Beamdog founder Trent Oster: "We don't do Nintendo development"
- Thread starter LiK
- Start date
Seems to me like he was asked the question by someone on Twitter this week and doesn't typically go out of his way to troll Nintendo, without being asked a retarded question like "why isn't this game coming to Wii U?"
...
He elaborated even further on his previous points and backed them up even more.
Night_Trekker
Member
Yes, he elaborated, but first he said the Wii as a toy, then backpedaled and said he was initially afraid publishers would treat it like a toy. That's not what he said first, is it?
And then he ends it all by saying he wishes Nintendo well. Yeah, sure you do, buddy. Maybe the Nintendo fanboy shitstorm hit him a little too hard and he thought better of it? I think that's more likely, given the venom in his earlier comments.
tl;dr version: He elaborated, but he also backpedaled. lol, I say. lol.
StickSoldier
Member
Sounds bitter towards Nintendo over the experience, but I don't see why he can't give it another try with the new consoles. Nintendo is heading towards the right direction with their whole online plan, so I don't see why he'd pass up putting new games on a system if it's a lot more dev friendly, but I guess I can't blame a man for passing up something that did him wrong once.
With regards to the Wii? As far as we know, nothing's changed since Trent released his last game. They made policy changes with the DSi and 3DS, as has been noted earlier in the thread.
He elaborated on his previous statements, but he didn't back them up more. His last two paragraphs are just opinions about the future with no real data attached to them. The paragraph about "Wii gamers only buy. . ." is just false, as has been pointed out in this thread. And we already knew about the other shit Nintendo was doing with the Wii Shop Channel through other developer comments.
Poimandres
Member
Well, let's face it, the Wii's day is done.
What are the changes for the DSi and 3DS? I don't want to dig through this whole thread.
Night_Trekker
Member
That right there is some Truth101.
Metallix87
Member
Yep. Absolutely.
Everything that is wrong yes, but what he stated is the truth.
No. No. No.
It only becomes the truth if developers believe that it is the truth.
It's a self fulfilling prophecy.
Phat Michael
Banned
Did you actually read what he said? He articulated his points clearly and expanded on them further. He didnt change what he said at all.
As a consumer that tends to be the two levels I see.
Incidentally, at least for me most of the AAA games are garbage and the "freemium" or indie games tend to be leagues better.
Then as a consumer your outlook is incredibly narrow.
I think what he means is he's going to ignore it at first, and change his mind if the situation is different this time around. Nothing unreasonable about that.
I'm pretty sure that is also the outlook of most consumers.
DXB-KNIGHT
Member
While Nintendo's changes on 3DS were excellent but the true test will be with the Wii U. If Nintendo really changed their policies to the better it'll be reflected in this year's E3.
There are no "dumbass masses" on WiiWare; everything sells badly. Online connection rate for Wii is terribly low--I think the last figure I saw was 8%--and of the people that regularly go online, most seem to have been disillusioned by WiiWare years ago and don't even bother checking for new releases, or they just pirate anything potentially interesting.
The sales cap (which varies depending on price, file size, territory, etc) was established at the beginning of WiiWare's life, much like the filesize cap and most of their other policies. If the sentiment towards WiiWare remained as it was at launch then the cap would be a cinch to overcome for any half-decent release. Of course, WiiWare tanked long ago, and that's what makes many of these policies so infuriating--Nintendo's strategy hasn't evolved at all, they haven't been aggressive about pushing content, they just let the whole thing fall in a heap.
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
another stupid question - you release a low budget wiiware game and it totals 5400 sales.
IS the payment delayed or is there literally no pay up? i assume the former. Is that the only limit? It doesn't have pay up points at , say, 6000 unit increments right?
IS the payment delayed or is there literally no pay up? i assume the former. Is that the only limit? It doesn't have pay up points at , say, 6000 unit increments right?
The latter, if it doesn't sell more than 6000 they just keep the money.
Like I said a post or so up, there's no flat, standard cap - it changes depending on individual factors, like file size and price point. There are also individual payment thresholds for each region, so if you release in NA, EU and AUS then that's three thresholds you've gotta meet.
Yeah, there's only one threshold, and once you pass it you'll get paid. If you don't eventually pass it, welp.
The idea behind the threshold is to keep people from flooding the marketplace with shovelware... again, a nice idea, but when every single game on WiiWare flops regardless of quality it's just a nusiance.
walking fiend
Member
sarcasm?
SaintMadeOfPlaster
Member
Wait, you're complaining because you didn't even have to wait 10 seconds to go to a store to buy a game?
According to that one thread, it seems like everyone here hates the word entitled, but I feel like it's appropriate here.
Nope.
vikingvessel
Member
In a limited space his explanation wasn't enough. With more room to elaborate, he didn't sufficiently convince some that his opinion of his very own experience that needed to be justified to no one was valid. He made himself available and responded cordially. It almost sounds like disappointment over him not further fueling opposing brand loyalty fires is lazily being redressed as backpedaling.
iceatcs
Junior Member
What about if it has sold 6001, is it mean devs will get only bit of one or some of 6001?
I'm finding numbers that are all over the place (A third? Maybe half? Definitely lower than the PS360. Or similar porportions?), but it's a good bit more than 8%. Hell, 25% of Netflix users stream with the Wii. But I bet your bottom dollar that a very low percentage of Wii owners buy digital games, could that be what that 8% is refering to?
They get the full amount of backpay.
It's been a while, I'll have to dig up that specific figure and remind myself what it pertained to, but I'm pretty sure it was online retention rate (ie people who actively use online service, including the shop channel). From memory, it was given before Nintendo started adding online setup videos to the dashboard of every Wii, and before the NOE Ambassador program, so I'm sure it's higher now.
RE: the Netflix figure, that particular survey didn't take people with multiple Netflix-enabled platforms into account, IIRC, and it didn't track regular viewing habits, just once-off connections, so it doesn't really say anything about the Wii's prominence as an online media hub. (The Hulu figures were much smaller for Wii, too, probably because it launched much later.)
iceatcs
Junior Member
Good. Obviously that makes sense.
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
this just sounds like it's potentially going to scare off "experimental" devs - you just don't know if things will fly or not - but at, say, $3 a game profit, getting to 5800 sales and getting -nothing- seems like a right kick in the teeth. If you fail you FAIL , you get nothing back at all.
I just don't understand the justification of "no shovelware" - surely Nintendo's review process is supposed to decide that not the after-the-fact sales? I assume any old dev can't just roll up and start shatting out games as well? I assume , as with other platforms, there's some sort of vetting process when you look to get the dev license?
seems shit, is shit, it really is -shit- ... and robbery? I know "devs know this before you go in" but withholding profits from a 3rd party under a certain level? :/
he says that a lot of F2P and indie games are more fun to play now than most blockbusters out there. and it's true. And since there are like 25 million registered users for World of Tanks now (with 25% paying for stuff) consumers agree too.
Pretty sure Nintendo's review process is just making sure the game works. It would probably be pretty dangerous is Nintendo started judging whether your game is good enough for the system based on an opinion.
RIP the B Tier game. ;_;7
Afraid the Wii would become a toy? What does that even mean? What does he think of the success of Guitar Hero or even Kinect and Move.
"____" is a toy" made in this industry is always stupid and should be treated as such.
lol sure they are.
From what I understand, the threshold was established with the implicit notion that it was merely a precaution, and that no publisher/dev would realistically have to worry about falling below the threshold if their game was good and if they made an effort to promote it. Like I said before, however, they established all these protocols in 2007 and they've gone basically untouched since then, meaning that the once "harmless" threshold is now a very real impediment for WiiWare publishers due to the collapsed market.
You're right, the process required to become a developer/publisher is very thorough, and the various certification processes can be infuriatingly stringent, so why they felt the need to add the threshold at all is beyond me.
FieryBalrog
Member
Why should he? Nintendo has been incompetent about 3rd party support forever. It's on them to get people like him back.
And the less people make excuses for Nintendo's inexcusably bad practices re: online and digitial distribution, and why developers should feel obligated to support them, the better.
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
I think the problem is that "if your game is good" isn't a guarantee that "the masses" will buy it. Some of the greatest games ever (well... according to my 'fruity' tastes) have bomba'ed spectacularly)
Like you mention - these policies are old polices - i'd like to think they've been updated but really this sort of policy review should be rolling and happening every few months given the speed the environment moves. If Nintendo are serious about going head to head with Apple and others then they need to be much more nimble in terms of reacting to policy that throws up blockages to getting content up and out on their system
Night_Trekker
Member
Except for what he changed.
No, he said it was a toy. Then said he was afraid publishers would see it as a toy. He went from outright insulting the console to being afraid for it.
See the difference?
Nintendo has probably swept Wii Ware under the carpet and forgot that such a thing ever existed. They made a big deal about it when it first started and then things started to go very quiet soon afterwards. They probably realise they messed up and its easier to just start again from scratch with their newer services like the eShop.
Still find it odd that he thought it would be a good idea to port a 400MB game when he knew the limit was 40MB.
walking fiend
Member
F2P != indie; casual !=indie; small game !=indie; Wargaming.net has 800 employees, I don't see how it is 'indie'
Hearing about this, I think he is completely justified in saying "screw that, never again". Here's a hypothetical situation:
You are running your company, and you're putting out your first game. You manage to get enough money to put the game out, but then you're out of money and then you're relying on sales of the game once it comes out to keep your company going, not to mention put food on your table.
You pass lotcheck, then Nintendo sits on your game for three months (like that Liights game or whatever, isn't that what happened?). You have to tell all your employees (hopefully you don't have many) that hey, please don't go, I can't pay you but surely the game is coming out real soon now...
Then the game comes out and takes six months to hit 6000 units or whatever. I wouldn't be surprised if the only thing keeping the lights on for them was the PC version of MDK2.
If something like that happened - I can't blame him at all for not wanting to work with Nintendo again.
I know that someone will say "well if you don't have enough money maybe you shouldn't be making games." Sure - but maybe the actual lesson is that in that situation you shouldn't be making games for a Nintendo platform, and in fact, he agrees with you.
So - have Nintendo removed this threshold? Not just for their current and future platforms, but for WiiWare as well?
FieryBalrog
Member
Why are you, and certain other fans in this thread, so whiny?
He didn't use Nintendo as a scape goat for "what went wrong". The conversation isn't about how his game "failed". That has absolutely nothing to do with what he's saying.
He's saying he didn't like working with Nintendo, and has no plans to work with them again. But he must be a horrible lying jerk, because we all know Nintendo is made of gum drops and jelly beans, and everyone who's not a horrible lying jerk loves Nintendo and also loves working with them.
I mean, there is no rational response to this guy's comment which involves defensively whining like this. None. It is pure 100% fanboyism. Pretty much all you can say is "sorry you didn't like working with Nintendo, but they've changed their policies and now they should be better".
Maybe you should read the post mortems of all these indie developers...I'm interested in going indie so I have been paying attention, but these kinds of things happen more often than you think.
For example, what happened with the Liight guys (Studio Walljump)? I went to their website and it looks like updates to their site and Twitter have gone dark since last Sept...
Sentenza
Member
Not a single one?
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
well , their business is Nintendo's business - whilst there was some fundamental problems with what they were trying to do Nintendo need to be more reactive to the dev-sphere and provide -at worst- an evolving environment that provide 3rd parties with an equivalent situation as on rival platforms.
It becomes an obvious choice eventually - devs won't jump through hoops if there's a route-of-least-resistance to profit.