, they got a new CEO whose experience emphasizes cutting costs and helping struggling businesses....okay not everything I said relates to cutting costs but I think it shows that HER is probably struggling and needs to be making more money (I'd be really surprised if they weren't because the point-and-click adventure game style stopped being popular a good 15 years ago).

I actually think they probably had a LOT more money when they first started making games because a) that type of game was popular then b) they were a subset of American Laser Games and that probably allowed them to have a bigger budget c) they were working with Atari at one point. So idk haha not trying to attack you either, but I just wouldn't be very surprised if HER is replacing Lani in a (probably misguided?) attempt to cut costs.

[tsukiakari]

I could definitely understand, sympathize with, and accept a decision to replace Lani for monetary purposes. It makes logical sense to me, especially with the other points made in this thread. But if she is being replaced to help save money, why hasn't Her just said so already? It's been over two weeks since the news broke, and they haven't given us a full explanation as yet; if it's something so simple as needing to cut costs, then I would assume that they could have made a statement about it. Arguably, the fans' continued negative reactions should make them feel the need to explain the situation even more strongly.

As I've said elsewhere, the lack of comment on Her's part is what's making me the most nervous and frankly disappointed in the situation. I totally agree that it's still important to be respectful towards Her as a whole, but I also think the fans should be honest about their feelings on this matter, so Her will know exactly how their fanbase feels. With that being said, I also hope that Her will be honest with us. If Lani had to stop voicing Nancy because of money, I'd like to know as much, and I'm sure many other fans would agree with me. jacie226, I do hope you're right and that Her will be able to explain the situation when they feel the time is right.

[paperstreet]

If it were budgetary cuts, that is understandable. but the whole situation was handled in a really clunky way. Lani worked for the company for 15 years and really helped build the brand. That is a long amount of time to just be let go and fired in such an abrupt manner. They could have handled the announcement better and in a way that didnt make the company seem so heartless. I understand money is money, but the nice thing about small businesses is that they have more of a human factor, and this situation has made it seem like Her doesnt care about its employees only money.

They dont even need to explain their decision, just show some gratitude and celebrate the great work of Lani. They havent even had one facebook post saying "thank you Lani and we wish you well!" Instead they have just cast her off into some ND black hole with the original bess, george, etc, etc.

[Ndfan1234]

I'd be totally fine with it if they said it was for money. If that is the case, and AutumnMemories listed some really good points as to how that might be the case, but then why don't they just tell us? There has to be more to this. Also, Lani has said that she loves working for HeR. Why couldn't she have just lowered the cost of her voice a little bit? IDK though, I just want some information.