Mario + Rabbids has sold more than 2 millions units - Best selling third party title

[Nautilus]

Slownenberg said:

Nautilus said:

Smash is a Nintendo game developed by Nintendo( or that Nintendo outsource some of the development to others), and thus, it is a first party game.

Kingdom Battle is, by definition, a second party game.A third party exclusive(since thats the discussion) would be Octopath Traveler, just to give an example.But if you feel like calling Kingdom Battle a third party game, because thats what it feels like to you, thats your prerogative and thats more than fine.

I gotta say the other guy is right. Mario + Rabbids is third party. It is a collaboration between Nintendo and Ubisoft and to allow Ubisoft to use the Mario franchise they required Ubisoft follow their rules but that in no way makes it second party.

2nd party doesn't have anything to do with how much a third party communicated with or got direction from a console maker about a particular game like the Mario + Rabbids mashup. 2nd party refers to a company not a specific game. It generally means the console maker owns a large enough amount of the company to get to be in charge of what platforms their games come out on. So 2nd party games only come from 2nd party studios.

A first party game is developed by first party studios, a second party game is developed by second party studios, a third party game is developed by third party studios. Mario + Rabbids is developed and published by Ubisoft - it is entirely a third party game, though obviously the licensing is shared between the two franchises so neither Nintendo nor Ubisoft would be able to make a sequel without the other's approval. Every game Ubisoft makes is third party.

Thats not the definition of second party at all.At least, thats not the definition everyone(95% of users here and everywhere) and by default, I use.A second party game entails that the company comissioning the game, which is always either Sony, MS or Nintendo, has ownership over the game in some form or another, be it because they financed the game, said game uses IP of the company that commissioned the game, or both.But the ones developing the game are not owned by MS, Nintendo, or Sony.They were merely "hired" to develop the game.So in another words: Company A owns the game because they either payed for it or their IPs is being used in the game, but a second company, company B, is developing it.

By your definition of second party, Monolith would be a second party developer, Intelligent Systems would be a second party developer.Retro Studios would be a second party developer.Insomniac would be a second party studio.But neither of them are.In the case of the first three examples, they are first party studios, because they are a part of Nintendo, they are 100% owned by them.In the case of Insomniac, they are independant and the only reason they make exclusive games either for Sony or for MS, is because they were paid for the development and exclusiveness of the game for said company.Another example would be Ratchet and Clank.Insomniac always developed these games, but Sony actually owns the IP, but Insomniac isnt part of Sony, nor does Sony owns any part of them, at least not significantly.

 

Quote taken from Wikipedia:(which are written by the public, and thus a good measurement of how the public interpret what second party games are)

"Second-party developer is a colloquial term often used by gaming enthusiasts and media to describe game studios who take development contracts from platform holders and produce games exclusive to that platform.^[7] These studios may have exclusive publishing agreements (or other business relationships) with the platform holder, but maintain independence so upon completion or termination of their contracts are able to continue developing games. Examples are Insomniac Games (originally a 2nd party for Sony), Bungie (originally a 2nd party for Microsoft) and Rareware (originally a 2nd party for Nintendo)."

I really though it was obvious what Second party games were.Guess I was wrong.