The eShop is crowded, and even if your game is particularly good there's still a lot of hard work - and some luck - needed to get attention, positive word of mouth and solid sales. There are tricks to try and get around it, of course, as we've seen with crazy discounts of 90%+, and a slightly stranger strategy seems to be betting on alphabetical listings and store placements.
Recently we had AAA Clock, a ludicrous app attempting to cash in on the meme power of Calculator, while conveniently playing the alphabetical listing game.
Now we have a, which is actually its full name. Here is the official game description for today's release (EU only it seems), see if you can figure out the tactic.
a a a a a a a a a a
a a
a a
a a
a a a a
a a
a a a a a a a a a a a a
is a 2D-Platformer.
Features:
- Fast paced platforming gameplay
- Top-down Overworld
Let's skip past the fact that this got waved through by Nintendo in the submission process; yes, let's do that.
That name is an interesting move but, unlike the well established and often successful 'huge discount' strategy, hoping to appear at the top of alphabetical searches is very unlikely to lead to increased visibility and sales. Not only is 'a' a poor name for a product and inefficient when it comes to search engines etc, but we'd bet a sizeable amount of money that searching all results alphabetically is not how most people browse the eShop. Its price is also very cheap, but the problems with the name likely make that less relevant.
While it's funny in one respect, this is also a problem for the eShop platform, particularly when there are many intriguing games in the crowd that are so easily missed. And as you can see in the screens above, it's difficult to take 'a' seriously.
Discovering 'a' in our weekly eShop crawl today sure made us question the meaning of life and the universe - hopefully its sequel 'b' will defy the odds and be a banger.
Another questionable moment for the eShop, all told, but a browse through this week's releases shows lots of darn good and fascinating games to discover. Just don't search the eShop alphabetically looking for gems, it won't end well.
Comments 29
Reminds me of a particular shark
I think the game's title is very relateable.
Well I suppose the more cyrptic you make a game sound and the less info you give, the more curious people will be to buy it?
Hmm, is that it? Can you think of something more to say?
@nessisonett
"b"
Remind me of VVVVVV
The first in an epic series of 26 games!
It's more of a statement of how horrible the Eshop is for discovering games than anything... Nintendo is always about a decade or more behind when it comes to anything online.
Just call your game 0000000000000000000
Well, the name and description got an article written about the game... so I guess it worked lol
Does the eShop prioritize special characters? Maybe a game called _0 would be first?
The sequel could be _1, and so forth. Someone make this game, and make it shockingly good. C'mon, I wanna see an article saying "Bafflingly, _0 is Outselling Dread!"
NINJA APPROVED
@BloodNinja I’m gonna assume that there are certain special characters that will be stripped to avoid code injection. I’d post an example but if this site is in any way protected well then it wouldn’t show up 😂
@nessisonett How does that work? Obviously you don’t have to post examples if it will trip something in the site!
You'd be better off calling your games Super something or Legend of something, if the plan is to game the system, since yeah I don't think too many tend to list alphabetically, but they will search for key words in big titles for the system.
@BloodNinja Certain characters can be used to inject things like HTML or SQL code into sites and databases. So ‘<‘ and ‘>’ brackets surrounding words for example. Since the website loads our comments here as plaintext, a badly protected website would read that in and execute the code as the page is loaded. Very primitive though!
@nessisonett That's fascinating. Is that why this happens in SMW?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14wqBA5Q1yc&t=378s&ab_channel=SethBling
@BloodNinja That one’s a bit more complicated! The use of specific routes to control which sprites are loaded means you can essentially play God with the memory registers. You can then use that to, in simple terms, write code to skip to the credits in real time by hitting specific inputs. It’s way over my head as machine code makes my head spin but it’s fascinating!
I honestly believe Nintendo named 1-2-Switch, because of it’s ability to be immediately be found when looking for Switch games alphabetically.
@nessisonett Definitely one of gaming history’s weirdest moments, for sure. There’s even a newly-discovered wrong warp in Dark Souls that lets you homeward bone to the Kiln of the First Flame. People are beating the game in around 20 minutes! Different glitch but still reminds me of how these types of things can be manipulated.
The most fascinating part to me is how such things are discovered!
@BloodNinja Yeah, these things are hard enough to execute but I have no clue how they’re discovered in the first place!
@nessisonett Probably from throwing tons of people at the game, between TAS’ers and people analyzing the hex code. Those are my best guesses. Otherwise I am 🤷♂️
@Kyloctopus It's funny you say that, because I actually find it a too generic of a title when it comes to search engines... The numbers 1 and 2, and the word "switch" which is also the name of the console. I mean, mostly on web search engines they know what you mean... But when I was looking for this game on eBay I would often get results for other games... Syberia 1 & 2 for example. But perhaps you're right if you're sorting alphabetically.
Fun fact: Back in caveman times when we used phone books, it was common practice to toss a couple As into your company name to get to the top of the list. That's why words like "Ace" and "Acme" are popular names for small businesses.
@Pak-Man And, famously, one reason why Jobs and Woz chose Apple (it came before Atari in the phone book).
@BloodNinja @nessisonett That was a fun, little, fascinating read between the both of you. Very informative.
The irony here is that this article is going to get the game more publicity than they could ever have managed to get by playing the alphabet game, and will probably bump the sales significantly.
@PoliticallyIncorrect Hahah, I think Ness has more knowledge than me, I'm very much a beginner with that sort of topic.
I played the game, it's a very basic 12 level platformer with some weird art direction and surreal elements.
One part of the game requires you to change your system clock to the year 2030, just because.
It's fine for less than a quid though, it looks like someone's strange Game Maker project.
Seems there’s a countdown timer on the main screen. Considering that and the name, it’s probably some weird ARG type thing. Wish it had also released in the US, I’m curious now.
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