FWIW, the Wii U came out in November 2012. The Swapper released in August 2014. Don't Starve released in May 2015.
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Wii U Indie Game Scene. What Happened?
- Thread starter BlackBanditSho
- Start date
FWIW, the Wii U came out in November 2012. The Swapper released in August 2014. Don't Starve released in May 2015.
MrCunningham
Member
The only versions of Unreal that work on the Wii U are some different variants of UE3, and it is a bigger pain in the ass to obtain a UE3 license than it is for UE4 if you are an indie dev. There is a group of developers that is planning on porting UE4 to PowerPC themselves, they are doing this for Bloodstained. But this branch isn't available yet. Who knows if it ever will be?
They promote indie games as much as they can. They ran the Nindies@Home promo during E3 last year and showcase titles at PAX and other venues.
http://www.nintendo.com/games/game-guide/#filter/wii+u|-|-|-|-|descend|releaseDate|-|-|-|1 << There's a lot of games for Wii U that aren't from 1st party Nintendo and only available digitally.
totally this. of course not every bame is on the platform bur many are and there are even exclusive titles or temporary ones.
we just even got Fast and the Affordable DLCs while on 3ds despite the hw limitations Heist just got released.
It's Rebel Galaxy.
Now I'll read the rest of the thread.
Yeah I'm on page 3 now and noticed :/
I think Nintendo has even improved at promoting indies on their platforms in 2015. Directs, E3, Youtube videos, eShop placement. It's alright. The issue is when Indies don't release on 3DS/WIIU because they doubt the platform's financial viability.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Why bother. The entire thread is built on the premise of an ultra-selective OP and a bunch of 'this fuckin company' drive-bys.
Stilton Disco
Member
This thread is pretty much a microcosm of Nintendo's problems with third parties.
You've got the lacking relations with the studios and developers, leading to gaping holes in their library, which leads to the perception that It's fundamentally lacking in all indies, inspite of the excellent and often exclusive games that do exist.
Then there's the lacking understanding for the need for curation and quality control of their library. What gems are on the eshop are all too often hidden behind a pile of shovel ware shit, just like the DS and Wii's libraries before it.
All of which leads to the underlying problem they've had for generations that Nintendo consoles are bad places for those that like third party titles, which is basically everyone, and only worth owning for the exclusives, which are desirable only to the small and ever shrinking Nintendo hardcore fanbase. A misconception that sadly comes closer and closer to being true with each system they put out.
Indies could so easily have been the example Nintendo could have set to show they were taking the wider industry seriously again, to show they'd actually learned from their decades of fucking up, and put the effort in to catch up to their competition and at least achieve parity with the other consoles.
For a while, that looked like it was happening, and there's no denying they've tried a damned sight harder than they have with the big western publishers, but the drive by shitposting and anemic Library compared to the XO and PS4 is all that needs to be evidenced for the fact that they didn't try hard enough.
And no amount of easily overlooked gems like Fast Racing Neo is going to make up for that.
What's worse, this chicken and egg problem of lacking third party support because customers don't feel Nintendo systems are the place to buy third party titles because there's a lack of third party support, is going to kill the NX too if they don't get their house in order.
You've got the lacking relations with the studios and developers, leading to gaping holes in their library, which leads to the perception that It's fundamentally lacking in all indies, inspite of the excellent and often exclusive games that do exist.
Then there's the lacking understanding for the need for curation and quality control of their library. What gems are on the eshop are all too often hidden behind a pile of shovel ware shit, just like the DS and Wii's libraries before it.
All of which leads to the underlying problem they've had for generations that Nintendo consoles are bad places for those that like third party titles, which is basically everyone, and only worth owning for the exclusives, which are desirable only to the small and ever shrinking Nintendo hardcore fanbase. A misconception that sadly comes closer and closer to being true with each system they put out.
Indies could so easily have been the example Nintendo could have set to show they were taking the wider industry seriously again, to show they'd actually learned from their decades of fucking up, and put the effort in to catch up to their competition and at least achieve parity with the other consoles.
For a while, that looked like it was happening, and there's no denying they've tried a damned sight harder than they have with the big western publishers, but the drive by shitposting and anemic Library compared to the XO and PS4 is all that needs to be evidenced for the fact that they didn't try hard enough.
And no amount of easily overlooked gems like Fast Racing Neo is going to make up for that.
What's worse, this chicken and egg problem of lacking third party support because customers don't feel Nintendo systems are the place to buy third party titles because there's a lack of third party support, is going to kill the NX too if they don't get their house in order.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
I also agree that this is a weird thread because it's a bunch of people pretending there isn't a problem while other people oversell the problem
A lot of indie developers are still supporting Nintendo's platform and Nintendo is giving them some help as evidenced by the "Nindies" effort. They get promo time on Nintendo Directs (whenever those eventually happen...) and they had a big push for their indie games at E3.
Sure, you could argue that Nintendo doesn't get the "big" indies, but counter point: who cares? The "indie game movement" is all about anyone and everyone making games and getting published, and Nintendo gets exclusives where it can (Armillo, Typoman, etc.). They may not be the indies you personally want, but then again, not everybody likes Smash Bros., either.
But they aren't resting on their laurels or anything, and to be honest, the indie scene on the Wii U is probably the healthiest thing about that console right now. You can be snide about that fact if you want, but that's not really going to help anything.
A lot of indie developers are still supporting Nintendo's platform and Nintendo is giving them some help as evidenced by the "Nindies" effort. They get promo time on Nintendo Directs (whenever those eventually happen...) and they had a big push for their indie games at E3.
Sure, you could argue that Nintendo doesn't get the "big" indies, but counter point: who cares? The "indie game movement" is all about anyone and everyone making games and getting published, and Nintendo gets exclusives where it can (Armillo, Typoman, etc.). They may not be the indies you personally want, but then again, not everybody likes Smash Bros., either.
But they aren't resting on their laurels or anything, and to be honest, the indie scene on the Wii U is probably the healthiest thing about that console right now. You can be snide about that fact if you want, but that's not really going to help anything.
Just having BC isnt means for praise imo. Implementation means a lot so I'm taking the wait and see approach. I personally do not like the way BC is handled on the Wii U at all so I'm hoping to see some improvement with their next console. I shouldn't have to have a last gen controller to play a game on their current gen hardware.
DDP is lowkey one of the best things Nintendo has done this gen. I'm REALLY hoping they bring it back or do something similar.
I've enjoyed the co-op indies I have played (Guacamelee, Affordable Space Adventures). The problem for me is there aren't many of the other ones that exist on other platforms, like Spelunky, which means I have to try and hookup my PC to play much else when the Wii U options are exhausted.
SinCityAssassin
Member
The Nintendo Account and My Nintendo have promised this sort of process again, at least in Japan.
You and the OP need to read the post below because that sounds like you both.
EDIT: Oh yeah I forgot, what a weird thread.
The good games aren't hidden at all. We're not talking about XBLIG here.
TheMoon
Member
So, to summarize:
Clueless people making ridiculous claims and other equally clueless people agreeing #becausenintendo.
It sure is a Sunday thread.
Guys, if you have no clue about how much Nintendo's been doing for small devs on their platform or what games and how many of them have been and are still coming out then how about you shut up with your "they suck because lol!" idiocy.
The most hilarious thing is that one of the three games cited by the OP as not on Wii U was discovered to have been rated by PEGI for Wii U just a few weeks ago, perfectly illustrating how nonsensical OP's entire premise is.
Clueless people making ridiculous claims and other equally clueless people agreeing #becausenintendo.
It sure is a Sunday thread.
Guys, if you have no clue about how much Nintendo's been doing for small devs on their platform or what games and how many of them have been and are still coming out then how about you shut up with your "they suck because lol!" idiocy.
The most hilarious thing is that one of the three games cited by the OP as not on Wii U was discovered to have been rated by PEGI for Wii U just a few weeks ago, perfectly illustrating how nonsensical OP's entire premise is.
Especially on Wii U, there's a more-than-decent work of highlighting better titles on the eShop home page, in more ways than just displaying the game's icon. Like music themes or eShop icons with themes based on a specific game (see: Shovel Knight, FAST).
And Dan was replaced by Damon Baker, which IMO have made much better job for getting the indies known to the public (E3 demo versions, Nindie Humble Bundle, E3/PAX/etc interviews, really improved indie coverage on Nintendo Minute, and so on).
And I wonder if the Dan vs. Damon switch affected the non-NoA territory at all? The work for games like Affordable Space Adventures, FAST Racing NEO, Nano Assault Neo, Art of Balance, Trine 1 & 2, OlliOlli, Stealth Inc. 2, Nova-111, Scram Kitty, Steamworld Dig, The Swapper, Lone Survivor, Year Walk, Thomas Was Alone, The Swindle, Gunman Clive HD Collection, Badland GOTY Edition, Tengami, Human Resource Machine,Toki Tori 1-2+, Nihilumbra, XType Plus, Squids Odyssey, Stick it to the Man, Swords & Soldiers HD and 2, Ittle Dew, Knytt Underground were all developed (or ported to Wii U) in the NoE region AFAIK.
TheMoon
Member
Baker didn't "replace" Adelman. That's just the public-facing role. Adelman's actual job got filled by another person whose name escapes me right now. Baker and Adelman had been working together for years.
RE: the second part: NOE has their own third party dev relations team of course. Tim Symons and Ed Valiente (he was in the last NOE Direct even) are repping that flag for EU.
Can anyone elaborate further what exactly is so wrong with Nintendo indie policies or is this just "lol Nintendo"-drive by?
TheMoon
Member
It's a lol Nintendo drive-by. Pure ignorance.
Stilton Disco
Member
That's not my experience at all. For every diamond there's about a dozen shitty titles, with no real system in place to make sure the brilliant ones get to shine through. About the best you can hope for is that the bigger name releases get their own banner or button at launch.
Really, the main problem is the amount of rubbish that gets dumped on the eshop. There's far, far more awful, cheaply made, exploitative, sometimes flat out broken utter tripe in there than the other consoles, and by and large it's treated the same as the genuinely good titles.
Sure, it's not Steam or Mobile levels of overwhelmingly awful, but it doesn't have the same level of user friendly curation that those stores have either, to help sort the wheat from the chaff.
The eshop desperately needs better quality control on what ends up on there. This is simply something the competition does far, far better, and while PSN and the Xbox store aren't perfect, until the eshop at least matches them for quality and content, Nintendo are only going to continue to lose custom and support, and get a worse and worse reputation.
I mean just look at the number of posters in here that already think the eshop is a complete write off. These are far, far more informed people than the general gaming public, and it's Nintendo that failed to even make them aware of what quality exists on their store, and it's Nintendo that that failed to stop the sewage leak of indie shovelware that lets their bad reputation flourish.
That was what I suspected after the first posts. I don't play that many Indies but I always read that Nintendo's policies are pretty damn good. Hell I'm a certified Indie developer for the Wii U and I don't have anything concrete yet.
There's nothing wrong with the policies. They don't have things like parity clauses or the like that put alot of devs off Microsoft at the beginning of this new generation. Pretty sure they're on par with Sony in that area. If there are problems it has more to do with potential sales to an smaller audience , and the hardware literally has one foot out the door.
nephilimdj
Member
Considering they grabbed Minecraft as soon as exclusivity was up, just like MS did with Rocket League. What has Nintendo grabbed? I dont see how Nintendo is on any par.
I dont get why people are saying go look at eshop, its dreadful, it missed so many big indie games of 2016 like beyond eyes
SinCityAssassin
Member
The general trade off is that while the eShop allows for more visibility on certain indie game products, Big Indie games have already sunk in a lot of money and their current budgets don't allow for a release on a console with the smallest market share, which is why Xbox and PS4 often see those releases first.
But that doesn't mean that the indie scene with Nintendo is dreadful or nonexistent, indie games do exist on the system and quite a few of the quality ones even get select exposure by Nintendo themselves. It is not a perfect system by any means but it exists.
Nintendo doesn't do that type of buying timed exlusivity and all that shit tho. They do their best at getting devs to develop for their console just by talking, not spending money on them. This has worked with big games like Don't Starve, Octodad, Oddworld and so on.
Yes, real co-op games are not that frequent on the eShop. If you want scrictly co-op games, you can check out games like Octodad, Nihilumra, the Trine games, Chariot, Never Alone. I guess Minecraft should be included as well.
Badland GOTY Edition can be played both as co-op or competitive multiplayer.
Shovel Knight needs an amiibo to get co-op.
For competitive multiplayer games, there has been some really good additions during the past months, such as Runbow, Starwhal, Toto Temple Deluxe (it's actually a really fun game, despite the name), FAST Racing NEO, Swords & Soldiers II.
NinjamicWZ
Banned
Rogue Galaxy? The PS2 game?
I don't know about Xbox but PSN is terrible for throwaway and broken indie games. They simply get away with it since they get all the big name indies also. There were a few really bad mobile-esque games that hit eshop and the media did backflips about them since bad Nintendo news gets more hits than good Nintendo news (This is a fact on the blogs i used to FL for). All quality Indie releases get front page treatment for at least a week, are added to the weekly staff picks and a spotlight section on the main page. Yes the eshop still gets some trash and that's unavoidable, the crazy thing is some of these games have big Miiverse communities that love them. Nintendo also gets no love for being one of the only outlets for Asian Indies.
I'd bet that most posters writing off the eshop in this thread likely do not even have Wii U's or do all their indie gaming on PC, this is Neogaf general forum. You're better off going the community forum or to more casual websites like Gonintendo,Nintendolife etc for actual Nintendo owner opinions. Neogaf general forum is in no way representative of Nintendo's collective fanbase, there are a few hundred regular posters here, compared to the millions of Nintendo owners in the wild. You don't have to be an "informed" Neogaf poster to buy a game and love it or hate it. The average person who shops is not dumb enough to think one bad game is representative of a whole digital store, especially post Appstore,Googleplay.
That said i support all indies on my PS4, 3DS, Wii U and PC. What i'd really like Nintendo to do with its indies is a PSN blog type thing on their website. Its awesome that they give time to the dev's on Nintendo directs/minutes/trailers, but i'd like something written also. However i'd like it abit more controlled then PSN blog, some of those developers posts are just cringe worthy plugs.
One persons shovel ware is another persons game of the year.
There are definitely amateur-level games being released on the eShop but that's not a problem in and of itself--on the contrary, that level of dev accessibility without XBLIG-style ghettoization should be adopted by all the platform holders.
The issue is that there's simply a paucity of bigger indie games of the sort you more regularly see on other platforms: if there were more of them, you wouldn't even notice the amateur games, but there aren't so those smaller games get exposure by default. Nintendo purposefully buries a lot of these games and pushes the bigger games at every opportunity but if no-one's making them then there's only so much they can do.
As for heavier curation, the Wii/DSi was heavily curated and it was universally disliked by developers.
frankie_baby
Member
It's a bloody good game that's very fast and very pretty
Jonneh3003
Banned
Shin'en are one of the best indie developers for Nintendo systems and have shipped games in the past like Nano Assault Neo and Art of Balance. As always Shin'en develop games that take full advantage of Nintendo's hardware but they went above and beyond with FAST Racing Neo. It's one of the best looking games on the system, it's a futuristic racer which many Nintendo fans want with the absense of F-Zero and it's genuinely a fantastic game with a great online component. The title doesn't lie either, it's ridiculously fast.
Here's the fastest speed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGtdiTREDdw
Since it's release it's topped the Eshop charts in certain countries and has won multiple game of the year awards including best E-shop game from Pure Nintendo.
Long story short, it's brilliant and the developer deserves your money. It's also only 500mb.
BlackBanditSho
Member
No idea how the perception of the first post is "Nintendo Sucks". I was asking about indie Devs, PC ports, and Nintendo. Already addressed. Other people brought their biases. Many Devs have come Offering various viewpoints. It has been a super informative thread. In 2016, I hope that we see more PR for the indie titles that many don't know about, as well as a push to get more higher profile indie games on the system. I think that the gamepad makes a great screen for many indie games.
It's disappointing that so many people came in to snipe at Wii U. I certainly wasn't and had legitimate questions. Several people stated that I said certain comments out of ignorance, which is totally true, but that's kind of the point. I go to the Eshop frequently looking for games and many simply aren't as well promoted as they are on other Eshops.
I'll say again: I derailed the conversation by adding my personal opinion about the quality of what has been released instead of acknowledging the quantity of what is available. Nintendo's indie dev relationship is obviously improving, and the number of growing releases is testament to that.
Also, yes, the correct word was ' virtually', not 'literally', and the among the games recalled, Rebel Galaxy, not Rogue Galaxy, was the title I meant to bring attention to. Also, There was a significant gap of time between Don't Starve and Nintendo's launch. Don't Starve, Affordable Space Adventures, Typoman, and the Binding of Isaac represent Nintendo's continued efforts at obtaining great indie games - platfom exclusives among them - on the wii u.
This was not meant to be a Nintendo shit posting thread and it's disappointing that's how it would be perceived.
Initially, I remembered Nintendo's overture to court indie Devs, and I was frustrated by the fact that most of the exciting games on many Game of The Year podcasts would either be on other consoles, or that it was a forgone conclusion that they would be on iOS.
While I could easily get those games on other platforms, I was curious about why they weren't on the Wii U. The questions I raised to Devs were asking about clarity of the Eshop environment, perception of Nintendo, if there were monetisation bottlenecks because of the perception of the Wii U, and so on.
Many Devs and more educated fans came in to fill the gap and answered questions as well as spotlighted things that the average person might not know about.
It's 430am PST and as I go through the Eshop indie tab, I have to admit my personal biases have colored my perception as well. I expected more PC ports and edgier releases frankly, and that's my bad. I was looking for more stuff like the recently released 'Never Alone', which was great to find here. But also more of the types of games that we see on Steam, Xbox, and ps4.
Either way, the conversation was informative.
Edit - perhaps someone who has played a lot of these games could start an ongoing Best of the Eshop thread? I just found some interesting titles like Star Sky and The Bridge that I knew nothing about.
TheMoon
Member
You missed the point. The on-par comment was directed at the lack of ridiculous clauses like the "parity" thing MS had or still has. Neither Nintendo nor Sony have that. This wasn't about "grabbing up exclusives" which is something Ninty simply doesn't do and they have explained why and that they instead offer more visibility support at events and pre-launch and whatnot for games that make great use of their platform or just turn out great overall. Shovel Knight, Affordable Space Adventures, blabla.
Yeah I'm still trying to figure about what it's about, the title and the OP don't match.
Yeah I guess that appears to be the case.
What eShop are you using? The NoA eShop has much much more shovelware than the NoE eShop (due to the rating costs and language demands for the European eShop).
Based on what I've seen on the European eShop, NoE is very consistent with how indies are promoted:
* Each new indie get 1 or 2 weeks exposure at store front page
* After release, Nintendo occasionally choose some of the older titles for re-display on the store front. But these are titles like Guacamelee, Shovel Knight, Runbow, Scram Kitty, Stealth Inc. 2, etc (never the shovelware titles).
* Major indie releases might also get the eShop background music for the week.
IMO, the thing that the eShop lacks is good filters beyond the store front or the categories that Nintendo has created.
frankie_baby
Member
The ratings cost thing has now been done away with and devs can just release in English if they want, got a feeling there'll be a lot more shovelware in Europe this year
I'm talking about people having the freedom to self-publish as well as develop and release games on whatever platform release schedule the developer may choose based on their resources and judgement. You seem to be talking about platform holders making deals with developers/publishers and securing games.
Quite the opposite, games must have a French manual if they wish to be released in Canada while there are no language demands for the European eShop except for the descriptions and for those Nintendo accepts Google Translate level translations. There were less games on the PAL eShops just because of the rating cost and sometimes publishers would skip Australia, New Zealand and Germany as they each have their separate rating system. Now that Nintendo supports IARC, a free global rating process, this won't be a problem anymore.
frankie_baby
Member
Considering it's now "free" to release games in PALland going forward any dev that doesn't is a prize idiot turning down free money