Nintendo: We don't want garage developers
by John E. Nelson · in General Discussion · 03/18/2011 (11:28 pm) · 6 replies
If anyone missed it, there is an article on develop-online.net about Nintendo stating that "We don't want garage developers".
The term garage developer is ambiguous, but Fils-Aime appeared to characterize one as a games creator who holds down other jobs.
You can read the story here.
www.develop-online.net/news/37315/Nintendo-We-dont-want-garage-developers
There are some interesting comments made by people there too.
The term garage developer is ambiguous, but Fils-Aime appeared to characterize one as a games creator who holds down other jobs.
You can read the story here.
www.develop-online.net/news/37315/Nintendo-We-dont-want-garage-developers
There are some interesting comments made by people there too.
About the author
An experienced producer of interactive media and games going back to the 90's.
#2
03/19/2011 (11:05 am)
Let me translate from marketeer to something resembling English: "We want high prices so we can continue to take daily baths in delicious, filthy money."
#3
Look back at video game history; the Atari 2600 had little to no restrictions on who could publish a game or what the content of a game was. This resulted in the market being flooded with games of horribly low quality, everyone wanted to make a quick dollar and the games were just rushed out of the door. Also, the sheer number of games, most very similar just made by different people, confused the consumer.
Nintendo came along with the NES, after the video game market had crashed and seemingly burnt out, and placed strict restrictions on who could publish a game and the level of quality required (much like they do today). This resulted in hundreds of high quality games being released and console was a massive success.
Same deal with the original GameBoy Vs the Atari Lynx. The Lynx was miles and miles ahead in terms of hardware, way ahead of its time, but most of the games were poor. The GameBoy was monochrome yet it had a large library of addictive and well written games, and trumped all other hand held consoles.
Nintendo want to protect their products and their reputation, and in turn their customers, can't blame them for that.
03/19/2011 (12:10 pm)
I don't see the problem.Look back at video game history; the Atari 2600 had little to no restrictions on who could publish a game or what the content of a game was. This resulted in the market being flooded with games of horribly low quality, everyone wanted to make a quick dollar and the games were just rushed out of the door. Also, the sheer number of games, most very similar just made by different people, confused the consumer.
Nintendo came along with the NES, after the video game market had crashed and seemingly burnt out, and placed strict restrictions on who could publish a game and the level of quality required (much like they do today). This resulted in hundreds of high quality games being released and console was a massive success.
Same deal with the original GameBoy Vs the Atari Lynx. The Lynx was miles and miles ahead in terms of hardware, way ahead of its time, but most of the games were poor. The GameBoy was monochrome yet it had a large library of addictive and well written games, and trumped all other hand held consoles.
Nintendo want to protect their products and their reputation, and in turn their customers, can't blame them for that.
#4
Your argument suggests that all bad games are developed by Garage game developers. That is not the case. Many large operations produce horrible games. If they wish to judge each game for merit and decide if the quality was good enough to be published then that would suggest that they were concerned with quality.
The Minecraft game was developed by a Garage Game developer. Many cool out of the box thinking small indie developers spur the development of new games. I have a friend who developed a Xbox live game, and that was his resume. Now he has a job at a modest sized firm in San Francisco because of his garage game development.
03/19/2011 (2:15 pm)
Tim,Your argument suggests that all bad games are developed by Garage game developers. That is not the case. Many large operations produce horrible games. If they wish to judge each game for merit and decide if the quality was good enough to be published then that would suggest that they were concerned with quality.
The Minecraft game was developed by a Garage Game developer. Many cool out of the box thinking small indie developers spur the development of new games. I have a friend who developed a Xbox live game, and that was his resume. Now he has a job at a modest sized firm in San Francisco because of his garage game development.
#5
Regardless of the ability to pull out a small number of success stories, the facts and figures are fairly simple, a larger percentage of indie developers produce a larger percentage of garbage, than larger more established organisations. Sure we can all list a bunch of indie successes and at the same time list a few bigger organisation failures.
That being said thanks to companies like EA big money companies are fast catching up to indies when it comes to the amount of junk products being released.
The problem is that every day theres more and more indies, and this is increasing the amount of crud available, and making it harder and harder to get a good release noticed.
03/19/2011 (3:53 pm)
exceptions to the rule dont break the rule.Regardless of the ability to pull out a small number of success stories, the facts and figures are fairly simple, a larger percentage of indie developers produce a larger percentage of garbage, than larger more established organisations. Sure we can all list a bunch of indie successes and at the same time list a few bigger organisation failures.
That being said thanks to companies like EA big money companies are fast catching up to indies when it comes to the amount of junk products being released.
The problem is that every day theres more and more indies, and this is increasing the amount of crud available, and making it harder and harder to get a good release noticed.
#6
Also I agree with John, many large developers are making crappy games. Suits always want tried and true methods rather than innovative risk, it has always been like that with any business. This leads us to a stagnant market. Indies keep things interesting.
03/24/2011 (9:13 am)
I don't think it is so much that games are moving to mobile devices as mobile devices bringing in a whole new crowd of casual gamers.Also I agree with John, many large developers are making crappy games. Suits always want tried and true methods rather than innovative risk, it has always been like that with any business. This leads us to a stagnant market. Indies keep things interesting.
Associate Steve Acaster
[YorkshireRifles]
Maybe to find out whether your the type of "indie" Nintendo wants he'll personally come to your house and fondle his way through your pants draw ...
The fellow appears quite bonkers on his ideas about software "value" and what does or doesn't have it. Maybe not change the price, how's that? In the end he's used a lot of words and not said anything.
Behold, the first suggestion for his name on google ...