Topic: Business or Greed: The Misuse of Amiibo...

A few days ago at the Pre-Pax 2015 Nindies @ Night presentation in Seattle Washington the rumoured Shovel Knight Amiibo was officially announced. The figure looks nice enough, but will be limited in quantity. A colleague of mine was quite irked when he provided me with a news tip regarding this announcement as it appears that two player co-op and Challenge Mode, the latter of which was originally supposed to be free DLC is locked through the Shovel Knight Amiibo paywall. There will also be exclusive relics locked through the Amiibo. Even the rest of my colleagues are quite worried about the future of Amiibo.

Nintendo has, in my opinion done things right by just locking superficial costumes and other non-important features through Amiibo, but Yacht Club Games is locking very important content behind a paywall that is locked by a figure that not everyone who wants and can even afford the Amiibo will be able to find it and unlock the content.

My colleagues and I have feared that Amiibo could be misused and this could be the first time that it actually will happen. What do you guys think about the Shovel Knight Amiibo? And do you think that this will be the beginning of a trend? I personally wouldn't mind it as long as the Amiibo was common like Mario, but if not it may be nearly impossible to gain access to the content. Anyways let the discussion begin.

I think that's too much behind just one Amiibo, especially since it's going to be in limited quantities. You shouldn't have to pay for something as simple as Co-op mode. I seriously hope Nintendo doesn't continue this practice, but you never know with them.

Here's how I see it: Stuff like Super Mario Maker and Yoshi's Wooly World? Good! Stuff like Splatoon and Shovel Knight? Bad.

@NintendoFan64: Why is Splatoon a bad example?

@Aromaiden: Probably because of the exclusive missions and gear locked behind them.

Yacht Club Games is responsible for what content is behind the amiibo, this has nothing to do with how Nintendo uses amiibo.

@Soren: Yes, but those "missions" are just re-runs over the exact same original levels just with a different weapon or restriction. The gear is also just different skins of other gear in the game.

@Cyber-BLP-- Nobody said that they were responsible.

@Aromaiden: True, but that content is still exclusive to the Amiibo, and some might prefer those re-runs or skins over the original.

@Soren: Well, that's basically an issue with all Amiibo.

Well, at the end of the day amiibod exist to make money, and to make money they need to sell. And to sell they need content locked behind them. That's just the nature of amiibo.

I personally am not bothered in the least by amiibo-unlocked co-op mode because I have no one to olay with anyway, but even if I did, think about this. The game wasn't originally designed with co-op in mind. Co-op would not even have been a thing in this game if it were not for this amiibo.

The challenges I csn understand though, since they were supposed to be kickstarter rewards.

Nintendo still gave the go ahead though. They've been misused since the first one released. It's just greedy and anti-consumer. Sad lar is people buy it rather than boycotting it. As for this specific game - more reason to buy it on Playstation on instead of Wii U if you want it I guess.

I'm just waiting for EA or Ubisoft to pull this stunt that Nintendo is doing with this Shovel Knight locked Amiibo content. The Amiibo still looks awesome!

@Aromaiden The challenges. I know that they're just the single player stages but with a different weapons, but it's still something to do. Not as bad as Shovel Knight, though.

@NintendoFan64: Although in the end like you said, all you are really gaining from it is is experiencing the same levels, story, and dialogue just with a different weapon. I guess I just don't find the appeal in doing re-runs of the same levels just to get some different skins.

Why? Is the Playstation version superior to the Wii U version? I'm asking out of curiosity.

I have nothing wrong with locking content behind a paywall (Amiibo) when the content available is already worth the price of the game. My issue is not being able to find the darn things. I played through Shovel Knight with a friend (taking turns) and am stoked to do it again in co-op mode... I'd happily buy the Amiibo to do that, but I'm sick of trying to jump through hoops to find them. I had no trouble getting the Splatoon Amiibo but... sigh this is where I'm losing my patience...

@ShadJV: I agree, I think the main issue with Amiibo overall is how limited and difficult to find several of them tend to be.

@Aromaiden: I think the only case where it's bad is that it's still something that you could do. Other than that...yeah.

@Aromaiden: I wouldn't be annoyed if it was just the obscure Smash characters that don't have many uses outside of that game, but between the Fire Emblem and Kirby characters (minus Kirby himself), in Codename STEAM (and Fire Emblem Fates) and Kirby Rainbow Curse... Those are what really stepped on my toes. I'm not looking forward to tracking down that 25th Anniversery Mario either...

I mean I collect Disney Infinity figures and am happy there because if I want a figure, I just go to Toys'R'Us, they have them all right there. And there's like 60 so far (more now with 3.0).

@Aromaiden: Unless it's Wii U exclusive content, the PS4 version should have the Amiibo content for free without a stupid paywall.