No Baldur's Gate for Wii U, bad Nintendo experience to blame

[richardhutnik]

Viper1 said:

richardhutnik said:

I had it on the Dreamcast.  It struck me as really good in the day.  I got stuck on the graphic adventure part of the game (game has 3 different play modes to it).  I go by the general reviews and opinions of others so it isn't just my 2 cents.

I get annoyed at posts in this thread, because the trend is based on flawed reasoning.  The belief is, somehow, if you do quality, it produces its own sales.  That is bull.  Release a good title in the wrong area, and it sells poorly.   Don't market properly (where you release is part of marketing) and it sells poorly.  It is likely MDK2 is NOT suitable for Wiiware.  Combine with the compensation system, and you end up without a cent.  As good as it is, I don't see a market for it on the Wii at all.  It is a shooter, which don't do well.  I commend them trying, but wouldn't expect solid sales of it.

People presume that only bad things don't sell well, and this is wrong.  Quality alone doesn't sell, no matter how much core gamers want it to be.  Quality in service of what people want, at a sufficient level, will usually sell IF marketed properly.

But that is where they went wrong.  Even the knowledgable people of an online forum generally had no idea the game was even on WiiWare.

How do you expect a game (good ro bad) to sell if no one knows it even exists?    Very rarely does a WiiWare game not cross the 6,000 unit threshold.  And just because MDK2 is a shooter doesn't mean it is destined to do sub 6,000 on WiiWare.   The game was well known when originally released.  The name alone would have sold it beyond 6,000 units.  But they did nothing to market the game on WiiWare.

I knew it was coming out and read reviews of it.  I also liked the original.  Didn't mean I would buy it though.  I would say the core people on forums likely aren't looking for anything on Wiiware.  End result is, a title like MDK2, if you want to bother to do it, needs even more effort than on other platforms.  

What will happen is developers don't understand the need to market, can do quality, and would flop.  Developers likely should of done the petition route, and got people to sign up for it before starting and then fill them in on what is next.

But knowing this now, they likely decided that Nintendo isn't worth dealing with in the future, and that is what this is about.  But, people don't like to hear it, so it is dump on the developer.

Well, I am personally taking this to heart and will be trying to promote my own designs, more than I am now.  People can see them here:

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/8933/richard-hutnik

One of the designs should be in an upcoming issue of Games Magazine.