At the end of last week, a "new" shooter called The Bullet: Time of Revenge appeared on the Nintendo Switch eShop. Unlike most games, it's official eShop description is surprisingly brief, and it's available as we speak for less than a fiver:
Become a Bullet - eliminate bad people using many kinds of weapons, exploring features like driving cars or tanks, flying helicopters or a jet plane. There are many achievements and unlockables that will help spread chaos in the city.
Despite seeming like a cheap and cheerful release on the surface, The Bullet: Time of Revenge has been causing quite the stink online since launch. It turns out that this new Grand Theft Auto-like release appears to be what's known as an asset flip, whereby a developer can legally buy a pre-made asset pack, do nothing to change it other than give it a new title, and release it into the world to make a profit.
We actually ran a piece on the practice a few years ago when it became clear that prolific Wii U eShop developer RCMADIAX was simply changing the title screens on 'game builder' kits and selling them on Nintendo's digital storefront.
In this case, the asset pack in question is known as Hammer 2 Reloaded, and anyone can go ahead and buy the full game and its assets for $50. The idea is that beginner game devs can buy to this to have a starting point and learn their way around customising an already-built world to make their own game. In this case, it appears the developers have simply bought the pack and uploaded the game as if it were their own. Here's what Hammer 2 looks like:
Amazingly, this isn't the first time this has happened; there have been numerous cases in the past where developers have purchased the Hammer 2 asset pack and released it under a new name, usually on Steam. Thanks to the licensing agreements found on these asset pack purchases, doing this is actually legal, but it never goes down well with gamers as you might expect. Seeing such a release pass through Nintendo's quality assurance team is saddening, to say the least.
The game was talked about yesterday by popular YouTuber Jim Sterling, and ever since, Nintendo fans have been venting their frustrations online. Here are a few select comments we found:
The eShop is really close to becoming a clone of Steam ain't it? No wonder Nintendo dropped their seal of quality a long time ago.
The eShop is already FLOODED with mobile ports and shovelware, now we gotta sift thru asset flips too?!
Nintendo just “flipped” the “switch” on quality control by green lighting this when it should have been gas lighted.
Do you think releases like this should make it onto Switch? Would you prefer the Switch eShop to celebrate originality over asset flips, or should any and all games be available? Share your thoughts with us below.
Thanks to Sup3Rmint for the tip!
[source youtube.com]
Comments 105
Dang Flippit!
I smell a business opportunity here...
That dude looks like he's about to bring the pro-pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vha4Q58dxtU
How are Nintendo (or any sales platform) supposed to know if a game is just an asset flip?
If the terms of the license the assets are purchased under allows it to be released without any substantial changes then there's not much you can do about it.
The only way to refuse it would be on "quality" which is a) very subjective and b) a complete nightmare to police.
I've got Switch games that other people would consider absolute trash. One that springs to mind is Event Horizon. It's a mobile port of an unfinished game (in that there's no end goal and certain elements are never fleshed out) but I love it because the combat is like a more complex version of Star Control 2. It cost me less than a quid and I've got more than my money's worth out of it but I expect most people would consider it a joke that it's even released on Switch.
This kind of thing shouldnt be allowed to make it to the eshop. The reason the switch has so many amazon indie games is due to the developers abandoning steam due to their efforts being buried under streams of asset flips. If Nintendo isn’t careful we could be buried in this garbage soon.
I'd rather the e-Shop have Steam's problems as opposed to the Wii U's problems.
And it's still a long way from the Google Play store.
Nintendo's continued goal of having twenty new titles release on the Switch eShop every week doesn't seem super promising when this can still happen.
Because over on Google Play, let me tell you, they got 2000 new games every week.
And we can go there if we want our idle city builders with micro transactions, our match-three games with art from Bing image search, and our asset flips, thank you very much.
Also, I find it hilarious that the guy publishing this calls himself "art games studios".
Big ambitions. Marcel Duchamp would be proud.
@DevlinMandrake
This is a very fair question, so let's have the answer on the table.
Nintendo works closely with middleware manufacturers like Unity, Unreal, and others.
Whatever packs are available in the asset-stores for these frameworks are pretty dang easy to look up.
Should they do that with every single game?
Might not be necessary. But it's adviced if something seems fishy at the outset, like having very brief exchanges with the developer, not seeing the game released anywhere else, or developers writing weird, short descriptions like this one.
We're probably better off not advertising it here, some people will probably enjoy it if it's cheap. If it bothers you then don't support it...let it die
Has anyone seen the Kairosoft games on eshop? There are over 20 of them, like World Cruise Story, all look identical.
nintendo accepting some of the worst shovelwares ever. nothing new here
"accused of"
You spelt "is" wrong.
For the people defending this kind of behaviour. Remember that unlike the other platforms, Nintendo has a very poor solution to promote other titles. Some really good titles will get buried by this kind of trite and that can cause serious devs to abandon the platform when their lovingly crafted games don't get the sales they need.
The Switch has revitalised 3rd party support. These guys are risking driving Nintendo platforms back to the GC-Wii U days.
Saw jim sterling’s video in it. Asset flips are the worst IF they don’t use them properly and don’t make their own stuff to compliment it. Tho the only asset flip I know of that did that was PUBG.
A friend of mine bought a Switch the other day and while waiting for Animal Crossing to arrive she went on the eshop to buy a cheaper game (like under £20 so not unreasonable). She doesn’t keep up with gaming news so didn’t know what was good and ended up buying some shovelware and was disappointed.
The eshop is a mess and has been for at least a year. I don’t even think reviews would help considering trash can be discounted by like 95% to look appealing. What frustrates me further is that in the sale section, rubbish will rise to the top and decent stuff will go lower in the list.
Funny to think that Nintendo was actually curating what appeared on the Nintendo Eshop when the console first released (not a guarantee of quality, though; Vroom in the Night Sky was a launch title, after all).
What's ultimately going to happen as shovelware floods the eshop is that legit indies, who have been having a lot of success on the console, are going to have a harder and harder time being noticed next to all of the trash. It's already happening, frankly.
Now all we need are about a million games with "hentai" in the title and the eshop really will just be a worse version of Steam.
@Pod
That sounds like a reasonable enough starting point, but I'm not sure how workable it is in reality. It would mean you'd need to have someone manually search asset stores to try and match what's in the game. I can't see any easy way to automate that as many games may well contain pre-built assets and a shady producer could just change a couple of items to ensure it's not a 100% match for the store-supplied assets so it would fail automatically.
Then you inevitably get into judgement calls of where to draw the line and it gets very messy.
Don't get me wrong, nobody likes to see the eshop littered with trash, but defining trash without being subjective is pretty much impossible. Like other platforms, the Switch is somewhat becoming a victim of its own success. The more popular a platform is the more games you're going to see at all quality levels and inevitably it's easier to produce cheap crap.
I can't say I like this. But I also don't really care. I mean, until the eshop gets a massive layout overhaul and general UI update, I wouldn't even TRY searching a game there. I'd look online, find the exact title, and put it in.
The only thing I do on the eshop is check the coming soon and recent tab every now and then.
I would LOVE it if I could mark a game on the eshop 'never show me this again, in any lists, ever'. It would stop this sort of shovelware clogging up sales lists and stuff. I almost never use the one via the Swtich menu and always go via the online site - it's miles easier to use and navigate with a mouse.
If this is a legal practice and a developer is actively selling their creation for re use then what can be done? And what can Nintendo or Steam or anyone do about it?
Is it dodgy and lazy in the extreme? Yeah. But the developer decided to sell in the first place.
Still the people who acted like it is their own game are more than a bit scummy.
Honestly, the only solution to this is one that would hurt indies: making the submission process a lot harder and expensive. Big up-front submission fee (1k?, refundable if it does not pass submission process) for instance.
@Milton_Burle Even through there games are more or less 3 variations of a basic sim reskinned every few months, at least they are more original than this "asset flip".
@Sup3Rmint
This isn't plagiarism though. The assets are sold and licensed for other people to use in their own games so Nintendo has no grounds to refuse a game because it's using purchased assets.
@sup3Rmint
I'm not defending it, just correcting your statement so people don't get confused about the issue in question.
And I'm not defending it, just pointing out that it's not as easy to stop as some seem to think.
I hate crap games as much as the next person, but everyone has a different definition of crap.
Regarding the game specifically mentioned in the article, I think it looks like utter trash, but other people may enjoy it so who's to say whether or not it should be allowed onto the eshop?
@sup3Rmint
Well I mean the eshop is easy to navigate for me, not really sure what extra curation would help.
User reviews would be useless as games would either be the best thing ever or the worst with no inbetween, I wouldn't trust any user reviews.
If some looks at a "game" like The Bullet and thinks it will actually be good then they deserve to waste their money on it.
@DevlinMandrake A huge part of running a hardware business like the Switch is to curate content. The Switch eshop is completely littered with bad games, and everyone knows it. The other two consoles aren't as bad.
Nintendo eShop or the "Art of Selling Shovel Ware at Premium Price"...
If you're clever enough to figure it out and make bank, good for you.
@whizzkidd Yeah 3.99 is certainly premium.
@DevlinMandrake Sorry but to me this is further evidence quality control isn't doing its job. Event Horizon is a free game, yet on the switch you have to buy it, regardless of how much it costs this isn't what I'd call quality business
@Ralizah Pretty much this - indies found a great home on Switch and asset flips and cheap mobile ports etc. cloud from playing games made by actual independent developers for consoles.
Thank God for Jim Sterling.
Disgusting. The eShop genuinely is flooded with shovelware. Takes ages to dig past the excrement to find the genuine stuff. It's getting to a stage where anybody can upload their dev coursework and sell it on the Nintendo eShop. That and the 50% Switch tax on ancient games will hurt Nintendo.
@DevlinMandrake
All it takes is ONE person in the QA procedure that has recently glanced over the "complete games" section on asset store. It's not terribly complex.
Now, I'm not saying it's all that important for this not to happen, as it isn't illegal or anything like that. But Nintendo still needs to give off the air of actually caring about what makes it on to their primary platform.
@sup3Rmint
Agree totally, but the actual logistics of searching asset stores/other platforms for evidence of asset flips is going to be a significant piece of work, and as long as no licenses are being breached then it's hard to see on what grounds such games could be rejected.
@Agriculture
Who decides what counts as a "bad game"? And how "bad" does it have to be in order to be rejected? I think Fortnite is a terrible game, along with all the paedo-bait Japanese games, but does that mean they should be removed?
@SeasickPlatypus
Value is entirely subjective. I've more than got my money's worth for Event Horizon so have no complaints about the amount I paid for it. It was originally a mobile release so would have been free but ad-supported/in-app purchases. I'd much rather pay a few quid for it than have to to watch ads after every battle or pay for "premium currency". There's no quality control issue there, and presumably Nintendo don't set the prices so have no control over how much is charged.
Dang wish I had thought of this first lol!
But people hated the curated eshop approach Nintendo used to have, where they had to approve every release. Now that they abandoned it and allow developers to do it on their own, it's still their fault? Don't buy that garbage and let the developer fail.
@DevlinMandrake "who decides what counts as a bad game", "peado-bait".
I love Nintendo's approach here. They have archaic systems in place to "protect their customers", but then also have no problem having soft porn or no tougher restrictions on predatory business practices like assets flips or aggressive microtransactions.
@TheFullAndy That's not what happens with user reviews. From xbox, to steam, to meta critic, there is no example of content being either 100% or 0%. Hell, on meta critic, Zelda BotW has an 8.6 user review.
I love Nintendo but there is 99% garbage being uploaded every week now. It is quickly becoming worse than the phone app stores. I rarely even pay attention anymore unless its something high level that gets lots of attention as a result. And this means I might be missing a good game, but I just don't have the time to wade through the dump heap that the eshop has become. I'll also say the same thing is happening to Sony and Xbox but Nintendo seems to be getting way more for some reason.
@Richnj
They can add user reviews if they want if it will help people make a decision but it is not something I would ever use when deciding to buy a game.
An eyeroll-inducing practice for sure, but as long as it's legal, Nintendo is not an efficient tree to bark at. And "Seal of Quality" really seems to be brought up by two kinds of people - those who once took it literally and those pretending they're old enough to have seen it outside retro excursions on YouTube. But I hear fanheads are keen on petitions - so maybe try a civilly expressed one aimed at responsible legislators in the field? Like necessitating a certain amount of original content beyond the title screen etc? Regardless of [initial] effect, it's likely going to sound like and be a more dignified cause than 98% of gamer petitions out there. But if you prefer to picture Nintendo inventing grounds for turning down a legal product instead, at least don't pretend there's no risk of this genie getting unbottled upon other kinds of games afterwards.
And spare me the hypocritical laments for the indie scene and "true hidden gems". Small devs keep flocking here because they know two things: a) Switch is a convincing market for their games with its variety of input and its subtlety of hardware that deters much of the "graphic good, pixel bad" crowd, and b) the bulk of the indie-interested market is informationally literate and self-motivated to do their research in the field. They'll absentmindedly look up, estimate and buy/wishlist three games in the time it'll take other audiences to type out "as a customer, I shouldn't have to look up and research this one game" in a comment field. Often it's a time management choice between the content you consider spending money on and several more kitten videos (or an analogue thereof), so you make the call, but you live with what you called, too. Someone who "doesn’t keep up with gaming news so didn’t know what was good and ended up buying some shovelware and was disappointed" will only get so much sympathy in the 21st century (even without getting started on the matter of personal judgement as opposed to blind purchases made solely based on "gaming news" as well).
Switch eShop gonna Switch eShop. It's worse than others in some aspects, better than others in some (I keep using too much 3DS, Vita and PS4 to this day to wear any nostalgic goggles around 3DS eShop or PS Store, for one), but in the end, I believe that no amount of QoL bells and whistles could ever justify using any of these platforms as full-fledged shopping malls. They're digital purchase gateways first and foremost - with room for improvement beyond but no guaranteed incentives for said improvement. Which may be related to the contingents I've discussed above - ironically, Switch eShop has lower odds to repeat the banes of Steam mostly because many gamers already know what to expect from Steam, Google Play and similar cases - which places a limit on the number of eggs they put in such baskets information-wise.
And yet, when it comes to information... aren't there recurrent press releases, presentations, monthly highlight articles and even console-based news channel updates regarding all the new Switch releases, from "shovelware" to "poor unfortunate gems"? Oh, right, I forgot - we shouldn't have to watch/read any of it.😏😆
This is bad, I don't care if it's legal or whatever, it's just wrong
@DevlinMandrake There's no right or wrong answer, but it still needs to be answered. Nintendo will have to do a better job at figuring out which games should be allowed on the eshop. This isn't even a case of a hard decision, it's clearly an asset flip that they missed.
@Jayvir They need to find a balance, like Sony and Microsoft has. Obviously some mistakes can be made, but with too many mistakes, the eshop will become too littered with bad games.
@DevlinMandrake Thanks for talking about Event Horizon. I've been curious about it for a long time, but never picked it up because all the reviews I could find online are on the mixed to negative side. But after reading your thoughts I'm going to get it next time it goes on sale. Have you tried the sequel? Should I pick that up instead of the first?
And I agree with you completely. Policing this sort of thing is impossible, and if Nintendo DID decide to curate more tightly, the Internet pundits would complain that Nintendo wasn't giving deserving indies a fair chance. That's what happened with Steam; they heavily curated their storefront and the pundits said that indies weren't getting a chance at success. So Steam implemented Greenlight and the pundits said that wasn't good enough, so Steam just let anyone who wanted to publish do so, and now the pundits complain that Steam is too open and needs curation. There's no winning with this, so remaining open and risking the occasional asset flip getting through is worth it in my opinion. We have to take the bad with the good.
As a veteran dev I truly hate this stuff. There’s a guy that lives in the village down the road from me, he has a shop on the villages “High street” where he sells prints of famous people and the likes..... all he does is run a few photoshop filters over them and sells them. It’s gross. I’ve reported the guy for taking copyrighted works and editing them and hes definitely been sued twice. But he still does it.
Yeah I hate this junk. It’s up to Nintendo to curate the store. I remember when it was a nightmare getting licenses and rights et al to make games for Nintendo, Sega, steam (back in the day now they let any old **** in there). Miss them times. You had to develop fantastic presentations to get their attention. It was full of devs that truly loved the industry and art.
@ermzzz
Agree totally, there's no single right answer to this one. Nothing against Jim Sterling personally but it's very easy for someone to rant on the internet and demand "Something must be done!".
Regarding Event Horizon, I loved it but that's because I loved StarCon2. EV has zero plot and just consists of travelling to new star systems, fighting everything there and then moving on. There are loads of parts to the game that have been added in but not used in any meaningful way (like the resources you can collect from planets) and there's no real point to the game apart from improving your fleet and battling more and more enemies. The plus points are that you can completely reconfigure your ships with loads of components that can have a massive effect upon how they play.
I thought it was worth it for the price, but you need to accept you're getting a cool battle mode with a barebones game wrapped around it.
I haven't tried the sequel, that seems more based on multi-ship fleet battles though.
its not an accusation its a bloody fact. switch e shop is a farce. and as usual N dont give a toss. just as bad as stream
With the exception of games released on steam (quality control isn't in valves values) Steam platform is 100 times better then the eshop : refunds, cheap games, reviews, community discussions, customization. If Nintendo doesn't control the quality of games that are released on their platform, what's the point of purchasing their products?
@Milton_Burle The Kairosoft games are fun though. I bought two.
The EShop is absolute rubbish. At least Steam has regular sales, refunds, proper recommendations etc. It’s a barebones experience that would feel out of place 10 years ago and it’s bloated beyond all belief by terrible shovelware. The logical next step is for them to allow porn games, it’s where Steam went after all.
I guess it won't be long before Meme Run returns, that was something back in the Wii U era.
The best part of the trailer is when it says "DRIVE" and they show clips of two cars slowly reversing
Odd. The eShop claims there is an esrb rating but I can’t fund the game on the esrb site.
I'm not one to complain about cheap games if they're fun, like Akane, Sparkle, or Timber Man Vs. for example. Asset Flips on the other hand, aren't worth it. If I recall, on top of constant ads and MTX, that's another problem plaguing the unsalvageable mobile market.
Came for the righteous anger. Was not disappointed.
@Milton_Burle
At least it's their own games. And the pixel art is their "style" I guess. But yeah, they're all management sims with similar mechanics to them, just in different settings, to have something for everyone.
I think they're cute enough. At least there's a reasonable amount of depth to them, and they don't seem to have monetization schemes capitalizing on the player's impatience built in.
@Glitchling78 I'm sorry, but that's not the eShop's fault. You don't need to follow gaming news to know how to use Google. Even if they can't work out how to search for which Switch games are good, they must be capable of looking up the game they're considering buying to see what it's like. Back in the old days if you didn't follow reviews in magazines then you had to make your decisions based on the covers and screenshots on the boxes in the shops. Now we have Google, YouTube and a thousand online resources to find out whatever you want to know about a game. No console or handheld has ever had an exclusively good library of games. People shouldn't blame Nintendo for their own laziness.
hey now some of those are fun lol. but there do needs to be some sort of organized list meant for indie games or whatever and a category say for example horror games only etc. i almost always try to be on the lookout for that.
also a lowest to highest sales list on the eshop deals section
@BionicDodo I agree that she should have researched before buying but she only wasted £5 so it wasn’t horrific. I sent her a link to a decent article of best indie games to point her towards more quality stuff.
I do think however that Nintendo is responsible for what appears on its own storefront. Extreme example but if my supermarket was selling talc with asbestos sprinkled in I would be annoyed with the supermarket for not vetting the brands it allows in, as well as the brand. Unfortunately it’s a problem with most big online services though, everything from the Steam store to Etsy are filled with low quality guff to sift through. At least they have reviews on their sites to make things easier while browsing.
I know this developer that wants to make good games for the Switch but his reputation and inexperience in game production during the Wii U era had him rejected for Switch development.
So Nintendo won't allow a guy, who has gradually improved, to make indie games for Switch but they will let a developer who shamelessly makes a cynical shovelware asset flip?
Time to burn down the eShop.
Well that doesn't seem fair that any of these "developers" can simply buy the same pre-made game and then just release it as is with a new name and profit from pretty much doing nothing. At the bare min should change the textures and some of the models or something like that, just to make it their own.
Is it bad if I ask if this game is fun? It's cheap, and on the eshop. I don't like shady practices either, but it looks potentially fun.
@nessisonett Unlike the PC market, no console maker would ever allow AO rated games in their platforms so that's a huge leap of logic you're making. There was a japanese game that got taken from the eshop some time ago that had to be patched for adult content before being reuploaded, all VN's released on consoles are censored for the same reason
@Casual_Gamer95 back in my day, the Nintendo seal of quality meant something. Yes. It was called the official Nintendo seal of quality here in Europe.
I've seen these assets in a ton of little studio's "games."
@ermzzz I'm with you, imposing scruciating guidelines might stop devs to submit shovelware but at the same time it'll make it more difficult for indies to get approval. You either affect everyone or no one, there's no middleground and complaints wouldn't end anyway. Adding a refund option isn't a solution but would be very welcome in case you aren't satisfied with your purchase, I'd be far more interested in that.
@DevlinMandrake Im not talking about value, I'm talking cost, which is not subjective. It either costs something or it doesn't. Nintendo doesn't have control over pricing, but it does have control over what is on the store. Charging money for a port of a free and incomplete mobile game is bad business. Nothing to do with what you perceive the games value as. I think its a good game too, and played it plenty on android, that doesn't speak to the merit of charging money for a free game.
@RupeeClock I'd so throw down the $60 if that game came true...
Nintendo should consider a rating system with in the eshop. Just like Steam, GOG, iTunes, Google play...
It's not perfect and open to shill accounts but better than nothing.
@SeasickPlatypus
But it's free on mobile because that uses a different funding model. And that funding model (thankfully) doesn't translate well to Switch.
I'd much prefer to be able to buy the game for pennies (I think it's about 89p currently, the sequel is) than be stuck with a game that springs ads on me or wants more and more money for virtual objects. IAP can be done well, but I'd much rather just pay upfront for the game.
Are you saying they shouldn't be able to release their game on Switch? Or that Nintendo should force them to use the same funding method as on other platforms?
I'm not sure who would benefit from a policy like that.
And when I called it unfinished earlier I was being a bit harsh. It's a complete game that you can potentially sink hundreds of hours into, but there's no end-game nor really any plot.
Some people would, quite rightly, describe it as shovelware but it reminds me of a game I loved 20-odd years ago and the things it does well, it does really well. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that it's on the eshop in its current form.
next you'll tell me Wonder Boy and Adventure Island are asset flips
there was that youtube video about the Crazy castle Series that started on the NES and was reskinned a dozen times.
This isn't anything new and why is bad now?
This is why people watch switch up, switch planet, switch watch, beatemups and rgt85, people would be very stupid to blindly go and buy any game in any console without watching a gameplay review or a stream play of it. Until nintendo put back user reviews, watching these gaming reviews and update channels are the best thing to do, and I learned that the moment I bought the switch 3 years a go. Specially when those channels go back and retry ***** games to see if they have been updated to be worth considering.
If Nintendo did quality control, then people would be bringing up freedom of speech excuses. This happened with Steam as well
My solution for this would be bringing the rating system back that the Wii U and 3DS have. You have to at least play a game for 1-2 hours before you can rate it: 5 stars for great games, 1 star for garbage.
Also Miiverse! Miiverse was amazing! Even niche games had their fans and looking up discussions revealed their true value. The Miiverse community didn't let the stinkers slip but it embraced the overlooked and underrated gems. You always knew what you were getting into. And you were able to see who was a trash talker and who owned the game.
Those two features really worked wonders in finding out about the quality of games.
Hahahahaha, aye carumba
Someday the e-shop will be fixed (maybe!), so much junk even if you want to find stuff on sale there's so much junk to sift through. Stuff like this definitely is not helping the e-shop though.
@nhSnork "And "Seal of Quality" really seems to be brought up by two kinds of people - those who once took it literally and those pretending they're old enough to have seen it outside retro excursions on YouTube."
Those of us who were gaming back then know just how worthless that "Seal of Quality" truly was. After all, "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" had that seal on it! I mean, some of the NES's worst released without the seal (Action 52, anyone?), but the bulk majority of NES garbage was certified, even games that were broken and couldn't be beaten. The seal of quality was really meaningless.
Tbf, 90% of indie titles (and AAA titles) aren't worth the money. I can't imagine going into a storefront (digital or not) and wading through ***** to find something that might pique my interest. I live by the rule that if you're going into a storefront of any kind, know exactly what you are getting and go directly to it. Use gaming sites and YouTube to check out what is being released. Use cheapassgamer and various other sites to shop for deals, then type in the game's title and avoid the chaff. If you're really perusing the eShop (or any other digital storefront without doing research first), it's because you're bored and want something to kill time. Go do something else. If you seriously bought this game, you don't need a game console.
I love the righteous anger and idealism of some folks commenting here, but as I recall the eShop wasn't brilliant from day one. Vroom in the Night Sky and dozens of obscure-ish Neo Geo titles littered the thing for weeks before the plethora of decent first and third party games I didn't already have started to appear.
Game research is pretty easy these days, type <name of game> and "review" into YouTube, watch a few, draw own conclusions on whether it's worth your money or not. Those with discerning taste borne of knowing their own specific preferences may find they end up with a plethora of brilliant titles, changing the problem to "when do I find time to play them all", although from what I understand people typically have more free time these days due to the all the panicdemic around CV19.
We need Shovel Knight to protect us from the dangers of shovelware.
This is one of those games you can play for free on your computer
@DevlinMandrake Hear hear mate very well said
why the hell is this news?
Ryan Craddock of Nintendolife makes an article about a game that was made to help people make and publish games, admits to it being legal, but still links the game they are complaining about to their own web page so they can make money off of clicks and advertising, but complains about Nintendo letting a LEGAL game on to their store, which is twice the size of the Full Game Kit version that nintendolife also linked to, that nintendolife may be also getting paid click commission for. Clearly some work went into adapting it to work on Switch. It's twice the size of the Full Game Kit. Here's a quote from the developer of the game kit. misspelling and all.
"Don't worry about license agreements, you have full commercial usuage rights! Your game is ready to build and deploy for web, standalone and Android mobile devices. Easy to port to other platforms."
Then you link to a story that another nintendolife writer, and Editor, Thomas Whitehead, ran on RCMADIAX, which was clearly written in a more open minded and adult tone. He even ended it with
"For now, the eShop is host to an exceptionally broad range of games, of varying types and price points. When all is said and done it is the gamers that will decide what content they want on Nintendo hardware."
Thomas Whitehead's article is a glorifying example of objective not subjective writing. Ryan Craddock's piece is hot garbage and shouldn't be something nintendolife should endorse or be proud of. My opinion, Ryan Craddock can go back to writing articles on Facebook. Clearly that's where he honed his writing skills.
Also, complaining about asset flippers, but still sponsoring them on "NINTENDOlife" makes you sound like a close minded bigot.
Are we acting surprised about Nintendo being a low down douchy dirtbag live in its own shadow company.
The seal of quality went with nintendo too many years ago.
We get broken controllers that we sent in to get 2 months fixes on..we dont even got dedicated online servers in 2020.. top franchises like pokemon and animal crossing have allowed cheats and hacks that go from offline solo or just solo..to online multi-player.
If that was an xbox or sony exclusive, NEVER EVER WOULD THE CHEATING BE ALLOWED. NINTENDO DOESNT CARE FOR ITS GAMES ANY LONGER. IF THEY CANNOT PRODUCT MORE MONEY OUT OF A GAME ITLL B LEFT BROKEN LIKE POKEMON AND CROSSING.
Meanwhile you cheat for a day on other consoles and a community leader already reaching out to us..nintendo never says a word!!!
Wasn't Majoras Mask an asset flip of Ocarina of Time? Or was the difference that it was good?
@LavaTwilight I think you’re thinking of Master Quest. Majora’s mask was the sequel that Reuse some assets and had some new assets.
@DevlinMandrake i think i have that game on 3ds iirc & it was like .10 cents on sale so i bought it. Agree wholeheartedly w your comment tho. It should be allowed imho, but they need better filters on new releases tjo cuz looking through them w/o searching is already cluttered & if you are looking for something new, you don't really know search terms to use "search".
Just saw this on YouTube! Haven't been on here for a few days. What on earth? Followed this steam greenlight debacle back in the day and now Nintendo? Jeez what a waste of everyone's time.
@Milton_Burle and like $10 more than the exact mobile ports 🤦♂️
"The eShop is really close to becoming a clone of Steam ain't it? No wonder Nintendo dropped their seal of quality a long time ago."
THAT'S NOT WHAT IT MEANT! It just meant "this is an officially licensed product." That's all. Damn these whiny fanboys.
@Pod As an art nerd, I appreciate your Duchamp reference. I was thinking of readymades as I watched the trailer.
AT LEAST they are only charging 5 bucks for it and it's 4 bucks right now. It looks pretty boring to me, just a general score, no missions. Just make these asset packs boring enough and it will force creativity or super low prices like this crap.
SO ..is the game fun to play? Looks like a cool title to pick up for a few minutes of gta hellrides .
@Milton_Burle No joke - The Kairosoft games are all amazing actually. But get them on iOS/Android where they're only $3 instead of $15 like on Switch
@EVIL-C Yeah - I don't know why anyone ever thought the Nintendo Seal of Quality was related to gameplay.. that was never the case. It just meant it was an officially licensed product and would short-circuit your NES when you put the game in.
@LavaTwilight Majora's was a different game based on the same engine and assets as Ocarina, but it wasn't an "asset flip" no.
Just don’t buy it
It’s not Nintendo’s fault, nor the guy who approved it, but the lazy bum who developed this quick-like, and thought this was passable for retail.
@DevlinMandrake Jim needs to read your comment.
@Casual_Gamer95 What console manufacturer didn't accept so-called shovelware? Probably none.
Nintendo's quality assurance ended with Wii . Plz spare us the crap
You can’t really test if it is a title swap. If you didn’t play the original, it would be impossible to tell.
If you’re going on ANY eShop with the intent to Buy without any proper knowledge ahead of time, chances are, you’ve already wasted your money!
No genuine sympathy here: Capitalism’s a Helluva drug.!
You basically need to read reviews on any eShop purchase. Way too much shovelware. General rule of thumb is anything 80 percent off or more is probably not worth your time or money.
@AnonMan The file size difference between the eShop and the Asset Store means nothing with respect to what effort did or did not go into releasing the game. The size on the Unity Asset store is...exactly that, the size of the asset (which the Unity SDK can read). The size on the eShop is the compiled release (which the Switch can execute).
The Asset from the Unity store obviously doesn't come with Unity baked into it, because anyone who is purchasing & downloading said assets would already have Unity SDK installed separately. If you're downloading a dozen different assets, you're not getting a dozen copies of Unity SDK.
The eShop size is inherently bigger because its size is comprised of not just the assets, but also the Unity runtime framework that's needed to load & use the assets.
Don't defend this trash with obtuse, irrelevant, and non sequitur observations.
@Kimyonaakuma @Mechsuitbrute @doctorhino It's free to play on the Unity Asset Developer's website: http://www.xform.nl/projects/Hammer2WebGL/ - so nobody needs to pay for it just to get a few minutes of enjoyment out of a supremely basic (and janky) shoot'em up.
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