Nintendo Praises Independents, Devalues "Garage Developers"

[timeadept]

Independent developers are garage developers who have sold a game.

Pretty much this.

What's he saying there?... 'we're only interested in supporting developers who are already making a tonne of money, and we're too scared to take a chance with anyone else?' Jesus Christ...

Is that what they meant by garage developers? Cause i know two very good games that were developed by a single person, obviously the Minecraft Alpha version is one. The other is Atom Zombie Smasher. (Your goal is to rescue civilians from zombie infested cities. It's a top down strategy game and you get a few units with which to do your job, you get a small infantry squad, snipers, artillery, barricades, bait, mines, demo charges... oh and a helicopter)

Really nintendo... aren't you making enough money to take a few risks on Indi developers? Their projects can't be THAT expensive. After all, they're being made by a single person or small group.

 

[WaderiAAA]

As far as creativity tools and casual games go, I don't see anything wrong with cheap, simplistic games. I hope iPhone games isn't the future of gaming though. I still greatly prefer games that has a storyline.

 

[WaderiAAA]

their own in-house titles seem to be stangnating.

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

Depends on whether you mean original in a good way or in a bad way. Wii Music was a pretty original take on the Music genre, but if you want an original AND good way, then it is probably Pikmin, from back in 2001.

 

[timeadept]

I just read the source article and it doesn't make much more sense. all i got outa it was that a "garage developer" still has a job elsewhere and is not making games for a living.

Maybe this will help explain the situation... http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=10750

I think we can safely say that this applies to games as well as books. And it is completely understandable that someone might want to actually keep their job instead of betting it all on this MASSIVE risk.

You could say that the people who make games for a living (or have decided to try) and started by making their own games as an Indi are simply more confidant in the quality of their game, and if they are more confident then they must actually HAVE a better game. But i don't see where this logic adds up, especially when you consider the enormous risks involved in trying to make games for a living. Sure, if you have a job, it'll take longer to get the work done, but if you're determined to make something good then your quality won't really suffer by you taking more time. And hey, maybe after you manage that first big hit you'll be confident enough to go into making games full time. I might be wrong but i'm pretty sure that's how it worked with Noch. I at least know that Mojang Studios was founded on the money made from Minecraft.

 

[Adam28]

It's funny how those garage 59p games seem to be a lot better than most of the full priced £30 shovelware on the Wii. I also don't see how these cheap games really hurt the industry, using apple's iphone or ipod touch, it's app store for games has only helped the industry by making it more accessible.

In my opinion if I was new to gaming, paying too much for a bad shovelware game on the Wii is a lot more likely to put me off buying any games in the future, as opposed to a 59p game on an ipod.

 

[Podunk]

Reggie, you do know your console and handheld exclusively produce RIDICULOUS levels of shovelware, right? If you want to fight the 'garbage' games, maybe you should bring back the Nintendo Seal of Quality.

 

[Ghaleon640]

Hey, I'm late to the party and no one will read this, but ah well, I'll give it a shot.

To try and look at it from a business standpoint, maybe nintendo isn't necessarily the best company to look at indipendant developers. Their online system, (though i've never tried it, don't hang me,) doesn't look like it would be as easy to sift though a couple thousand indie games, because your holding that darned motion remote rather than a normal remote and staring at a list. And then after you purchase it it takes an entire box in... the thing that holds all your wii... aps. Like weather channel. It may just make that too cluttered so that if you get four hundred of these little things, (exaggerating but you get the idea) then people would have to keep scrolling and keep scrolling. I don't know, I'm shooting in the dark.

And the casual players that use the wii, may simply become confused by the subect or process and wonder why these cheap games look and play horribly. (Because most likely they aren't going to hit the nail on the head first pick.) It may even screw up the wii point system or something, I mean, is anything on the wii normally worth less than five or ten dollars? If someone buys one, would they be basically forced to buy four more? I mean, Xbox has the avatars and themes and stuff like that for the smaller prices.

And to allow for indie developers to develope for their system, they would need to tell people how to get a game to use their motion controls. The games i've seen this is hard enough when its done by a proper company, tech support would be a job no one would want to do, and overall it may be to complicated for one person to do a compitant job.

But yeah, I have a wii and i rarely walk by that section in a gamestop anymore. I don't want to look for 50 games for kids... nothing goes down in price and I've lost faith in their motion controls. All this does saden me though because I've owned almost every nintendo system starting with the original NES.

Granted, maybe i'm just being stupid for not having read the source article, but I don't feel the opening to this thread gave enough of the reason as to 'why' they think it is a failed business model to give these developers a chance.