Dragon Fantasy Developers Explain the Difficulties of Implementing Cross-Buy for Nintendo Platforms

Precisely!
I hope we'll finally get an actual account system for the next generation of Nintendo games. It long overdue.

It's kinda disappointing hearing this, these guys seem like they just wanted to put out the best game they possibly could. I hope the rumors of NX being the start of a unified software platform are true, that would likely knock this kind of thing out.

I'm not saying I outright don't believe them, but I'm curious how they came to the conclusion that half of the downloads of their game came from people giving away codes. That means that practically everyone who bought this game on one system didn't want their second copy and gave away their second code to someone who not only had the necessary other device to download the game, but also actually wanted the game in the first place. I sincerely doubt that's the case, and I really wonder how or if this sort of thing is actually even tracked.

Unified software platform starting with NX, right? I wish. I'm afraid that Nintendo will once again want to sell us the same old games with overblown prices, but I would be glad if I were wrong.

@PtM They probably didn't know that was an option. That's clearly the best way to do it, though.

"Will Nintendo ever implement cross-buy on an account-based level?"

They already do it. I just bought OlliOlli for 1€ from my phone, then I picked the WiiU version for free under my NNID. Tell these guys!

Tie it to a NNID. Problem solved.

@Moshugan If the rumors of NX being a hybrid system turn out to be true, than this issue will be rendered irrelevant.

Yep as others have said,there's other ways around it.Sounds like these guys didn't explore their options ,that or Nintendo didn't offer them the option.

Any word on either of these games coming to Europe?

I bought OlliOlli on Wii U couple of days ago, checked it out on the Nintendo 3DS eShop and it was available for me to download for free, 100% discount, simple.

If it's too difficult then just don't implement it, not like anyone is forcing cross buy on you. Besides, OlliOlli did crossbuy just fine.

Absolutely fair enough. It's a stupid, archaic system which hopefully the NX ecosystem will rectify.

Why not use NNID?(olli olli,woah dave! have used them just fine)

All well and good, but why hasn't there been an EU release of both of these games?????

I don't really see the point of proper cross buy unless there's cross save as well, otherwise what's the point? No one wants to start all over again unless maybe it's years later from the last time they played it.

@PtM with OlliOlli you could buy it on Wii U and every NNID on that Wii U could get the 3DS version of the game for free. So that might be why they didn't do it that way.

Sony accounts can be linked to multiple systems and their games downloaded more than once at the same time, so people "sell" games online that way. They make a new account, purchase a game, then resell that game twice (by giving the account to the buyer and changing password later when they download the game).

It's a way worse scenario.

Um, that's not how cross-buy works. As others have mentioned, OlliOlli offered a proper solution.

@xzacutor I didn't know that! Just checked it out on my sons 2DS and yip, OlliOlli is available for download for him for 100% discount! So for 80p I have got OlliOlli on Wii U, my New 3DS XL, my son's 2DS AND 10 lovely Gold My Nintendo Points! Bargain

I don't really understand this argument when you can do cross-buy the Olli Olli way. Sure, that also has its problems which should really be fixed, but it's certainly a better solution for these developers.

@Yorumi Well, level based games don't matter much. But I was referring to other types of games like RPGs, but Nintendo has yet to fully implement cross features.
Child of Light's a good example in the case of PlayStation of course. It doesn't have cross save but it does have cross buy, don't see the point in that case of starting all over again on another system.

If NX is a hybrid, then it HAS to have cross buy and cross save.

I got Olli Olli on my Wii U and I can download the 3DS version for nothing under my NNID. sounds like these guys didn't explore all their options

@-DEMISE- I'd imagine they can see that a given Nintendo Network account has only one license for the game redeemed, as opposed to 2 if they were using both codes for themselves.

I mean, I've done the same thing with Smash DLC. Get the Wii U and 3DS bundle even though I only have the Wii U version and give the 3DS code to my sister.

Hang about, I bought OlliOlli the other day on offer, do I get a Wii U code?

Simply not true. Mutant Mudds Super Challenge is cross-buy without a code.

@PtM That doesn't necessarily work either. When I purchased it I was able to dl not only to my 3ds but my 3 kids systems as well. So I got the game free 4 times for one purchase. However I wasn't going to buy it for them anyways.

@greengecko007 But unless there were only like, twenty copies of this game sold, that wouldn't be a very practical or reliable method for determining how many codes had been given away. Can you imagine parsing through thousands of purchase records by hand and comparing network id's? Because that's what you would have to do, because I doubt Nintendo provides comprehensive analysis tools that track that kind of information/produce results in an easy to understand format, informing developers that half of their downloads were a result of cross-buy codes that had been given away to people that hadn't actually purchased the game. They likely just report back to developers with hard sales numbers and revenue generated.

It also just doesn't sound even remotely plausible that literally everyone who bought this game gave their second copy to someone who didn't actually buy it. Because that means that everyone who bought the game had a friend or family member who owned the system that the code was compatible with, and who also wanted to own this game but hadn't yet bought it. I find it hard to believe that nearly everyone who bought this game fit that criteria. In my opinion, it seems more like this developer is just misinterpreting their sales and revenue results. If you give a free second copy of your game to everyone who buys it, and then half of the copies that end up being downloaded were actually "free" downloads that were acquired through the use of second-copy cross-buy download codes, then the most likely explanation is that people are actually taking advantage of the cross-buy codes and using them as intended. Because if you give away a free copy with every purchase of your game, then you should naturally expect that around half of the copies that get downloaded won't generate revenue for you. Make sense?

@-DEMISE- I can't say how involved the process of seeing how the codes are being is, but we know from stories of Wii U and 3DS users who have called Nintendo to gain access to their digital games on a replaced system that they can see what game licenses are for each Nintendo Network account.

I also agree that losing nearly half of their sales sounds like hyperbole. But, I don't doubt that they did lose at least some sales due to this process. It's hard for me to find fault for them in this situation, honestly, because this is the livelihood of a small company. The fact that Nintendo doesn't have a unified account system to make this easier for these kinds of developers is what I think is the real problem.

@greengecko007 Clearly a unified account would be the ideal solution to many of the eShop's problems, but it's obvious that Nintendo aren't going to take that route with the current generation. But I don't think this developer threw out that figure of "half of the copies" of their game as hyperbole. It really does strike me as a matter of an inexperienced developer who hasn't sold many games and doesn't actually know how to interpret the sales data that Nintendo provides for them. Which isn't to ascribe blame on the developer for anything; it's probably Nintendo's own fault if third-party devs don't know how to navigate the appropriate channels and interpret important information. I just think these guys should probably dig a little deeper into their sales data before they write off the whole notion of making cross-buy available in this way.