Nindies Respond To Nintendo Releasing High Volume Of Games On Switch eShop

@GrailUK Typing in a game's name is never exhausting, but it is quite difficult, impossible even, when you don't know what it is. Most people hear about games not at fan sites but when they visit the eShop, and when the eShop doesn't help discoverability, games aren't heard about.

You and I will hear all about every Nindie game. We're also 1% of 1% of their potential audience, which means we're not the ones they're trying to get the word out to.

@PanurgeJr probably closer to 5-15%

I don't think it's a realistic number. Nintendo should focus on getting out quality over quantity. Steam gets all sorts of trash dumped on it every week. We don't want that on the Switch.

So far it hasn't been too bad. But the eshop itself needs to be better organized. As it is, it's way too simple. And the search isn't great either. If you are not sure about the correct name and spelling of a title, it can be very difficult to find something. I recently went back and looked at the Wii U eshop again, and while I don't want the Switch to become that chaotic and slow - certainly - it would be nice if there was more life and a better layout for it. Music that can be turned on or off would be nice as well.

Make a tab for top production value Indies like Hollow Knight, Battle Chasers and Flipping Death.

Put all the other random indies and Shovelware somewhere else. The VITA even separated garbage mobile games into its own section.

@Zuljaras

The shovelware on Switch isn't anywhere close to amount on Steam, PSN or Xbox Live. I don't know, I'm not to bothered by said shovelware, I just skip the the bad and buy the good games. Not hard to do it you read reviews/impressions.

I want quality over quantity. If I want a myriad of useless games id go to steam - I moved away from Steam to Nintendo due to this. The last thing I want to see are a bunch of asset flips popping up on the eShop. Nintendo need to keep this under control and curate everything

@Zuljaras Nintendo king of Shovelware? Sorry but in this day and age that crown goes to Steam by a 1000 miles.

@LittleOtus nonsense. All you need to do is click on "Full Games" and bypass all the low budget stuff in the PS Store. Indies and F2P are also in their own sections.

You sometimes click on "Recent releases" on the eShop and it looks like we back to GameBoy Advance days.

Yes they need to clean house! Kill the stream of crap!

I think Nintendo could use some of the expertise that companies like Netflix and Amazon have when it comes to the use of suggested purchases. There should be a category in the store such as "Suggested for You" that includes titles that are similar to games you have already purchased or that are similar to games you've browsed (especially titles you've browsed multiple times without purchasing.)

I was looking over the store last night and quite frankly the number of titles available already is so great that there's no chance I'll bother to browse them all.

The problem with this approach is it creates a race to the bottom. Devs have to create games with no barrier to entry (cost) so need games that rely on repetitive gameplay loops that encourage micro transactions.

No smaller studio is going to strive to create games like Octopath Traveller in a marketplace where they will be swamped. The flip side of this is the stuidos that can market games like OT see the money going towards the free to play games so start making those.

Too much of a good thing. Especially without folders. I jest. There does need to be a better eShop layout for all this. Maybe all the indies need a daily feature section that cycles out, giving a burst of games the spotlight for a day, then another batch the next. Just a thought.

2017 and early 2018,I thought Nintendo done a great job curating the Eshop. Most weekly releases were at worst 6 or 7/10 quality. Crap games like Vroom in the Night Sky were few and far between. For the last few months however the balance has shifted. It seems Nintendo has opened the doors and lowered the bar. Not quite to the RCMADIAX /Skunk Software level but not far above it. The coming soon section is also filled up with these pointless titles whereas up until recently it never really used to be. For the small amount of sales I'm sure many of these titles are getting you have to question whether it's doing more harm than good.

Indies just need to pay a little money under the table to Nintendo and they will put their games on the front page. Nothing to worry about.

About the thumbnail: Will it still happen during my lifetime, King of cards? Because this dlc takes a AWFUL long time to arrive!!

I'm definitely on board with a revamp to eShop, every time I want to browse through the selection it becomes needlessly difficult.

Games that have already released on other platforms should have to pass a threshold to qualify for the eshop. Prove there's demand for your game through sales figures, or show its quality through metacritic ratings.

As for brand new games, there's got to be some sort of review process.

Also, a reasonable refund policy would help, because who's going to waste their time shoveling their crap game onto the eshop if anyone who buys it claims a refund after an hour's play?

eShop more like eSteam

The only way I can see you can differentiate between pc/console indies and mobile ports is to give trusted indies like yacht club and the Steamworld guys their own 'seal of approval' that you can search for.

Even then it makes it hard for the good unknown developers to break through if they don't have this seal to start with if Ninty isn't curating the store and it discriminates against the good mobile ports.

@gcunit it’s almost impossible. You can attempt to solve shovelware but then you will put off new developers working from scratch. Some of the best games on eshop are out of the blue titles almost... or would at least be hard to prove they would be good.

It’s tricky.

For me price is also a factor. Beach buggy racing might not be a MARIO beater but for £3.99 I’ve had loads of fun with it and very please it exists. A few of the under £2 titles have also been a welcome addition to my collection that I dip in and out of.

Yacht Club definitely needs to start showing something that isn't Shovel Knight. They are starting to look like a one-hit wonder. Especially when sitting next to Image & Form.

It's more cluttered now than as it was months ago when gamers were complaining how clutter it was then.
Like the mobile game stores I would guess that 80/90° of the stuff is rubbish.

Nintendo can exclude a lot of the bad quality games from its index and eshop screen. Or at least keep them seperate.

NL can help as well by not giving so much space to these games. If you have genuinely played and completed these games and they have a score less than six, just put the score next to the title and forget the review.

Your site and my twitter is cluttered with this stuff. I now don't read any review from NL unless it's a well known title. If you have to include a review put the score at the start so if a high scoring game is reviewed, it would be worth reading. But I won't scroll down every review just to be inundated with scores of 5 and below. Even a 6 to me is low.

@Zuljaras ummm no. Steam and mobile stores are king.

Steamtendo

Because of how under developed the E-shop already is, games get buried fast. Unless you're on your Switch all the time or know what good games are coming, it's very easy to miss a gem of a game as it gets burried.

It needs to be killer good at discoverability. Right now that discoverability is non existent. The eshop needs a big overhaul for the healthy future of switch.

@Zuljaras PlayStation is historically the king of Shovelware, ever since PS1. It's because they have the most successful console platform.
Look at the games on the Google Play store. Nintendo are not the King of Shovelware.

The eShop is so boring right now, in my opinion. No music, ugly design and a lot of shovelware.

I would like to know if Nintendo, when announcing a new game, for example the new Yoshi which should have been with us this summer and is now postponed is, genuinely not ready or just being withheld.

If Nintendo can't stick to release times then maybe they should not announce games until they are sure. Film companies can give a release date of a movie 18 months in advance. Day. Month and year.

My guess is that Yoshi is ready but withheld while the Ported games are selling and these Indi, shovel knight, pixel style or what ever the latest name is for those games, are filling the gap.

@zool My guess is that Yoshi is both delayed and withheld. It wasn't ready for first half of this year so they postponed it, so it could be ready for Q4 this year. But then that would clash with Smash and Pokemon so they are withholding it for 2019.

What bugs me more is that we're talking more about nindies than AAA games...I don't want another PS Vita

Not a problem maybe now, but if they don't find a a solution soon, it will be.

it's very hard to find games on Steam. It will take awhile, but if Nintendo doesn't work on it, the same problem will occur (on a smaller degree) in the eshop. Can't ignore it.

I'll take quality over quantity any day. Already some great indies being overlooked. One solution would to bring back the seal of quality and only give it to certain games with their own section on the eshop.

Yeah, the eShop can be pretty overwhelming, it's hard to keep up.

I can’t complain about the influx of games honestly. First of all I can’t buy every single game. Secondly, I watch the eShop like a hawk and check sites like this one daily so as to not miss anything. For movies, comic books, etc. you have to do the same to keep up with those industries. New stuff releases all the time, good or bad, much or few, like it or not. Shouldn’t the customer be responsible enough to research the market a little?

It just makes me sad to see so much utterly terrible games on a Nintendo platform.

@LittleOtus defo! Id rather wait a month a time and have a great game than have dozens of crap games every week

Obviously too much of anything is bad. Some form of curration is required but at the same time Nintendo must not be too selective. Some games may be a little rough or lacking but may actually fill a niche.

As already said, categorisation is essential. If you are interested in certain types of games this can be for you. Perhaps even filters that allow you to only include games with certain features or remove those with them (i.e. I’d filter out anything with Rogue-like).

However set genre categories are essential including specific ones (i.e. maybe shm’ups or arcade style games need there own not just under “action”). Also Visual Novels or Point & Click not just under adventure. Have categories, but then use filters to really bring them down.

The eShop layout right now is awful. It needs an overhaul so all the great Switch indies don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Then they better start having monthly nindie directs to showcase the good ones.

Since I've been primarily a Nintendo gamer the last 7 years, this situation of getting 30, 20 or even 10 games a week feels overwhelming. On the Wii U it was fairly easy to find the quality games on the e-shop and most games were also reviewed by NintendoLife and other good Nintendo gaming sources, including youtube channels. So now I will rely even more on these gaming sources to do an even better job at picking out which games are quality and maybe for me. Keep up the good work NintendoLife!

Apple's iOS App Store revamp is one possible direction, but a ton of work. It's basically generating stories and interest pieces, editorial content, about the apps and games on the main store pages.

It's a hard problem, though. When it was hard for some developers to get their games there, it was easy to get on the developers side, but when it is easy you get some real lower quality stuff. Gotta come at it sideways somehow.

Lots of shovelware. I look at the switch eshop and at times I forget I have a console that’s just a year and half. Feels like game boy

So much for the Nintendo Seal of Quality. Look at the state of Steam. It's a swamp.

I'd rather have fewer choices that are all good quality than something similar to Steam. I feel like I'm maxed out on Steam with games, as the rest are just awful asset flips

"Sigurgeirsson said Nintendo needed to take a look at other over-crowded digital platforms, and see how they were being managed as a point of reference. "

lol. newsflash; they aren't.

if anyone thinks steam, ios, or android's stores are being even remotely curated they're crazy. those things are super bad especially steam now.

as for curation; what makes a game 'worthy'? so they curate all 30 a month and what then? who's making the call?

imo the only curation should be malware and fake/asset shifted stuff. everything else should be available with robust tools for search, spotlight, new, and stuff like that.

Just have a rating system so the best games float to the top and the worst ones sink. Also a guide to how many people have downloaded them.

I say, "do whatever Yacht Club Games says!" Seriously Nintendo, just keep them happy because I can't wait to get their next game. Shovel Knight was AWESOME!

Remember when people complained about lack of 3rd party support? Remember when people praised the numerous amount of games on the Switch eShop? Well, screw them. Quality over quantity.

Nintendo made its name through its Seal of Quality amidst rampant shovelware that we also see today. Have they forgotten what made them stand out in the first place?

I really don't get this argument. It's easy to say "quality over quantity", but what does that really mean? There have been plenty of games on the e-shop that looked like garbage at first glance, only for me to find out that they are a hit with critics or a have developed a devoted following. Are there games there that are actually garbage? Of course. But these games are being made no matter what. Do we expect, or even trust, a few Nintendo workers to play every single one and conclude what's worthy of our attention? I think that would be worse for creativity in the industry, not better.

These successful indie developers' comments are fairly reasonable, but on this issue, I don't actually care what they think. It's easy for them to say "oh yeah, we need more discrimination on what shows up on the e-shop", because they've already made it through. It's the age-old story of the success story who pulls up the ladder from behind them.

We all agree that "discoverability" needs to improve on the e-shop. I think we've all said that user ratings would go a long way towards that. And Nintendo could curate a selection of featured games (besides just their first party games and a handful of already ultra-successful Nindies like they do now) and even put those featured games on the front page instead of the most recent releases. There are a lot of solutions to this problem. but throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not one of them.

And then there are still devs who have a hard time even getting on the eShop and those are complaining as well. I understand and agree with the quality over quantity issue as well but who's going to make that decision? Nintendo themselves going through all the games that are submitted to them and say "that one is crap, rejected" or "that one is good, accepted" ??? How do you filter that, and who is going to make that decision? If it's Nintendo themselves then people are going to complain that Nintendo are too harsh, and if they don't, they're too lazy and they're letting the market become oversaturated.

That's the ransom of the success of the platform that the eShop is already so full of games as a result of so many devs wanting a piece of the big cake. How do you say no to a dev that wants in, and if you do what Nintendo did on the NES and limit the amount that each dev can publish on the platform, the big ones will circumvent it by setting up subsidiaries like Konami did on the NES for example, and then the smaller companies who can't afford to do so will lose again as well... It's a no win situation, there's no clear cut solution that will make everyone happy.

They need to bring back miiverse and merge it with the store. Build a community of discussion around games. Make it searchable, categorisable, with ratings and opinions. Drive engagement via miiverse with direct links to games where you can buy them there and then. This will vastly improve the experience imho

@John_Deacon The fault is not with the review system but with the readers' mentality. 6 or 7 are still GOOD scores, otherwise the rest of the scale below those numbers is just useless, that's why each good site has a scoring policy page linked right next to each score, to better understand what the score stands for and, normally, the reader is supposed to have read the review and not just scrolled down to the score, ignoring all the information held within that justifies and details said score's existence.

It's not review sites' fault that people associate 6 or 7 scores with mediocre or below when 5 and under should be the scores that correspond to those conclusions.

Nintendo is between a rock and a hard place here.

If it does not allow (virtually) everyone to publish on the eShop — it gets accused of playing favorites and the discussion goes back to when Nintendo used to limit third party publishing.

If it lets (virtually) everyone publish, then people complain the eShop is over crowded.

So... Yacht Club. Erm... how bout that King of Cards? Not gonna happen this year, or what...?

Again we will all vote with our wallets!

If I had to choose between Nintendo being more open to developers vs being more restricted, I vote the former. There will be more games I (to each their own) think is crap, but there will also be more games that are good. Thank Arceus I can weed them out by using a smart device or pc to go on the internet and research.

At least we don't have to hear that X developer won't release Y game(s) on a Nintendo system because of their restriction process anymore.

@Liam_Doolan

Then I guess Brjann Sigurgeirsson doesn't know that Nintendo actually gave up eshop curation since the Switch was released...

@gwyntendo @Aven Yeah, it blows my mind that the switch eshop doesn't have ratings or any useful categories for discovering quality games.

What's even more confusing is where are all the AAA and AA third party support at? I didn't purchase a Switch just so I could play indies that is what the PS Vita is for.

"PS4 has more shovelware than the Switch." Well of course it does. It's been out a lot longer! It also has more aaa titles too, and more games in general. Lol.

@Agramonte Exactly. I don't see how over saturation will ruin the market. Almost 75% of the games will mostly be rushes for cash grabs. However, those developers that work hard for a really well made game will get the recognition and will therefore be easier to find. I already have: Yacht Club, Team Cherry, Dodge Roll, WayForward, Inti Creates, and a few others as groups to look out for.

Also, YouTube is always a good way to get a feel for a game.

@electrolite77 Excellent point. That first sentence is hilarious.

They did a standup job the first 6 months.

Idk what happened but after that they let the flood gates loose

Sure...a long amount of content is fine to a blind person. I like quality over quantity and they had a chance to control that but I guess they needed the numbers to hide the time between major releases.

Eshop could have a better design and discovery. While Steam is pretty infamous i rarely see any [removed] game on the storefront, probably because the recommended algorithm they've put in place.

For example i buy a lot of anime and pixel-art games so i always see these type of games on the storefront when something new is released. Games like Bad Rats and AIDS Simulator never appear to me unless i go out of my way to search for it.

If Nintendo is really going that route (very likely) then the Eshop could use some rework in the design and discovery of games.

@electrolite77 then who assumed and informed us that Fire Emblem and Yoshi were being released this year, and then told us they were delayed?

@Audiobrainiac I’m completely with you on this subject. It doesn’t matter if I don’t buy 9 or 99 bad/average games a week as long as the good ones keep coming and sites like this keep us informed.

I don’t see the problem here.

@electrolite77 its fine that games are on the way. I expect a new Zelda is on the way, just like the last one and might be in four years time. But for Yoshi and FE to have been posponed they must have a release time, like Summer 2018 for example.

Showing Yoshi at E3 2017 is fine, but suggesting it is a 2018 release just to show a stream of games is on the way sooner than they are, is done for immediate publicity. Then E3 2018 comes and these two games have disappeared, only to emerge again next year to more publicity.

the only way i get games if they are on the deals section and are under sale for less then ten dollars, with the amount being released there's no way im paying any game more then what i said it isn't worth the value

too many games people get crazy.
not too many games people get crazy.
hey nintendo just cancel the switch its too much for us.

@ogo79 I don't think you understand the point.

There's a middle ground between too much and too little.

Too much and people are going to miss new releases they would have potentially loved because they're quickly buried underneath a ton of other releases, typically not all of which are of even average quality. This is what we call 'saturation' (google it).

Too little and the obvious happens, people want to spend money but there's just nothing new to throw it at.

Steam is a prime example of 'too many games'. Partially this is due to the release of PC2 being way overdue, saturation an inevitable thing for a platform as it ages. Steam in particular having the issue because Valve just let just about anything and everything up on the store, flooding the market.

Nintendo however seem to have seen indies selling well and are in the process of opening the friggin' floodgates with dollar/yen signs in their eyes, apparently oblivious to the fact that indies were doing so well because it WAS a fresh platform and HAD a decent amount of quality control on the eShop.

@Tao i googled the word saturation and i came up with this

i really love hamburgers

My issue is the search by genre function is worthless. I get genre is slightly subjective but you’ll have JRPGs in the action adventure tab.

@mowerdude Exactly - you would think everyone here would have a VITA if they cared so much about Indies and random mobile games on the GO 🤔

@electrolite77 I didn't purchase a Nintendo portable system, according to Nintendo the Switch is a home console first and for most and that is how I use my Switch console 99.9% of the time. Just look at the third party publishers that's in my post like Ubisoft known for games like Assassin's Creed, Tom Clancy, Prince of Persia, Activision for games like Call of Duty, Destiny, Crash Bandicoot, WB for games like Batman Arkham, Mortal Kombat, Mad Max, Injustice, Square Enix for games like Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider, Kingdom Hearts, Deus Ex and other publishers for other great Third party games. You would think that some of those series would show up on the Switch with how Nintendo was promoting that third party support is back.

@Heavyarms55 We definitely don’t want the Switch to end up with an oversaturation of indies like on the 360 or the stuff the gets pushed out regularly on Steam

@electrolite77 OK, but I think they have been postponed until next year so that this year's Wii U ports sell well, not delayed due to development issues. And I bet we don't see either Yoshi or Fire Emblem until after next year's E3

Here is the problem no one wants to admit. One man's crap game is another man's gem. There is no easy way to predict what the community will latch onto, outside putting only games that have made it big on the eShop. Eventually Nintendo is going to have to let unknown products in, otherwise they will always be behind the curve.

The key is that they have a staff that filters out the garbage like Meme Run.

@electrolite77 I didn't purchase it for those games, I purchase it for Zelda Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the battle mode. That is all the Switch games I own so far. This year for switch really is crap so far since it is mostly Wii U ports and indies. Especially when you already own the games on the Wii U console all that really is getting released is for you would just be indie after indie. So glad I am not a Nintendo only gamer.

Need to add a new category to the eShop: shovelware

Asking Nintendo to actually look at and learn from their competitors in terms of online and eshops is a pipe dream. If that were the case Nintendo would have had all this sorted out a while ago as well as providing a clear picture of what their online service will actually be.

I'm really, really picky at what I buy to begin with, so this is a big nothingburger to me.

The only thing I use the eShop for is to get what I'm looking for and nothing more. It's not my fault people can't separate the chaff from the wheat. Ask around or use YouTube to see "let's play"-style videos if you're on the fence about something.

It's clear, based upon the bestsellers on the eShop, that people will buy quality, well-done games to begin with.

I'm going to echo the other calls for quality over quantity. Who care how many games are released if they are all garbage?

There's been tons of really great stuff, and then some not so great, but more options for everyone = generally better than the alternative, IMHO. Stronger organization of the eShop, better use of sub-genre groupings in the eShop, and the addition of optional home menu folders would be helpful.

The article says "but the number of titles developers choose to release isn't under Nintendo's control."
Why? Since when does Nintendo not have control over their own eShop?

Nintendo absolutely has more control than Jools Watsham believes.

The biggest issue here, in my opinion, is overwhelming audiences with too much too fast. It also hurts developers in a big way.

Here's a realistic scenario that i could see happening:

Game #1 came out, as well as game #2 and #3.

I want game #1 more than the rest, so i decide to get the remainder at a later date instead.

Next week, another decent game is released. Multiply this times several more weeks.

As time passes, i have forgotten about (or lost interest) in those initial games #2 and #3 from above, because my attention is now on those newer gems to admire.

In essence, i see developers making less money from this, all while gamers feel increasingly overwhelmed.

Thanks, Nintendo. Yet another brilliant decision by your staff of mindless monkeys.

At the end of the day, it's their console. It's their domain. Of course they can find ways to limit the quantity.

@diablo2 Wow, if this is seriously "overwhelming" for certain gamers, maybe they need a new hobby. This isn't freaking rocket science.

@Bombdotorg999 Yes, I agree that this could definitely be improved.

@kirbygirl Don't be so narrow minded. Too many options of anything could potentially overwhelm, even if we're referring to mere games. No, it doesn't apply to everyone, but the potential to overwhelm is very much there.

@diablo2 Then they should already be completely overwhelmed. Think of all of the current consoles available now not to mention retro systems, plus the app store, Android, Steam, etc., and all of the games available for each of those different platforms. There are already thousands upon thousands of options for gamers.

@kirbygirl Im referring specifically to the Nintendo Switch ecosystem. But anyway, everyone's got an opinion. Mine is: Let's just see how this latest bad decision turns out.

@diablo2 Yeah, that's not narrow minded, lol. But good luck to you.

@kirbygirl You as well, Nintendrone.

@diablo2 Yeah, sure, that's me. I'll be sure to inform the XBO, PS4, and Switch living happily together on our entertainment system. My family and I just enjoy gaming as one of our many hobbies. You seem to prefer catastrophizing.

If anything, I'd say they could stop adding titles and then remove some. I swear there is already some real trash. In time it will end up like any other platform.