Joel Nystrom is CEO of Ludosity, the team currently working on Ittle Dew, a cute Zelda-esque adventure. He recently spoke out in favour of the Wii U eShop over publishing on Steam. It adds to the criticism mounting up from independent devs against Steam Greenlight.

He made the comments to NintendoWorldReport in a feature about the eShop.

“It’s actually easier to publish on Wii U than on Steam,” he said. “The thing about Greenlight it that you just don’t know, there aren’t any clear answers and they seem to be changing their policy, and their CEO is saying one thing and they are acting in another way. I think a lot of developers are anxious about Greenlight, right now.”

Nystrom also criticised Wii U for its user interface, claiming that it has too many unnecessary steps. This is in contrast to the fairly straightforward method of publishing a game. This is good news for Nintendo, as they look to win indies onto the struggling Wii U platform to breathe some life into the system. It also begs the question of how long Steam Greenlight can continue in its current form.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/08/22/indie-dev-says-publishing-on-wii-u-is-easier-than-steam/

Everything I hear about Greenlight from devs is disappointing. Goes to show.

But someone told me yesterday that many games wouldn´t come to Nintendo because they are awful and incredibly passive...

but "Nystrom also criticised Wii U for its user interface"...huh?

More evidence that Greenlight isn't working too well and Valve needs to fix it.

Truth be told, I would rather play indie games on my 3DS than my PC, and if Valve wants to chase all the indie devs away from the latter, I'm not exactly complaining.

But really they gotta fix that. Steam is important.

As always, nice to hear more indies talking up Nintendo's new policies. By the time I bought my 3DS, I had a decent list of eShop games I wanted to buy, and now I own all of them. I guess I'd better start making my Wii U eShop list soon.

From this article:

"As for increasing sales, the eShop and the entire Wii U's user interface is pretty bad and discourages use in many ways. There are way too many unnecessary steps in everything you want to do, be it buy a game or post on the Miiverse. And between each step, the loading times are just horrible. For me, this is the biggest disappointment really. I was hoping for something fresher. Sony is going for "immediacy" with the PlayStation 4, and Nintendo should really follow suit there. Nintendo doesn't seem to realize that it’s much more important that these things are just right."

The gist of it is that he says the eShop is messy and too inconvenient to navigate and the loading times are still too long. And he's right. Nintendo really needs to work on their digital storefront.

...ah, okay...but honestly: The PS3´s shop runs like hot garbage,( imo) the WiiU´s eShop is significantly better than the PSN store--- but I obviously can´t comment on the PS4´s store

...and loading times in the menues ? really? It isn´t instantanious by any stretch (like the Vita) but calling it bad or shit is exaggeration ...after the recent update (it can and should be better, but it is nowhere near as bad as the guy makes it seem)

for indie games ease is essential, because they can inflict more impulse buys I think.

That said, I think all the publishers, nintendo, sony, MS, and Steam could use work, as there often seems an array of opinions on which are better and why for indie developers of a different status (IE Obsidians Project Eternity is a much bigger indie game than a lot of other ones, etc). And likely an array of devs could have a different experience with the same publisher.

On PC there's different ways (Like eliminating Middlemen altogether, GOG) which offers a less focused experience, other logistical issues, but more choices on how to release it. And since indie games often have very moderate specs, a humongous install base.

Big thing Wii-u does is that it lets you patch games for free like on PC (MS it's like 1 free patch and then 40k). This also could be a bad thing though because indie devs could become careless like they do on PC from time to time.

When's that new update supposed to come out for the Wii U? That could fix some of these problems.

I can't speak for the PSN or XBL storefronts, but I can't deny that the PS3 has a very sleek interface in general. I don't mind the Wii U's -- I'm used to it because it's very similar to the Wii and 3DS. It's far from perfect, though.

Wii U loading times are way better than they were 6 months ago, but they can definitely still use some improvement. Hopefully the "summer" update we're still waiting on will address that. Even if it only slightly reduces loading times, that's better than nothing, and in a case like this, a little can go a long way.

He may seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill, but keep in mind he's comparing the Wii U to Steam and PSN and the like. That's actually great; that kind of feedback will help Nintendo understand how they can make their system even better.

After the WiiWare catastrophe, it's kind of a compliment for Nintendo's online store to be mentioned in the same breath as Steam and PSN.

agreed on all points, especially the last one

I thinks that the PS3 shop does look really good, but (maybe it´s my Internet connection?) it is laggy as fuck and incredibly unresponisve...and the load times are far worse than the WiiU´s.

summer fall update can´t come soon enough !