Beamdog founder Trent Oster: "We don't do Nintendo development"

Grymm said:
whoa whoa whoa. hold on.

First off I don't do hit and run.

2nd I'm not just basing my opinion of the 3DS eShop on the remarks in this thread. There's an entire internet that calls it shit I also refer to with many perfectly valid reasons. Small amount of negative word my ass.

3rd wsippel, whoever the fuck that is, apparently some guy that can't link a source for anything and doesn't know what 3rd party games are popular, replied with changes made to the eShop vs WiiWare. That's fine. But what he didn't address is even with those changes why the eShop is still considered to be shitty. I mean if it's all fixed as nice as he said, why is it still shit? Where are the devs and games flocking to it? He, and no one else, had any answer for that. Typical Ninthings with their fingers in their ears blocking out the valid criticisms like usual.

What anyone else also failed and continues to fail to do is respond to what in the hell makes people think the WiiU service has fixed things any further? There's no info to go on and history sure as shit doesn't support it, yet you have people saying in this thread that it'll be fixed on WiiU like they know they for a fact.

They don't even know if it will still be using fucking friend codes. But they know they WiiU download service will be "fixed".

Some of the posters in this thread are crazier than a 40 meg game size limit.
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I haven't read the comments you've posted that precede this one, so I don't know exactly what you mean when you assert that the eShop is "still shit", but let me answer some of your questions:

-Re: the entire internet thinking the eShop is shit - 3DS online retention rate is at around 60% in both the US and Japan, according to Nintendo's internal figures; this is significantly more than that of the DSi and especially the Wii, and an impressive figure in its own right. Whatever Nintendo's done to get people interested in the eShop--focused promotion, more user-friendly storefront, SpotPass notifications--is clearly working

-The shortage of third-party eShop games can be broadly attributed to two factors: a long queue for a small number of devkits, and initial wariness about jumping into eShop development given Nintendo's previous attempts at DD. There are signs that these two issues are dissipating, however; Nintendo/Intelligent Systems are pushing out more devkits, and the success of games like Zen Pinball, Mutant Mudds and Mighty Switch Force has prompted both more unique eShop content from indie developers and more digital releases from retail-focused publishers (the most notable being Unchained Blades from XSEED). The tide is definitely turning - perhaps not as quickly as some of us would like, but there's definite momentum there.

-Nintendo's own statements suggest that their approach to online platforms generally, be they 3DS, Wii U or beyond, will be far more decentralised and more flexible than in the past; the "Nintendo Network" is designed to be more of a broad platform under which individual publishers/developers can tailor the online infrastructure to suit their own products. They've already cited plans to move the 3DS towards a proper account infrastructure, they're dipping their toes in the world of paid DLC, and they're taking consultations from third-party publishers/developers on areas in which their online protocols can be improved. Of course no-one can state with any certainty that they know things will be markedly better, or how different they'll be, but the signs of them aggressively pursuing an online presence are finally here in a way that they haven't been in the past, and I'm sure we'll hear more about it at E3.
 
Jools Watsham's (Renegade Kid's) blog is well worth reading, considering some of the misinformation flying around here. After all, he had a major success with Mutant Mudds on the 3DS eShop.
Read it. It's the perfect antidote to Oster's nonsense.

“Publishing games on the 3DS is hard. I give up!” That’s basically what I am hearing from publishers these days. “Only first-party games are selling on the 3DS,” is what they tell me. Hm, I wonder why that would be. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the quality of the first-party games compared to the third-party games, would it? I doubt it would have anything to do with the marketing and PR efforts put into the games either. No, it must be the fact that first-party games use known brands and have the word Nintendo on them; nothing more. You can bet your bottom dollar that if these games were handled in the same manner as most third-party publishers handle their own games they’d be in the bargain bin in no time.
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http://joolswatsham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/publishing-games-on-3ds-is-hard-i-give.html
 
axisofweevils said:
Jools Watsham's (Renegade Kid's) blog is well worth reading, considering some of the misinformation flying around here. After all, he had a major success with Mutant Mudds on the 3DS eShop.
Read it. It's the perfect antidote to Oster's nonsense.



http://joolswatsham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/publishing-games-on-3ds-is-hard-i-give.html
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Cray thing is this is not a problem on other consoles.

"No, it must be the fact that first-party games use known brands and have the word Nintendo on them; nothing more."

Yes because these games are the reason they brought the system.
 
The toy comment was stupid as hell, but he makes valid points. Nintendo needs to cut that shit out. Seriously.

-Pyromaniac- said:
I'm sure holding grudges was something they learned in the school of sound business.
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For all we know, Nintendo still does shit like this. I don't blame the guy for just deciding to not bother with them at all. It is imperative that Nintendo stop treating 3rd party developers like crap.
 
Nils said:
That's the thing though. Of that roughly 8 games per user, how many of those are third party games on average? These numbers would be really interesting. In my own case that would be 1 vs 7 Nintendo games or something but that's just anecdotal.




His medium of choice here was Twitter, which lends itself to short and often highly hyperbolic messages to get the point across.
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Doesn't matter if it was smoke signals, he chose his post-reasoning argument poorly. That, and after the OMGPOP brouhaha, that's more blatant then ever.
 
USC-fan said:
Cray thing is this is not a problem on other consoles.

"No, it must be the fact that first-party games use known brands and have the word Nintendo on them; nothing more."

Yes because these games are the reason they brought the system.
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So 80 million people who bought Wii but didn't buy a GameCube suddenly became Nintendo fans overnight?
 
So three things.

One, the WiiWare limitations were/are silly. There's no defending it. At all. But with 3DS and Wii U (going by comments/statements from the company ever since the thing was revealed) they're trying to change. I'll give them the chance, seeing as PSN was utter trash at one time too and it's fine now other than no cross chat and slow downloads.

Two, this guy is an idiot because he was willing to make any legit criticisms he had take a backseat to his tirade. If he had said these same things without being in rant mode people wouldn't be up in arms about it.

Three, I won't be buying Baldur's Gate just like I haven't bought any other Baldur's Gate games, because I couldn't care less about the series. So no, everyone here won't be buying it.

Never mind, there's a fourth thing. You guys should really just learn to ignore that Grymm dude.
 
axisofweevils said:
Jools Watsham's (Renegade Kid's) blog is well worth reading, considering some of the misinformation flying around here. After all, he had a major success with Mutant Mudds on the 3DS eShop.
Read it. It's the perfect antidote to Oster's nonsense.



http://joolswatsham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/publishing-games-on-3ds-is-hard-i-give.html
Click to expand...
I have the feeling that you'd probably be lucky to have game sites just regurgitate Nintendo's weekly downloads press release. If you don't put the effort to market the game, especially to gain visibility on specialty sites like NintendoLife and Go Nintendo, it's probably dead on arrival.
 
Penguin said:
Well based on sales of Just Dance.. at least one 3rd party game was a driving factor as well. :P
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"Who says third-party titles don't sell on the Nintendo Wii?

Ubisoft has announced sales of its aptly-named dance game Just Dance has now sold over two million copies worldwide since its release in November 2009, which according to the company, is the fastest-selling new third-party Wii franchise. "

http://wii.ign.com/articles/108/1081134p1.html

That is crazy that is the best selling third party game on the wii. CRAZY! Maybe it was weird wording... "new third part wii franchise"

But we are talking 2 million if every one brought a wii for just this game.
 
USC-fan said:
"Who says third-party titles don't sell on the Nintendo Wii?

Ubisoft has announced sales of its aptly-named dance game Just Dance has now sold over two million copies worldwide since its release in November 2009, which according to the company, is the fastest-selling new third-party Wii franchise. "

http://wii.ign.com/articles/108/1081134p1.html

That is crazy that is the best selling third party game on the wii. CRAZY! Maybe it was weird wording... "new third part wii franchise"

But we are talking 2 million if every one brought a wii for just this game.
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I actually believe the sales of Just Dance 2 are over 5 million in the States alone, could be mistaken.

And honestly.. it carried the Wii's hardware sales through most of 2011 if NPD is anything to go by
 
-Pyromaniac- said:
I'm sure holding grudges was something they learned in the school of sound business.
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No but not making any money was at the top of the list of "things not to do" in Business 101. It just wouldn't be smart business to support a platform that already lost you money. Maybe Wii U will ditch the ridiculous 6,000 limit and improve QCC for small and new developers. Until that time comes they have no reason to risk another money losing venture with Nintendo.

They probably would like Nintendo to apologize to them. Reggie should reach out to them to personally hear their complaints and relay them back to NCL. And it's not like Nintendo is the first console producer to piss off a small developer with their download service. Wiiware received a couple of games that would have went to XBLA but MS somehow made the dev's angry.
 
Shaheed79 said:
No but not making any money was at the top of the list of "things not to do" in Business 101. It just wouldn't be smart business to support a platform that already lost you money. Maybe Wii U will ditch the ridiculous 6,000 limit and improve QCC for small and new developers. Until that time comes they have no reason to risk another money losing venture with Nintendo.

They probably would like Nintendo to apologize to them. Reggie should reach out to them to personally hear their complaints and relay them back to NCL. And it's not like Nintendo is the first console producer to piss off a small developer with their download service. Wiiware received a couple of games that would have went to XBLA but MS somehow made the dev's angry.
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They already did on the 3DS... Quite a while ago, in fact.
As for apologizing.... BWAHAHAHAHA.
 
Shaheed79 said:
No but not making any money was at the top of the list of "things not to do" in Business 101. It just wouldn't be smart business to support a platform that already lost you money. Maybe Wii U will ditch the ridiculous 6,000 limit and improve QCC for small and new developers. Until that time comes they have no reason to risk another money losing venture with Nintendo.

They probably would like Nintendo to apologize to them. Reggie should reach out to them to personally hear their complaints and relay them back to NCL. And it's not like Nintendo is the first console producer to piss off a small developer with their download service. Wiiware received a couple of games that would have went to XBLA but MS somehow made the dev's angry.
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3DS already fixed all those problems so making this statement NOW of all times is crazy.
 
It started off decent...and then it quickly turns into bitching. That's my only beef with his arguments. That and the definitiveness of the tone. Angry people are angry I guess.
 
I honestly do wonder what the ages are of people who still use words like "ninthings" or "xbots". I also keep forgetting that maturity is never guaranteed with age. Playground level name calling is always a sure sign of an intelligent poster.
 
Billychu said:
3DS already fixed all those problems so making this statement NOW of all times is crazy.
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They don't make games for 3DS and probably don't even have a 3ds dev kit. They made a game for Wiiware that wasn't released until after the 3DS had come out. So how would they know the 3DS was any different? At this point they have no idea what the Wii U download service is going to be like, and the interviewer was asking them about a Wii U port of their current game.

I perfectly understand where the guy is coming from. I'm sure that some of the bigger and more well known developers didn't have to wait 9 months for certification. They felt treated like a second class developer despite the quality of the game they were making.

As a Nintendo fan, I do not take offense at all to his comments.
 
Shaheed79 said:
They don't make games for 3DS and probably don't even have a 3ds dev kit. They made a game for Wiiware that wasn't released until after the 3DS was came out. So how would they know the 3DS was any different? At this point they have no idea what the Wii U download service is going to be like and the interviewer was asking them about a Wii U port of their current game.

I perfectly understand where the guy is coming from. I'm sure that some of the bigger and more well known developers didn't have to wait 9 months for certification. They felt treated like a second class developer despite the quality of the game they were making.

As a Nintendo fan, I do not take offense at all to his comments.
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cuz the wii is a toy amirite, you're making the quotes in the OP seem a lot more reasonable and professional than it was. It started off so, and then it devolves, and then some credibility is lost, and then yeah.
 
Just to throw these out there as well.
Two more novel steps Nintendo has taken is

1)Promoting their digital space. I remember FreakyForms getting a commercial. And they hold contests, almost weekly now on Twitter/Facebook for eShop games including 3rd party stuff like VVVVV and Mutant Mudds

2) They are making people more of aware of it, by offering games as prizes on Club Nintendo.

Sure, it isn't the best, but it is much further than they got with the Wii.
 
Shaheed79 said:
They don't make games for 3DS and probably don't even have a 3ds dev kit. They made a game for Wiiware that wasn't released until after the 3DS had come out. So how would they know the 3DS was any different? At this point they have no idea what the Wii U download service is going to be like and the interviewer was asking them about a Wii U port of their current game.

I perfectly understand where the guy is coming from. I'm sure that some of the bigger and more well known developers didn't have to wait 9 months for certification. They felt treated like a second class developer despite the quality of the game they were making.

As a Nintendo fan, I do not take offense at all to his comments.
Click to expand...

You mean the port of a PS1 game that looked worse than the original?
 
Shaheed79 said:
They don't make games for 3DS and probably don't even have a 3ds dev kit. They made a game for Wiiware that wasn't released until after the 3DS was came out. So how would they know the 3DS was any different? At this point they have no idea what the Wii U download service is going to be like and the interviewer was asking them about a Wii U port of their current game.

I perfectly understand where the guy is coming from. I'm sure that some of the bigger and more well known developers didn't have to wait 9 months for certification. They felt treated like a second class developer despite the quality of the game they were making.

As a Nintendo fan, I do not take offense at all to his comments.
Click to expand...
That's the irony. He was asked about Wii U and he replied with how burned they were with WiiWare and Nintendo, etc. So, if he didn't knew about things he should've just replied with how disappointed he was with WiiWare and not go or say much beyond that. It would be the equivalent of asking Square Enix and they replying back with cartridges vs. CDs.

But as noted already, there are things that we don't know even included Interplay's involvement. Most of the information (size limit, way payments were done, certification sometimes taking 2-3 months) are stuff that has been known for years, by doing quick Google searches; so it's not impossible to expect a small team made out of people that has been in the industry for over a decade to know about it.

Even Team Meat which were quite outspoken about the Meat Boy "deal" with WiiWare and Xbox Live and it was just 2 guys still remain open to Nintendo platforms. There has been developers on this same thread that has questioned the 9-months wait so is not about bigger or smaller teams, unless they did things badly...maybe they did after all, this was their first game (and only for WiiWare). Same year they released the HD port of the same game through their own digital distribution service and now there's Baldur's Gate.
 
-Pyromaniac- said:
cuz the wii is a toy amirite, you're making the quotes in the OP seem a lot more reasonable and professional than it was. It started off so, and then it devolves, and then some credibility is lost, and then yeah.
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I actually read his clarification in another topic before I read this. So yeah, I saw the reasoning before I even saw the angered response. Surely you too would be upset if your company lost money for reasons that could have been prevented if someone had cooperated more easily towards a common goal. I know I would have been.

AceBandage said:
You mean the port of a PS1 game that looked worse than the original?
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MDK2 was on the PS1? News to me. The controls were great and they did the best they could given the 40mb file limit. It was a Dreamcast game after all. What exactly were you expecting?

Billychu said:
Because I'm not even a game developer and I know its different. No excuses for a developer/publisher/platform holder.
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Yeah but you're a Nintendo fan, and you make it your business to know that stuff. I can guarantee you that a ton of developers have no idea what the 3DS download service requirements are. Unless they are targeting that platform then they have no reason to even want to know what the requirements are. They're too busy making games on the platforms that they do want to target.
 
Are people seriously defending Nintendo on this? Holy shit.

These policies are pretty indefensible, as far as I'm concerned.
 
RawPower said:
Are people seriously defending Nintendo on this? Holy shit.

These policies are pretty indefensible, as far as I'm concerned.
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Again, not seeing much "defending". Nearly everyone agrees that all their limits were absurd and plain dumb.
Not agreeing with how things were said is another thing. Since things changed and he wasn't asked about WiiWare, but Wii U.
 
fernoca said:
That's the irony. He was asked about Wii U and he replied with how burned they were with WiiWare and Nintendo, etc. So, if he didn't knew about things he should've just replied with how disappointed he was with WiiWare and not go or say much beyond that. It would be the equivalent of asking Square Enix and they replying back with cartridges vs. CDs.

But as noted already, there are things that we don't know even included Interplay's involvement. Most of the information (size limit, way payments were done, certification sometimes taking 2-3 months) are stuff that has been known for years, by doing quick Google searches; so it's not impossible to expect a small team made out of people that has been in the industry for over a decade to know about it.

Even Team Meat which were quite outspoken about the Meat Boy "deal" with WiiWare and Xbox Live and it was just 2 guys still remain open to Nintendo platforms. There has been developers on this same thread that has questioned the 9-months wait so is not about bigger or smaller teams, unless they did things badly...maybe they did after all, this was their first game (and only for WiiWare). Same year they released the HD port of the same game through their own digital distribution service and now there's Baldur's Gate.
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Fernoca I don't disagree with most of what you've said. I don't think Square bringing up cartridges vs CD's is the same as them bringing up a process that is still ongoing on the Wii.

We are all assuming that Wii U is going to be similar or even better than 3DS's download service. He was a little upset and maybe should not not have assumed that the Wii U would be the same way. But I honestly can not blame him for not even being interested in finding out at this point.

He was angry and venting somewhat. I think he was justified in his anger. It might not have been professional, but everyone is human and prone to mistakes. That is why he chose to clarify the situation, and I think he did a good job in doing that.
 
Although I agree with his complain about the 40mb limitation, why he's only pointing this NOW at the eve of Wii U's reveal? He should have said that back in the day when MDK2 Wii came out. To me is just another lame developer who can't succeed and use Nintendo as an escape goat for what went wrong. I find odd that nobody blames Microsoft or Sony when their games fail on their consoles, when it fails on a Nintendo system, it's always Nintendo's fault.
 
Shaheed79 said:
Fernoca I don't disagree with most of what you've said. I don't think Square bringing up cartridges vs CD's is the same as them bringing up a process that is still ongoing on the Wii.

We are all assuming that Wii U is going to be similar or even better than 3DS's download service. He was a little upset and maybe should not not have assumed that the Wii U would be the same way. But I honestly can not blame him for not even being interested in finding out at this point.

He was angry and venting somewhat. I think he was justified in his anger. It might not have been professional, but everyone is human and prone to mistakes. That is why he chose to clarify the situation, and I think he did a good job in doing that.
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That I agree. If anything it just shows that people need to be careful with what they say and how they say it.
 
Besides, you guys do realize that this was posted here, in this particular manner, in order to have us "ninthings" all riled up. Why even give them the satisfaction?

This could have been presented in about 100 different ways that were much less facetious. Of course that wasn't an option.
 
Don't think anyone posted this here yet. `One of the better Nintendo fansites asked Oster to elaborate, and he responded:

Trent Oster said:
I'm not an oracle on the problems with WiiWare, but from my perspective the platform hasn't been a success for many developers outside of Nintendo.

The 40MB size limit on WiiWare makes it very difficult to bring larger games to the platform. We had to go to war on MDK2 to get it to fit within the 40MB constraints, taking a 400 plus megabyte game and cutting it a full order of magnitude in size. We put a lot of effort into managing the compromises to get the game down in size and still keep the quality level high.

When we shipped MDK2 there was a large confusion about demos on the platform and we never got a straight answer if demos were allowed. We were not allowed to set the price, Nintendo set the pricing, telling us after a week it would be 1000 points. As well, there was never any discussion of doing a sale or promoting the title. This all contributed to a title we worked very hard on not getting any differentiation from other titles in the WiiWare store. The result was large disappointment with the platform.

When the Wii first launched, I didn't understand it. I thought it was just a gimmick. After playing with it I could see the mass appeal, but I was afraid it would be treated like a toy by the family purchasers, where they would buy the Wii bundle with Wii Sports and never buy another game. I think for a lot of the family purchases this was true and a huge number of the Wii units only ever sold one or two games. The initial third party titles didn't do a great job with the controller implementation and I think that really hurt the perception of third party titles on the Wii as a whole. The end result was a platform where the perception was only Nintendo could make money.

For the Wii U, I once again don't get it. I'm having a hard time seeing how a tablet controller & console system is going to be revolutionary. I could be wrong, but I think the gaming world has changed irrevocably and there are now two fronts: Triple A console titles which resemble blockbuster movies and freemium/app store titles which are closer to television. The triple "A" titles cost a ton to develop and there is a market for the best of the breed, with the major brands doing huge numbers but many titles not even breaking even.

The freemium/app space has everything from "assware" (my pet name for poor quality freemium titles), up to what I would compare to HBO television titles, which are high production quality and well executed games which sell in the $10-$30 price point. The PC platform bridges both models, which makes it an interesting target to develop for. To me, the Wii U doesn't fit into either model and I see a lot of difficulty for it on either front. The app store/freemium model has redefined consumer pricing expectations, making consumers much less likely to invest $60 in a title without playing it first. The triple "A" model focuses on delivering the experience you expect at the agreed upon price, which is going to be hard to sell conceptually with a new platform like the Wii U. I wish Nintendo the best and I hope they can hit big with a major success.
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TreasureHunterG said:
Although I agree with his complain about the 40mb limitation, why he's only pointing this NOW at the eve of Wii U's reveal? He should have said that back in the day when MDK2 Wii came out. To me is just another lame developer who can't succeed and use Nintendo as an escape goat for what went wrong. I find odd that nobody blames Microsoft or Sony when their games fail on their consoles, when it fails on a Nintendo system, it's always Nintendo's fault.
Click to expand...

I find it odd that you haven't come across any people complaining about the restrictions of Xbox Live or PSN. Plenty of people have spoken out with their greivances about the other systems.

Poor Nintendo! Only they are victimized!
 
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