Mr Khan on 31 July 2011
| Dodece said: Am I the only one that read the article in question, because I have to say the way some of your responded is utterly shameful. The author was both thoughtful and self critical. He didn't claim that their games were great. He just felt some of the reviews were overly harsh. Hell he apologized for being critical of reviewers. That said that wasn't the crux of the point he was even making. Neither was the reception on the part of consumers. Go ahead read he wanted to do more for consumers, but was stalemated by Nintendo. His real issue is with the draconian practices Nintendo uses in reference to the service. Sorry apologists, but not only does he raise a valid point, but he is entirely correct in what he is saying. Nintendo is fleecing developers, and discouraging development on the platform. This is part of why quality is lacking, and is not improving. Probably the biggest reason by far. Being paid and being profitable are not the same thing. You can argue that a developer doesn't deserve the latter, but is there a justification for not honoring the prior. Unless a developer reaches a threshold Nintendo refuses to give the developer its due. Obviously its never for some, and the check comes far later for others. In either case it is imposing a hardship. It leaves the developer with no safety net. If they at least see some money coming back they might be able to put it towards their next game. This is curtailing development, and obviously making it that much harder for developers to improve. Even bad developers can get good. In this case they aren't even being given the chance. It is equally obscene to block redevelopment. Nintendo isn't permitting developers to improve their products. To couch it in other terms why are developers not allowed to take broken games back into the shop for a tune up to address problems. That would make for better games for the consumer. That would improve what is offered on the whole for the platform. What is wrong with fixing failures. This pricing scheme that Nintendo is running is also ludicrous. Who doesn't run sales, promote products, or gasp allow the retail price on some goods to drop. A good host sees to the needs of their guests. Giving developers more options to make their products more viable in the marketplace is just good business. The real problem here isn't the developers, and no it isn't consumers. If you aren't buying digital games. Then the platform could obviously do without them altogether. The real problem is the way Nintendo is running the online service. A high risk, no options, no rewards scenario is only going to result in little to no development. You might argue that you dislike the games the developer brought to the platform, but who is the say if the system wasn't more lenient that their offerings wouldn't have improved. Anyway what you should take away from the article is that digital distribution through Nintendo is entirely hostile against developers, and this is obviously a area where Nintendo needs to rework the methodology. You cannot argue about bad development. When the environment it takes place in is bad itself. Improve the system, and you will start to see a improvement in what is being offered. It isn't so much that digital developers are bad. There are quite a few putting out incredibly good games, and they are doing fairly well on other platforms. Which is largely due to the manufacturers using good practices. What is really disappointing about this article is Nintendo is missing a opportunity here. This is somewhere that they could start to develop strong bonds, and exclusive relationships. In this case Nintendo has done a good job of driving off a developer, and that is just not good for business. They need to be building them up to make their service going into the future better. This is what Nintendo could be doing right now to improve their next console. Microsoft and Sony can attest to how important these small digital developers are for bolstering their lineups. With a little more tender loving care Nintendo could be doing equally well. As it stands now though it looks like it will take them years to catch up to the other two. |
To be fair, the article was only part of one example, and we fast went off-topic to discuss the treatment of retail developers, who deserve many of the harsh words given here. Nintendo's online service is poorly developed with the threshold system (though given how much people bitch about "how much shovelware there is on Nintendo systems" it's hard to wonder that they're not imposing punitive quality controls somewhere), but i would agree that the bigger issue is the utter lack of promotion that WiiWare games receive, both in promotional pricing and just in awareness creation altogether
It is hard to understand why Nintendo can't just copy what they see the competitors are doing, at least when the competitors practices are actually beneficial (and not just core-beneficial), which is definitely the case when you compare WiiWare to XBLA or PSN Games
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
