Yeah, RPG's aren't exactly money makers.  Unless your game has a very specific name or is from a very specific studio (NOTE-- Bob is nowhere to be found in any of those) that RPG isn't probably going to make money.  I'm actually surprised a publisher approached him.

If I was him, I would just cut my losses and offer it for free on the PC.  There wasn't anything on that video that couldn't be done without the stylus so there doesn't seem to be a reason for it to be on the DS other than that just happens to be what he made it for.  Like someone else said, he can only hope (not expect) for the best possible solution and it ends up like Cave Story.

And honestly, it looked like the game had some neat tech but it didn't look like a game I would actually want to play.  It looked like a very run of the mill RPG that had A LOT of crap to keep track of.  I'm glad Nintendo didn't give into his very lame bully tactics and I actually hope he's that kind of person that Googles himself so he can read every thread like this and realize exactly how much of a douche he is.

If you ask me, that guy is better off making this game with four other people, rather than doing it all by himself locked up in a room.

At least it would only have taken a year, given the same number of man-hours!

I think you mean 5 instead of 4, to get the same man hours...

In general, you loose efficiency working on a team.  So I would say it would take closer to two years with 5 people working on it compared to 1 person doing it in 5.

You would lose efficiency also because they wouldn't all be Bob and have the same enthusiam for working on Bob's game as Bob did...or be willing to lock themselves in a room for 30 days working on it (especially not with Bob) =P

I've heard another story about someone spending 30 days in a room with a webcam to make sure they were really in there...the difference?  They got $70k for doing it, and knew up front that they would get it if they stayed in for 30 days.

That will never happen - It seems clear that the guy had all his hopes riding on the game, to make something from his life. Having all his hope crushed by the company he loved is overwhelming and saddening (I'd bet some weaker people would commit suicide for that).

He lost 5 years on the game, 15,000 hours of work! If I was him I would NOT offer it for free. I would instead just port the game to the PC and sell it on Digital Stores.

In case anyone's sympathizing with this guy, here's the story that I know:

A "friend" of Bob's posted the Youtube video linked earlier in the thread on the somethingawful.com games forums a while back. Now, as you may have noticed, that video shows absolutely nothing of the actual gameplay, so people immediately started asking the "friend" for details. The "friend" - whom you may have guessed already was actually Bob himself - embarked upon some paranoid conspiracy theories about how people would steal his revolutionary ideas if he showed them to the world. Someone pointed out that he'd never get any publicity for his game if people only saw the fact that you could run - *gasp* diagonally - but Bob still refused, on the grounds that he had some super-secret things in the game that Big Developers would filch.

Never mind the fact that development companies release public tech demos all the time to attract interest for their games. Or the fact that Bob's Game just seems to be a JRPG without the fighting.

He later embarked upon this stupid "hole myself up for 100 days" stunt to attract media attention for his game, and for a while it worked. He got positive press in a few gaming websites and such. But then, the posts on his website started to turn into a really bad parody of bipolar disorder or, uh, something. Here's a sample:

"Nintendo, you cannot continue ignoring me.

There is nobody like me. I have created the entire game, start to finish.
I am far better than Miyamoto, Itoi, Kojima, Carmack, and Wright COMBINED.
NONE of these "designers" could create the entire thing if their lives depended on it!
They rely on the assistance of others- and take all the credit. They don't even deserve their titles! I have bested them all by far.

"bob's game" is a game by ONE PERSON, and it's one of the GREATEST GAMES EVER MADE- if not THE BEST.
I stand alone on a mountain no other has even dared to climb. I have swam across the ocean only cruise ships could cross.
I have walked through the desert of no return. I have stepped in the footprints of none, a path never taken.
I have MADE HISTORY, and history cannot be undone. It's too late, Nintendo.

No man has ever accomplished what I have accomplished at 25 years old- it's no wonder you fear accepting this truth!
My work has humiliated your teams of engineers. One young man- singlehandedly- has made their lifetime of work seem like child's play.
How can they possibly compete with such overwhelming skill? It's not even fair, is it? That's too bad, Nintendo. I'm real, and I'm here.
You can't ignore me forever. I AM RIGHT, AND IT WILL WORK.

I am the GREATEST GAME DEVELOPER THAT EVER LIVED.
I am a GENIUS, and I will be around for the next 40 years- eating away at your company until it exists no longer.
I will find way after way to slowly destroy your bottom line, and your business will fail.
The name NINTENDO will be forgotten, a discarded husk like so many others.
"bob's game" will live on FOREVER.

THOSE WHO DOUBT ME- YOU WILL BE PROVEN WRONG.
IN TIME THE TRUTH WILL PREVAIL.
PREPARE TO EAT YOUR WORDS.

YES, I AM COMPLETELY SERIOUS!

WHO'S TAKING NAMES NOW, REGGIE?!"

Yeah.

It's around this time that people figured out that all of this was just a terrible publicity stunt. Bob is a paranoiac, an attention whore, and in possession of a self-inflated ego to rival Derek Smart.

And that's not to mention the fact that his "revolutionary game" was built using GameMaker, that many of the sprites are just slightly altered GameMaker sprites, that the writing is terrible, that the MIDI tracks are in MP3 form for some reason, and that Bob can't even bother to get dressed or comb his hair to demo his own game.

Yep. He's definitely a disgrace to indie developers.

And something tells me he has never heard of Cave Story, a game done by 1 person if I recall.

I found the game quite interesting, and I liked the music that was playing. It is pity though that their are like 50 'how to dress a princess kind of games' but his game will never be on DS.

Anyway their is still xbox live arcade/PSN.

Why did he not just try to get it on WiiWare (he wanted it on a Nintendo system)? The whole point of the serves is too allow smaller developers to get their games out. Like everyone has said, Nintendo does not hand out SDK like candy. It's more a matter that he is too stubborn rather then adapting to the situation and the real world.