How Nintendo is making Wii U indie-friendly

January 13th, 2013, 12:45 Posted By: wraggster

What did it learn from the mistakes of WiiWare, and how can the new eShop win back small studios?
[h=3]Broken Rules[/h]
[h=3]Gaijin Games[/h]
[h=3]Nintendo[/h]nintendo-europe.com

[h=3]Steel Penny Games[/h]steelpennygames.com/

[h=3]Tomorrow Corporation[/h]tomorrowcorporation....


Sometimes, Nintendo nails it on the first try. The Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and Wii were stunningly successful initial forays into consoles, portable consoles, and motion controls for the company. Other times, Nintendo winds up with something like WiiWare, the downloadable storefront that was more Virtual Boy than Game Boy.
Since WiiWare's launch in mid-2008, developers have groused about ineffective promotion, tiny size limits, restrictive pricing policies, minimum sales thresholds and a vanishing customer base. Even indie developers who found a measure of success on the platform were well aware of its numerous shortcomings.
Bit.Trip developer Gaijin Games built its name on the originally WiiWare-exclusive retro-aesthetic franchise, but co-founders Alex Neuse and Mike Roush didn't put a rosy face on it when speaking to GamesIndustry International.
"It was just miserable. I don't blame indies for not jumping on WiiWare."
Gaijin Games' Mike Roush

"We don't know for sure, but it felt like it wasn't taken seriously by Nintendo, the desire for gamers to buy stuff digitally," Neuse said.
Roush echoed the sentiment, saying Nintendo's online strategy was "an afterthought," or at least felt like one. For example, he noted that WiiWare developers were allowed nothing but a compressed 144x90 pixel image to sell efforts in the inherently visual medium of video games.
"How are you supposed to display your wares with an image of that pixel dimension and really sell it," Roush asked. "It was just miserable. I don't blame indies for not jumping on WiiWare."
One developer that did jump on WiiWare was Broken Rules, the studio behind And Yet It Moves. However, Broken Rules developer Martin Pichlmair said the situation on WiiWare was so bad that even though the studio made a Japanese version of its Indiecade Games Festival finalist, it didn't bother releasing it on the Japanese WiiWare store because there was no chance it would meet the minimum sales threshold needed to see a dime in revenues from Nintendo.
WiiWare sales thresholds kept And Yet It Moves from being launched in Japan.

Nintendo clearly had room for improvement with its second attempt at an online console storefront, and it will have to undo some ill will generated from its first outing.
"WiiWare may have turned a lot of indies off," Neuse added, "and it's going to be hard to win them back."
Steel Penny Games founder Jason Hughes illustrates that point well. The former Naughty Dog developer was in the first wave of indies committing support to WiiWare, but soon soured on the platform. Its most recent game is the browser-based title Trivia Adventure, playable through Facebook and Swagbucks.
"Our experience with WiiWare showed how little actual desire Nintendo had in supporting a positive and frictionless player experience."
Steel Penny's Jason Hughes

"Our experience with WiiWare showed how little actual desire Nintendo had in supporting a positive and frictionless player experience, as well as in promoting rehashed games on par or above original content on WiiWare that were ostensibly the crown jewel of Nintendo's networking strategy," Hughes said. "Maybe that has changed, but based on the lackluster hardware specs and Nintendo's traditionally poor online offering, I had not picked them as specifically viable in the next generation of consoles. I would work on their hardware again if it seemed to be a clear winner, but for the time being, we are going to platforms where users are, and looking to make games that are less gimmicky and have the possibility to transcend platforms."
While Steel Penny appears to be sitting this one out, Gaijin Games and Broken Rules decided to give Wii U development a shot with Runner 2 and Chasing Aurora, respectively. Early impressions of their time with the system have been positive. Chasing Aurora was a Wii U eShop launch title, and Pichlmair said the experience working on a downloadable game for Nintendo's console has improved considerably.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...indie-friendly

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