Nintendo Praises Independents, Devalues "Garage Developers"

[Arehexes]

Oh yeah and Nintendo changes it's policy about what is a game worth the Seal of Quality lately.

Wasn't the Seal of Quality nothing but a self imposed censorship program? I mean, even fine examples of gaming greatness such as Rise of the Robots and Shaq Fu earned the Seal of So-Called-Quality.

It did prevent a flooding of games like in the atari 2600 era

 

[Swifteye]

I was wondering what Nintendo meant by garage developers. Data design interactive makes some pretty horrible stuff but apparently they don't count.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

Uh-huh so a day after Nintendo got stomped by Mojang in March Madness they say this? It's either an astounding coincidence or someone at Nintendo saw and went "b'aaaaawaawwwwww".

Read the first sentence. GDC was a couple weeks ago.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

I think Nintendo actually has a point.

Something very similar happened to other industries, like web-development. "Why go to a professional when my coworker's nephew can do it for $100".

We're also looking at people having a harder time taking the industry seriously because any idiot can toss a game up for sale, that non-gamers will lump in all gaming into this "any idiot can do it" pile.

Yes, Wii has had some shovelware, but I their Wii ____ titles get undervalued. Wii Music is still a favorite of my kids because they can make their own music, with videos, without needing Mom and Dad to buy them special controllers, and I know that's one a lot of people have complained about.

And bitching because "they only ever do rehashes of their old titles".... um... yeah? Nintendo's main output has always been Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. And they now are bring back old classics that haven't been revamped for a while. Kirby. Kid Icarus. They also have new titles that have been interesting and different. Professor Layton I hear is great. Epic Mickey was unique, even if I've heard that it didn't pan out (haven't played it). Animal Crossing (haven't played this one either, but I've heard it's popular).


What a lot of people here don't understand is that there is a difference between an indie developed game with vision (Minecraft) and an understanding of game design concepts, and crappy games turned out by complete amateurs just screwing around.

 

[hexFrank202]

Amazing, I thought the commenters would have a good amount of positive opinions on this. But that's just because I've forgotten that most gamers are STILL on the anti-Nintendo train, despite being due to get off for at least a year now. ANYWAY.

Nintendo isn't saying these developers shouldn't exist; they just shouldn't be on consoles, or sold through the major online gave stores like XBLA. I'll bet most of you play around one or two "garage developer" games every other month or so, and only play the ones that everyone is talking about. And because of that, you are given the false impression that letting any random person freely upload games and sell them next to the AAA games is a good business move. But go to Newgrounds or Addictinggames, play some random games for a few hours and see what you think then.

 

[vxicepickxv]

This is a fine example of herping so hard that you derp.

 

[Blood Countess]

I had really lost respect for Nintendo a long time ago when it seems all the games themselves release is just a remake of something else they did with a few different add ons but this is just a little pathetic.I am no fan of the indie games overall but that is personal taste but no need for the crap he said when they push out far more shovelware than either the PS3, 360 or PC

 

[Firehound]

Basically, nintendo's position on any person designing their own game is "STOP HAVING FUN GUYS!"

They do realize that even they were a startup company once upon a time as well?

 

[Mortuorum]

Once again, Reggie proves he can't open his mouth without saying something monumentally stupid. Microsoft and Sony are huge megaconglomerates, so I expect them to treat their developers and customers like dirt (Sony is particularly egregious in this respect), but Nintendo is a gaming company. Period. Show a little respect for small developers. Yeah, not everything they make is a shining jewel of creativity, but have you seen the steaming pile of horse pucky that passes for the Nintendo library?

And it's not just third-party titles that are the offenders. Cause, you know, Wii Soccer was so much better than Braid or Limbo.

 

[Gindil]

This is exactly what I would expect from a decades-old developer whose only real innovations in the past 5 years have been 2 console gimmicks.

Not that I dislike Nintendo, but the innovation from all these 'garage' programmers has, even hidden by all the worthless stuff, been far more beneficial to the gaming industry than the shovelware by Nintendo in the past few years.

What shovelware?

They've only release Zelda, Mario, Kirby...

Oh yeah... Good point.

 

[slipknot4]

Nintendo is shovelware!
And I've seen "Garage games" that have been way better than Nintendo titles, and that's by far.

 

[Logarithmic Limbo]

...How do you say "suck it" in Swedish?...

Gilla läget

Sounds very much like sour grapes from Nintendos side. A whole lot of "why did not WII, pardon the pun, think of that?" I can fully appreciate that a company which has shown a conspicuous lack of innovation lately feels threatened by small, nimble "garage developers" willing and able to explore new facets of the medium.

 

[Frostbite3789]

their own in-house titles seem to be stangnating.

Seem to be? When is the last time Nintendo put out a truly original game?

 

[GrungyMunchy]

So many people in this thread who didn't care to understand the difference between indie devs who create genuinely fun and thoughtful experiences and devs who just want to cash in on stupid shit like Angry Birds clones or fart apps. Yes, the latter are hurting the industry.

He problem is he's assuming that low-budget and low-quality go hand in hand. He's not even open to the idea of something like Minecraft, where the main focus is the gameplay and player engagement rather than graphics, franchises, or convoluted narration. It is truly disheartening to see someone so high in the games industry taking such a large dump on the kinds of artists and developers that brought games and computers to life in the first place--back when the only place to make code was your garage, and the only place to learn more was other hobbiests.

Holy shit did you read the article.

 

[starwarsgeek]

Nintendo is just as badly hurting the industry by allowing so much shovelware to come to the Wii as well as slinging rehashed titles.

This whole rehash titles thing needs to stop because it isn't true. I haven't seen anything that can be called a rehash. Yes they re-released Mario All-Stars without changing it, but that can easily be let go because it was a 25th anniversary thing. Other than that no rehashes here. Every Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc, etc, game I have played and seen has been unique. Just because they have the same main character or have some of the same mechanics or usable items, doesn't make the game a rehash. A rehash would be a clone copy of a game that is exactly the same as the original in every detail except the graphics have been updated. Every detail, if a bit of story is changed or there is a new usable item or new playable levels, the game isn't a rehash.
------

I agree with Nintendo.

Exactly. At first, I was annoyed by what they said in this article...but then I checked out the source, which explained what they were saying a lot better. What he was saying is they just aren't getting into buisness with garage developers...but anyone can read this and see they aren't picking on them.

"Look at the music industry," he says. "There are certainly highly talented people who work other jobs and have a passion to be in the music industry. They work at it. There are reality TV shows that revolve around this concept. ? I love it when there's a game that's found that captures people's imagination, just like that ? singer toiling in a factory."

In the end, they aren't saying the little guy is hurting the industry...they're saying the little guys who make cheap, poorly-made games are hurting the industry, and he didn't want cheap games to cheapen to industry. And, you know what, they're right.

Of course, as many have pointed out in this thread, quality control on the Wii third party leaves a lot to be desired, but that always happens with the generation's biggest seller. And it's not like they have much of a choice...with the "hardcores'" reaction to the Wii, many big third party companies won't touch the thing because their primary audience won't be looking for it. It'd have a pretty small library if it consisted entirely of games made by Nintendo, Capcom, Sega, and the occasional game from Konami, Square, or--rarely--a good game from someone else (No More Heroes, Muramasa, Blast Works, ect.). Sure, it'd be a damn good library, but it'd also be a damn small one.

 

[Arehexes]

Oh yeah and Nintendo changes it's policy about what is a game worth the Seal of Quality lately.

Wasn't the Seal of Quality nothing but a self imposed censorship program? I mean, even fine examples of gaming greatness such as Rise of the Robots and Shaq Fu earned the Seal of So-Called-Quality.

It did prevent a flooding of games like in the atari 2600 era

Actually according to statistics, no it didn't. Actually the number of good games on the Wii is the lowest in the generation.

Games over 70% at metacritic:
Wii: 242 (out of 649)

Eh I was referring to the Seal of Quality in the NES days where companies could only publish like 5 games a year(Which led to shell companies like Ultra games) can't publish on another companies system for like a year after doing it on nintendo and had to pay for all the carts or something along those lines. They changed it when the wii came out, so yes the seal doesn't do anything...now, just back then it was to try and help

 

[Accountfailed]

Wasn't minecraft originally just a hobby project?

better! it was a clone of another game originally

 

[Soulfoodman]

lol Nintendo wants to talk about what's hurting the video game industry and points to the group of developers that seem to encourage the most innovation today.
Perhaps they forgot which company bogs the market down with low-quality shovelware and is only worth purchasing from when they release or re-release from long-standing series'.
SMDH.

 

[Twad]

My guess is that they dont like them because they cant control or make money off hobbyists.
Wich is kind of arbitrary.

Plus, imho, since independants have less ressources to work with we often see more innovation and better gameplay from them.

 

[Spritzey]

What nonsense, the line between indie and garage is far too thin to be making such arguments.