Let's roll back on this a moment. If your game sells, say, 2200 units, you're not making a profit unless its some of the most bottom-of-the-barrel trash ever. It's money that's almost not worth having

Perhaps it is a good game (wouldn't know. I don't even know what the game is or is about, really. I barely remember hearing about it when it was released and hearing some gamers (if they owned a Wii) be pleasantly surprised), but if that is the case then there is some other competency failure on Beamdog's part regarding why their "good" game didn't reach its audience, or reached under 6000 people globally.

New releases are visible, but once you get past that it gets fairly opaque.

My comments here don't quite reflect my feelings on WiiWare, where i agree that the system could have used vast improvements from how it is. However, it is clear that, despite WiiWare's crappiness, several games from small devs that were actually good (World of Goo being the first example of this, back in 2008) have made great successes, and games with any real name or claim to fame to them should have been able to surpass 6,000 units, so we again come back to Beamdog's incompetence.

And this is one of the reasons I don't think Nintendo will ever have a great relationship with 3rd parties on their home consoles; they are being too backwards and have no flexibility and make little to no effort to create a friendly developer environment as well as refuse to embrace industry standards and tech.

And the whole licensing thing is crazy, they've been like this since NES but the difference now is that they aren't in a position to make demands of developers, they need to conform to the developers' needs or enter yet another generation with poor 3rd party support.

So essentially based on the responses here they were:

1. Stupid for releasing the game on Wiiware.

2. Stupid for learning from their mistake.

Brilliant thread. ^^

Stupid for not considering the Wii U even though it will likely not have the same limitations as WiiWare.

A late port with a 6,000 sales minimum on new released hardware is likely to be profitable? Then consider that perhaps the 55M iPads in the wild which will likely be closing in on 80M by the time the Wii U is released and perhaps consider they might have other priorities.

1. I covered that point in my previous post. As I said, I know it is the developer's fault for choosing to use a service like Wiiware, the point I am arguing is not that they specifically should have that money back, it is that it is a terrible feature to implement in Nintendo's service, and in a proper downloadable distribution service, a company should get money from every sale they make, it just seems basic to me. Again, I covered that all in my previous post. 

2." If Nintendo implemented a quality check on a game per game basis, surely numerous third parties would complain that their game didn't get approved while pointing at others that did get through the process."

Ok, this is desperate. I can see that you let this strange generalised contempt for third parties cloud your usual perceptiveness. This point really doesn't matter in the slightest, subjective case-by-case criteria on a game submitted is at Nintendo's discretion, they have final say in their own criteria, and third parties will know why their game didn't make the cut. It is a proven method that is used by steam very successfully and insures that almost every game that is released has an audience or adds something unique to the service. 

A one-size-fits-all 6000 unit limit is never going to be a proper solution to quality control on a downloadable service unless Nintendo want to severely limit the games released on it. Objective doesn't work when every game released is different. And again, witholding money after the sales of a third party publisher's game is just atrocious business and no way to implement quality control.

They have the time and resources to implement a proper approval service, they should do it.

So to attract third parties, Nintendo should use measures that result in articles being published in which a third party publisher shows how they received ZERO revenue from their game released on Nintendo systems? Articles in which third parties openly state that they will not work with Nintendo again and now that they are considering releasing their game on a competitor's service because they can actually make money there? I'm sure that will do a world of good for Nintendo. You don't foster third party talent on your system by scaring them off. 

3. Haha, the limitation on the download size on games on a system with 512mb internal memory is to stop big companies 'outspending' the small ones? sure. The limitations are bad, that's just unarguable, it severely limits the number of downloadable games you can release on the system.Bbut I suppose Nintendo didn't have many options, having to delete/reinstall games from SD cards is not a user-friendly solution to the small memory at all.

What's wrong with 'big companies outspending smaller ones on production values'? I thought Nintendo wanted big flashy third party games on their system but third parties were being meanies and not making them? If so why would Nintendo severely limit the size of downloadable gam- oh right, it's because of the tiny memory. Again, not an attractive environment for third parties. They should've released models with larger hard drives and relaxed their stupid restrictions if they wanted to compete with PSN, XBLA, Steam et al on the downloadable front, but they didn't.

Nah whatever, it's the third parties fault for making games that aren't compressable down to 40mb, and for going to the service that doesn't withold money from them for their first 6000 sales and worsk with them to ensure that any game released on the service is as successful as they can make it. Please. 

4. Nah, your argument after my cherry picked quote doesn't change anything. Red Steel 2 got the hype and the reviews. No More heroes got the hype and the reviews (hell, I bought it). Even Nintendo's own shooter franchise (MPrime) underperformed on the Wii (unless you want to tell me that MPrime 3 and the MPrime trilogy bundle selling less combined on the Wii, the almost 100mil console, than MPrime 1 on the GC, the 22 mil console, is somehow related to..well..what? Maybe there's a real reason?) As I discussed in our last quote tree, the market was never strong enough to entice the majority of the big third party developers away from the Wii, or the technical requirements just meant that ports weren't worth the hassle in light of the weaker market data (whether it's from the wii game having to be toned down for big third party releases, or the restrictions on downloadable games for the smaller third party releases).

Ouch, check out dat quote tree :) Are we breaking records yet?

6,000 units at approximately $6 each would yield $36,000.   If a single software engineer worked on this game for 6 months, it would break even at $36,000.

But we know that several people worked on the title for more than 6 months.   If they had 8 people working on the game for 9 months, they'd have to sell 75,000 units.  But they failed to even get to 6,0000 units.  Profit was a goal far, far far from the reaches of Beamdog regardless of the 6,000 unit threshhold.

If you don't like the terms, don't sign the agreement.

Interesting that Beamdog would take an already developed HD remake and revamp it to release on the only non-HD console's distribution service. (Beamdog's MDK2 HD was done in 2010 -- a year before it hit WiiWare).

Also interesting that this is one of the few cases where a game on WiiWare -- 1000 points or $10 USD -- cost less than a PC download (currently $14.99 USD)] I wonder how many copies the PC version has sold.

Is anyone surprised that a company that specializes in digital downloads for PC cannot figure out how to function as a developer?

And yes, the person can be turned away by one bad experience. But you can be diplomatic about it rather than saying things that will But sometimes I think that these small-timers (and Beamdog fits that description) think the rules that they have agreed to play by should be bent for them ... and when they are not, they b-tch and moan.

For example: This Trent Oster Tweet which has not received much play ... and has more myth than fact:
The reason I say the Wii is a toy is the exceptionally low attach rate. You buy a Wii, Wii sports and never buy another game. Bad for devs
(Through 2011, tie-rates according to NPD were 9.1 for X360, 8.3 for PS3 and 7.7 for Wii).

Nintendo does need to do a better job cultivating small game development. But developers need to take some responsibility for their product and their actions.

Finally, how much will a 14-year-old RPG sell outside of a core group?

Mike from Morgantown