Topic: Interesting info from a WiiWare developer

Jason Hughes of Steel Penny Games, who brought us the, in my opinion, underrated puzzle game Bruiser & Scratch, was kind enough to reply to a question I asked on his forum ( http://www.steelpennygames.com/index.php/bruiser-a-scratch/br... ). I asked him if the sales of the game ever picked up. He said that the game hadn't, which meant he will probably never see a royalty payment from Nintendo. He also said that Nintendo would not allow them to lower the price of the game. I personally think the game's $10 price tag is probably one of the biggest reasons the game didn't sell well. This kinda confirms what other developers have said about how their games must sell a certain amount before getting paid. I also think it's a little crappy Nintendo won't let developers adjust the price of their own games, but that's life I guess.

Look at it this way: If they lowered the price down to 500 Wii points, it would have to sell twice as many copies... Nintendo was just taking the route they thought would be more beneficial.

But, lowering the price 500 points, allows more people to buy it for only $5.

EDIT: And as Jason said, at the time of release, most of the market was 500-800 point titles.

Well if a high price discourages people from buying the game in the first place, then lowering the price seems like a sensible thing to do. I'm not saying that a high price is the only reason few people bought B&S, but I don't think it helped the situation.

But it seems that Nintendo is refusing any price drops. To my knowlege, no game on the shop channel has ever had a price cut.

Didn´t the Sonic games get a pricedrop not too long ago? I know... not WiiWare.

Wait......so Nintendo won't pay the game makers unless the sales of the game reaches a certain milestone? Wow, Nintendo. Just......wow.

P.S. If I'm interpreting this the wrong way, I'm extremely sorry to both anyone who was insulted and Nintendo.

Sonic games were in a sale wern't they. Oh well, Australia has never had any price cuts.

More than two developers have hinted at this actually and it's a rather sad plight for those who have great titles but simply can't get enough sales because of a high price point or the lack of marketing.

Oh and brooks, don't worry, I agree with you on B&S. I've even contacted Jason about it.

Plus I suspect SEGA may be better able to get Nintendo to accept a pricedrop. What with being considerably richer than a small developer.

Exactly.

So, let me see if I have this right-
1) This developer makes this game on his own dime
2) Nintendo puts it on their WiiWare system for 1000 Nintendo points ($10.00)
3) ??????
4) Profit!

The only thing Nintendo is out is the tiny bit of band width it takes to host and deliver the game but until it sells enough, the developers don't see a dime. Why even mess with trying to put your game out there on their service? This is just the same thing they did to third parties back in the NES days for the new generation.

Nintendo is so out of touch. If I was a developer I'd tell them to cram their deal and just host the code myself on a website and put a donation button for people to pay what they think the game is worth to them,chances are you'll see more than you will from Nintendo.

So Nintendo doesn't allow price drops, but does it at least allow the developer to choose the initaial price?

Nope. Nintendo chooses the price. I think it's really stupid.

Assuming that people actually donate to the site rather than just play the game and be done with it

Donate and play models have a proven history for independent games. Even something like World of Goo's "donate any amount" would be better than getting paid nothing because of Nintendo's stupid rule.

poor, poor innocent developers, never had a clue what Nintendo was going to do to them, never had any idea they wouldn't get paid until their games sold a certain amount of downloads, boo-hoo... oh, wait, no, they had to have signed a contract. seriously, if they were told up-front how the payment system was going to work, it sucks, but them's the breaks. it's like gambling or any other kind of risk -- you pays your money and you takes your chances.

Yeah, these guys know what they're getting into when they do the deal. It sucks if your game doesn't sell, but I have to say if you're doing it on your own you're doing it ALL on your own and that includes marketing your game. People bitch about the number of titles released every week, but really that's of benefit to the developers who get that window; what they do with it is another matter.

Clearly it's not too horrible or no one would release their games on WiiWare/DSiWare now would they?

I think the developers should say what prices they want...not Nintendo...but its a gambling risk i guess, win some, lose some.
_{fixed your code -- TBD}

Look even if it's price dropped the game still sucks, for example i'll bet Konami and Capcom are drinking with Nintendo over how much there business improved thanks to VC and WiiWare allowing both Companies to appreciate the licence they paid to Nintendo back in the day as well as giving a inspiration to developed spiritual successors to Castlevania and Mega Man.

Second why must we care about this guy seriously unlike other independent developers his game sucked plus his track record isn't good i mean even i know Naughty Dog is a well established Brand within the Playstation leaving that company isn't an option so my guess is he was fired and hired by a small Brand company, who they think is a good developer just to improve there own reputation, i'm sorry if your offended but i play games that get high review/ established brand i don't take risk since i was burned before by unknown companies back in the day.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/936/936615p1.html

http://wiiware.nintendolife.com/reviews/2008/12/bruiser_and_s...

Third cash is limit thanks to other needs to survive in the world either you make a awesome game next time or just get a new job one that you specialized in.