• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Anonymous Indie Devs speak out on the growing pains of Switch eShop Curation

Dascu

Member
Getting a Wii U devkit took a week of work (basically nothing), while it was impossible to get our hands on a Switch. We had to go to a publisher for it. Our only other complaint is about under-communication.

I mean, yes, Nintendo were giving away WiiU devkits for free at some point to anyone who asked, but that was a few years into its lifetime and when mainstream support had died down. Complaining that it's not so easy to get a Switch devkit at or before launch is silly.
 

GulAtiCa

Member
I mean, yes, Nintendo were giving away WiiU devkits for free at some point to anyone who asked, but that was a few years into its lifetime and when mainstream support had died down. Complaining that it's not so easy to get a Switch devkit at or before launch is silly.

Actually, That was 4 or 5 months into Wii U life, not years.
The Wii U Program & NWF were introduced at GDC March of '03: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=530832

I myself had a Wii U dev kit by August/Sept of 2013.
 

Hattori

Banned
hopefully these anonymous devs are honest-to-goodness sincere and not just trying to take advantage of launch hype/honeymoon phase.
 

Dascu

Member
Actually, That was 4 or 5 months into Wii U life, not years.
The Wii U Program & NWF were introduced at GDC March of '03: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=530832

I myself had a Wii U dev kit by August/Sept of 2013.

Alright, earlier than I remembered. Still, I find it rather stupid to complain about this and especially when, as you pointed out yourself earlier, Nintendo got a lot of criticism for handing out devkits and letting just about anyone publish on the eShop.
 

oti

Banned
People had to jump through hoops to get Nintendo to license stuff for NES, and stores had to deal with some strict rules, until Sega came along and provided some competitions.

It reminded me of that. That's all.

Nintendo back then held the monopoly over video games. Their practises surrounding cartridge manufacturing were terrible for publishers and they ruled the industry. You can't compare that with not being buddy-buddy with every indie developer.
 

Protome

Member
Yup, just like the fact that Life of the Black Tiger for the PS4 inextricably getting promoted by Sony means other great games won't be released for the system. Really? We're at the point of clinging to a single title that represents more an exception than the rule as being indicative of something?

I never said that other great games won't be released, not sure where you got that from. But if you're going to curate a store curate the fucking store.

I do also think it's pretty disgusting that Sony are letting "games" that couldn't even get through the cesspool that is Steam Green light onto their system through, but that's not related to this thread.

I'm glad that got released, gives me hope I'll be able to develop for switch
I have no idea what your level of talent is but I'm sure it has to at least be capable of making better games than "what if we made Superman 64 but you're a magical girl."
 

Somnid

Member
This is the eternal struggle isn't it? You either gate and piss people off who don't understand why their baby didn't get selected to go to Harvard or you open the door and take all the riffraff who are generating copies of Unity tutorials. I don't believe there is a gray zone either because that's when you need so many dicy exceptions and judgement calls that the whole process is murky and frustrating.

And it's interesting because both models do work. Steam and the App Store work and make lots of money but content discoverability is low. Many people remember XBLA to be the pinnacle of curated content, it was an exclusive club but most of it was good and the good things got a lot of backing to help them succeed.

As far as what Switch has done, I can only speak as a consumer but most of it is high quality and it feels good. I don't feel like I'm missing out like the Wii Shop Channel days, and I'm not deluged in unsortable crap like the DSi Shop days either.
 

Pif

Banned
I just hope Nintendo isn't doing the same to actual 3rd parties and just indies.

My switch is a step closer to being sold.
 

D3VI0US

Member
The fact that they are turning away quality games like Axiom Verge and N++, the latter of which would be great on Switch for co-op, is really silly especially when I look at the games that have been released. Nintendo is still too stupid to realize they need indies and third parties much more than their competition.
 

NateDrake

Member
The fact that they are turning away quality games like Axiom Verge and N++, the latter of which would be great on Switch for co-op, is really silly especially when I look at the games that have been released. Nintendo is still too stupid to realize they need indies and third parties much more than their competition.

Sure is a good thing Nintendo has showcased and highlighted a wide-range of quality and great looking indies coming to Switch then, isn't it?
 

jonno394

Member
The fact that they are turning away quality games like Axiom Verge and N++, the latter of which would be great on Switch for co-op, is really silly especially when I look at the games that have been released. Nintendo is still too stupid to realize they need indies and third parties much more than their competition.

I think nintendos thinking is "will these games sell the switch more then new exclusive/time exclusive/feature exclusive titles"?

Hypothetically speaking I could go to my friend and say "axiom verge is coming out on switch" and they'll likely say "wow, it was already on the ps4 ages ago, why should i be excited"

However, as many people point out, there's no harm actively chasing exclusive/new stuff while still populating the store with older stuff.
 
I wonder if this current eShop is even at the Alpha phase of what they wanted to reach.

We don't even have the yearly payment for online service up yet. No browser, no streaming movie apps.

Not saying the developers don't have a legit complaint. But as an end user I would like to see more services and features connected to the eShop.


They took all the great stuff about the Wii U and chucked them out (miiverse)

hopefully more reports like these will push Nintendo in the right direction.
 

GulAtiCa

Member
Probably worth noting that Jackbox Party Pack 3 kills the "No ports without new content" theory.

I don't even know why people came up with this ridiculous idea. Yeah Nintendo here is trying to focus less on ports from indies, but has nothing to do with "no new content". If that was even remotely true, a lot of these indie games would have then got announced with new things.
 

Hero

Member
Nintendo is probably controlling the initial period of games to avoid getting labeled as a 'port machine' and will loosen up as time goes on. I don't see how anyone can say they treat indies like shit when they gave an entire direct dedicated to them.
 
Nintendo is probably controlling the initial period of games to avoid getting labeled as a 'port machine' and will loosen up as time goes on. I don't see how anyone can say they treat indies like shit when they gave an entire direct dedicated to them.

They've literally said this is what they're doing
 

Cerium

Member
Do note that this is the perspective of three devs who feel left out. That's not invalid, but it's far from the only opinion we've gotten, and the positive impressions tend not to get as much attention.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1350702

Brjann Sigurgeirsson, CEO of Image & Form Games, who was on hand to demo SteamWorld Dig 2, commented, "We've been treated like royalty. And I would be saying that even if we weren't sitting in this room. We've always felt special [with Nintendo]. If you can make everyone feel special you're definitely doing something right. You're not treating an indie like something you can afford to miss out on - if you treat an indie studio like the way you'd treat a bigger studio or publisher that indie studio is going to love you and do stuff for you forever. And that's exactly the feeling we've had with Nintendo the whole time.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1358833

He also spoke about how Nintendo's now playing a much more active role in recruiting third-party support: ”From what I've seen, just using Nintendo's publishing tools to set up everything from sales to getting the name right on the eShop, everything like that, it's much more streamlined and more modern. Even Nintendo's approach to how they get new indies to join the Switch family – nowadays, they see a good game at a convention and they just walk straight up to them and ask them to develop for Switch. From what I know, they've never done that before, so I think they are getting with the times. They know more than anyone what they did wrong with the Wii U, and 3DS in some cases as well, and they really want to fix that."
 
Nintendo is probably controlling the initial period of games to avoid getting labeled as a 'port machine' and will loosen up as time goes on. I don't see how anyone can say they treat indies like shit when they gave an entire direct dedicated to them.

They should be grateful if that happened when you look at the support for their last consoles since the N64.
 

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
Nintendo is probably controlling the initial period of games to avoid getting labeled as a 'port machine' and will loosen up as time goes on. I don't see how anyone can say they treat indies like shit when they gave an entire direct dedicated to them.
Yeah... It's pretty much what every platform holder does in the early period of a console cycle.

Limited resources as in dev kits means that Nintendo will try to focus on content that has a better shot at performing well. This is a standard business procedure.

A handful indies feeling entitled to better or more Nintendo support for their project doesn't change the fact that resources in man power and dev kits are limited right now. I mean look what already announced and shown via Nindie Direct for the system before the first console was sold. Now that the system is actually turning out to be a success the demand for dev kits might be even higher.

Doubt this will be an issue in a couple months.
 

Plum

Member
Maybe Dan Adelman of Axiom Verge but doubt it:

I don't know how things work exactly but calling the people you want to do business with "douches" publicly on Twitter probably doesn't help.

Nintendo's probable over-compensation for the lack of curation on the Wii U and (especially) 3DS eShops is a definite problem, Switch is a perfect device for indies and it needs all the ones possible, I just think that attributing this to some form of malice based on the words of those few that haven't been treated like monarchy is a bit misguided. This is especially true since indie devs aren't exactly known for their PR. It doesn't help anyone, really.
 

Jackano

Member
You do realize the people in charge of dev outreach and relationships have nothing to do with the eShop's technical aspects and UI, right?

But as one of the devs speculated, maybe the bigger issue, moreso than the policy, is simply the group is understaffed

Of course, but my point was, there are several problems and it's pretty unbelievable everything seems unadressed. The eShop is a key feature to digital sales, obviously. It's not like it's secondary to their business.

They're surely understaffed but in this case I don't think it's applicable: Everything was running fine in 3DS/Wii U era. No reason why the work load should be bigger now.
 

I Wanna Be The Guy

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
A console / handheld hardware is more than just the CPU/GPU.
What are your complaints about the hardware then? Screen is gorgeous, it has a very good ergonomic design, very comfortable to use in multiple configurations, the moat/best control options on any handheld device. There is literally not a better handheld gaming system out there in terms of hardware both inside and out.
 

francismoy

Neo Member
I can talk from my (few) experience. My studio is finishing a game that would be a perfect fit for Switch (as we've been told lots of times by media and players), and which is going to be released on Steam in the following weeks, but we're not well-known (not at an international level, at least).

Since we learned about the release date of Switch, we tried to contact Nintendo (through LinkedIn profiles, among other means). Of course, after reading the comments from the developers who had a long-standing relationship with Nintendo, I understand our fruitless efforts. If these highly reputable developers had the doors shut, I cannot imagine that they even got to consider our game for their platform. And we're from Spain (Europe), not from America...

It's a real pity. It's a perfect platform for experimentation, for unleashing the imagination and taking high risks, something that only indie devs are willing to do.
 

Neptonic

Member
Indie Dev #2 said:
There's no doubt that Nintendo systems have been plagued by shovelware over the years.
Yacht Club games confirmed

It's really disappointing to hear Nintendo is still like this.
 

Skux

Member
Nintendo is probably controlling the initial period of games to avoid getting labeled as a 'port machine' and will loosen up as time goes on. I don't see how anyone can say they treat indies like shit when they gave an entire direct dedicated to them.

What a terrible idea. A new system needs as many games as possible to increase its value proposition.
 
I can talk from my (few) experience. My studio is finishing a game that would be a perfect fit for Switch (as we've been told lots of times by media and players), and which is going to be released on Steam in the following weeks, but we're not well-known (not at an international level, at least).

Since we learned about the release date of Switch, we tried to contact Nintendo (through LinkedIn profiles, among other means). Of course, after reading the comments from the developers who had a long-standing relationship with Nintendo, I understand our fruitless efforts. If these highly reputable developers had the doors shut, I cannot imagine that they even got to consider our game for their platform. And we're from Spain (Europe), not from America...

It's a real pity. It's a perfect platform for experimentation, for unleashing the imagination and taking high risks, something that only indie devs are willing to do.

Have you tweeted Damon?
 

yurinka

Member
Nintendo being Nintendo. Their console needs people supporting it to build catalog, and instead of helping devs them block them with non-sensical stuff. Let's hope they fix this issue soon.
 

Plum

Member
What a terrible idea. A new system needs as many games as possible to increase its value proposition.

Quantity =/= Quality

Whilst Nintendo seems to be a bit too limiting here, if it had released and we had more games like Vroom in the Night Sky than we did games like Shovel Knight, Snake Pass and Graceful Explosion Machine the console's image would have been tarnished almost immediately. Of course not every game that wasn't released on Switch in its launch month that would have been released is shovelware, but to blankly state that more games = more value is an incredibly broad statement; both the Wii U and Vita launched with more games than the Switch, after all.
 

Madao

Member
NOA has been a problem since at least the GameCube. The hammer needs to be brought down.

Reggie was hired about that same time.

coincidence? i think not.

they need to completely restructure NoA and that involves new staff. the first one to go should be the president since he's let all this clusterfuck happen.
 
I just hope Nintendo isn't doing the same to actual 3rd parties and just indies.

My switch is a step closer to being sold.

Anonymous quotations (of only developers that are being rejected) from a handful of total developers (of just the indies program, not even the entire third party eco system) for a console makes you closer to selling it? That's very hyperbolic.
 

Camjo-Z

Member
Alright, earlier than I remembered. Still, I find it rather stupid to complain about this and especially when, as you pointed out yourself earlier, Nintendo got a lot of criticism for handing out devkits and letting just about anyone publish on the eShop.

And that criticism was somewhat deserved, but this is just taking a sledgehammer to the issue. The type of rampant indie shovelware that plagued the Wii U eShop is not hard to spot. Tell the Minecraft clones and repackaged Unity tutorials to take a hike, and give a devkit to the people making an honest attempt at a good game.
 
Top Bottom