Topic: Interesting info from a WiiWare developer

Wow. Just wow.

http://datasearch.uts.edu.au/business/courses/undergraduate.cfm <- It's about time I started directing you guys to things you should probably do before criticising Nintendo's business model.

It costs Nintendo a lot more than mere bandwidth to put a game on its WiiWare service. The company promotes the service, the company supports the service with hardware and R & D development, and the company has made the (wise) decision to control the content that appears on it. That costs money. Lots of money.

It stacks up. As far as I can tell, the costs for a developer to put the game on WiiWare are fair, considering the costs of licensing and so forth that producing a retail game has. And, on top of that, the sales requirements before a developer starts to make some money are insignificant for a mildly-decent program with a mildly-decent marketing campaign behind it.

You guys live in a mythical land where business is simple, and black-and-white. Just because one guy that made a substandard game that didn't sell got upset, doesn't mean the system is unfair for everyone else. Nnooo, for instance, loves Nintendo.

The way it is set up work perfectly fine and makes sense. The price is set dependent on the size of the game (memory wise) so that developers can't sell a game for $5 that is a full 39 MB. If the game doesn't sell well, then whoever did buy it won't be paying enough to account for the cost of having it on there in the first place.
And on top of that, you don't have to sell much to get a percentage.

First of all, I never asked you to feel sorry for anybody. I simply thought that what he said was an interesting insight into how WiiWare works from the perspective of a developer. Second, how do you figure that leaving Naughty Dog is not an option? Whether or not he left or got fired, he didn't get hired by Steel Penny Games, he founded the company and is the president. Third, I see that you supplied two reviews of the game and therefore conclude it sucks. That's fine if you feel that way, but that is only two opinions out of many, and I can point you to reviews that say it isn't that bad. If you only buy established brands or games that are high rated, odds are you will miss out on some hidden gems. I'm not offended at all, I bought the game and am happy with it, that's all that matters to me.

@WaltzElf Are you at UTS?

Or developers can make games that people want to play. Of course not everyone loves platformers with high production values or even 3d adventures with high production values. Wiiware has enough puzzlers and mini games , but this is just my opinion.

Also, like many have pointed out, obviously they had to sign a contract with all of the terms specified. I'm sure that in the contract it specified that once you pick a price, it is set in stone. Still, though, if a game isn't selling well, why not try lowering the price and see if it helps? Both Nintendo and the developers would benefit if sales do increase.

Nintendo just can go about reducing the pricing in the shop channel. To do so would encourage buyers to NOT purchase games on release day or shortly after, and interfere with the developers' ability to hit the agreed sales targets in the allotted time frame.

@Ravage: The prices are affected by the size of the game? That strikes me as a pretty odd way to do it. There seems to be some wiggle room within that system as well, seeing as not every fills-the-size-limit game costs the max price we've thus far seen, which is $15, and Tetris Party doesn't fill the size limit at all even though it costs $12!

@Vendetta: Why not? Seems to work just fine for Sony. Games get price drops on the PSN all the time!

I must say, the NLife review for Bruiser & Scratch, coupled with its $10 price tag, was enough to convince me not to touch. I would've been more likely to seek out other reviews if it was cheaper. Though actually, I'm with odd69; WiiWare has plenty of puzzlers already. Too many, even. Same with DSiWare. I wish downloadable gaming had never become the go-to place for that genre (even though it makes sense that it has), just so I could get something I actually want!

@Vendetta - you basically defined me as a PSN customer. I rarely touch the DSiware/Wiiware arenas much anymore in favor of PSN, mostly due to how often material gets discounted. All but 2 of my non-PS1-game PSN downloads have been bought at half price, and due to that I do exactly what you just oultined. If a game looks good, I tend to wait on it unless 100% enamored. In a lot of cases, that time either gave way to bad reviews (thus eliminating my desire to purchase it) or has gotten substantially cheaper, making the purchase feasable. Aside from the Sega VC games thing, that hasn't ever happened on Nintendo's services...your logic makes that rationale a lot clearer.

Well-deduced, sir. You successfully earned the first Murdercoin via message board post.

@Swerd_Murd: But Sony doesn't seem at all unhappy about their sales even with the current business model. That's probably because not everybody waits for those sales, especially if it's a game they KNOW they want (and the price is within reach...it'll either take time or a sale for me to get Trine at this point, even though I want it). Many of the games I've bought on sale, I wouldn't have bought at full price at all. THAT is the fact that makes me think these sales are brilliant. Just look at Critter Crunch; according to the online leaderboards, it's sold several THOUSAND more downloads in only a couple days since it went on sale. I expect everyone involved is pleased with that outcome and thinks it's worth the lower price.

Thank you, Swerd. I'll display it with pride in my collection of peculiar currency.

Stuff, what can I say? See the post above, and keep in mind that developers' contracts with Microsoft and Sony are likey different, and different from those with Nintendo as well.

@Vendetta: No question the contracts are different; better's more like it, IMO. At least with Sony, pricing is a collaborative effort. A few of the temporary sales they've run have been publisher-exclusive, even. Well...the ONE sale VC's ever had was as well, but we still have no clue how SEGA pulled that one off.

My point was that while there will always be thrify gamers like Swerd_Murd, there will also always be gamers who want the game ASAP as well as those who wouldn't buy it at all without the discount. With all of those combined, I firmly believe that Sony's getting the best of every market instead of losing out on potential sales to anyone who might be even somewhat interested in whatever game is in question at the time.

You're entitled, Stuff. Remember though, that the Wii has outsold its Microsoft and Sony counterparts by a margin of almost 2 to 1 combined. The potential rewards are most likely similarly greater on the WIi, and probably very attractive to developers. From what I recall, software development for the Wii is even more difficult, so I can't imagine why ANY third-party developer would bother creating a Wii-Ware title, were there no advantages over the other platforms' on-line ecosystems. .

Anecdotally I think the biggest issues are that Microsoft and Sony don't do as much marketing-wise as Nintendo does with WiiWare and they're not as available to assist with development issues. The only plus seems to be getting to set your own price and ease of development for Xbox; I don't really see any advantage to PSNet over WiiWare frankly -- other than just wanting your game to be on the PS3.

Nintendo's WiiWare model isn't just selfishness. It is designed to prevent developers from dumping shovelware or just plain bad games onto the service. Clearly, that hasn't stopped some people, and some good games might not sell as much as they should. But if they didn't have that quota, there would have been a lot more games on WiiWare, especially from small no-name developers wanting a quick buck. And that wouldn't have been good for the service.

And refusing to drop the price sounds kind of dumb, but at the same time, if they let any developer do that, prices would probably fluctuate quite a bit based on demand. There are potentially several issues with that. It might upset people that bought the game at a higher price, it could affect sales of other developers' games and cause competition between them, and it could upset the pricing structure (1000+ point games might not sell well anymore if there were hundreds of 500 point games, for example).

@Vendetta: I think the lower cost of development and potentially more clueless audience are what make the Wii more attractive to developers (the latter only applies to crap devs, of course). Even if development is for some reason more difficult (and I highly doubt it's harder than for the PS3), it's gotta be cheaper just because it's not in HD. There's also the issure of motion controls, of course...if your game requires those, you HAVE to release it on the service that has them.

@Sean Aaron: Did you seriously just say that Sony and Microsoft market their online services less than Nintendo?

And taking advantage of an allegedly-clueless consumer base is defensible in your opinion? Wow.
And non-HD means less costly to develop, just like that? Wow.
And motion controls can't be re-mapped to sticks and buttons? Yeah, you guessed it... "Wow."

If thats true why is Family Table Tennis 500pts has over 300 blocks and MegaMan 9 1000pts plus DLC and has about 60 blocks?

@Vendetta: Firstly, I did NOT say I was defending developers taking advantage of a clueless user base. The point of the argument was to give possible reasons they prefer to develop for WiiWare, whether I agree with them morally or not.

Non-HD costs less to develop...well, the way I hear it, it does. The average cost to develop a game between PS2/Xbox and PS3/Xbox 360 more than doubled. Stands to reason that costs would be much higher on PSN/XBLA than on WiiWare.

With some games, motion controls could EASILY be remapped to a traditional controller. I cannot make the same claim about others. From what I hear, Shadowplay might be pretty weird with a regular controller. On a strictly gameplay-centric point (ignoring the fact that this is a retail title for the moment), FFCC: The Crystal Bearers could NOT work with a standard controller; just ask anybody who's played it. Neither would "Max and the Magic Marker," come to think of it. That's the difference between "requires" and "features."

...and who's forcing them to make a game requiring motion controls? Oh, that's right, no one - they just want to take advantage of clueless, waggle-hungry Wii users while maybe probably I think possibly spending less on game development.

Good thing that bike you're on pedals backwards.