SteamWorld Series Creator Admits 3DS eShop Closure Is A Little Bit "Upsetting"

This was one of the few games I decided to grab in my last 3DS shopping spree last year. It's a neat little piece of history and a shame that nobody can legally experience it going forward.

Well he already said very few people were downloading it. No storefront with trickling sales is going to remain open. You see it with brick and mortar. I don’t know why people (most that have moved on anyway) are acting like this is different as servers have OPEX as well.

I didn't even know the game existed until a few years ago due to a random tweet about it being the first game in the SteamWorld series. And I was a big fan of Dig and Dig 2.

I went ahead and bought it before the 3DS eShop closed, but I really do home they can make a remake or port happen someday.

Also picked up SteamWorld Tower Defense, just to see where the series started out. In general, it's a shame that we had to lose the 3DS eShop only a few years after proper development tapered off. I get shutting down the Wii U eShop around 6 years after it was usurped by the Nintendo Switch - not much was lost, seeing as most of the exclusives have been ported to the Switch (or elsewhere) and many of the indies are still up on Steam or on newer systems - but it was too soon for the 3DS, especially with how its eShop barely overlapped with the Wii U one. Hopefully we can see Tower Defense elsewhere someday, as well as many of the other digital games that are now effectively lost to time.

Yeah, honestly I feel like this is going to put off some developers from making games for a Nintendo system.

Not nearly enough to matter of course, if a Nintendo system fails it won't be because of this. But I can see it being off putting for a few. If I were a developer I'd probably at least make sure it would be on Steam as well I think. That system right now looks eternal.

Let’s be honest, the 3DS has been out long enough that you likely have all the games you care to play already bought. People are acting like the eshop launched just a couple years ago.

Good thing I remembered to get it ❤️

Let's be real, who really cares about titles like this? It took me years to even realize there was another Steamworld game before Dig. People who really want to play it will still find a way.

The problem isn't really developing for a Nintendo console, it's developing exclusively.

Rather than worry about this why not make Steamworld Dig 3? 1 and 2 are absolute classics.

Why are people complaining about the eshop closure as if it came out of nowhere and that millions of us still used the eshop.
It's a bit of a bummer but 3ds came out over a decade ago and has been dead for years.

I'd rather them make a sequel instead.

@Roibeard64
You mean beyond the fact that now there are many games that are going to be lost probably never to see the light of day unless they fly under the Jolly Roger.

It’s too bad that it seems devs could not make special offers on DSiWare software, I’m sure it would’ve remained more relevant throughout the years had they had the ability to discount their prices every now and then, to make them more visible.

And this is why you always release your games on PC, because then they'll always live on (unless of course they have an always-online function...).

Hoping to see their games on GoG in the future.
Until then there's always roms... Pirates do more for game preservation than the developers themselves. Imagine how many games, movies and music that would be lost if it wasn't for pirates...
Old TV shows where the original copies are gone, because the studio wanted to save some money so they actually re-used and taped over old shows.... But thanks to a pirate that recorded it on tv with a vhs player it can live on.

@GameOtaku let's face facts until they announced eshop was closing and created a panic buying frenzy of fomo it was a ghost town and a dead system.
The ability to buy natively on the system was already gone for years and very few people used their 3ds anymore (cant remember last one i saw in the wild) and most games people panic bought they were never going to buy during the 3ds life time at all.
It's more sad nostalgia that it's closing than this great tragedy.
All things have to end eventually and as you point out there are other ways.

So how long until this whole eShop closure nonsense is far behind us? Call me jaded but I don't get the whole panic buying thing way too many people were doing for two discontinued platforms.

Frankly, it's only a matter of time before someone uploads the ROMs to the Internet for download. I would much prefer that Nintendo rerelease their entire 3DS and Wii U libraries to the Switch or whatever the Switch's successor is going to be, though. But it is inevitable at this point that these games will find their way to the Internet soon enough, especially third-party titles.

I have SteamWorld Tower Defense. It lacks the polish the later SteamWorld games have. It does not ease you in. Rather, it throws a long stage with hundreds of enemies at you straight out of the gate. There are certainly better games from the same genre.

I understand that people aren't happy with the eShop closing. I never stopped using my 3DS and bought new games once in a while so I would've liked it to stay longer. There's nothing that can be done now though. They closed it and that's that. Nothing lasts forever.

@blindsquarel and that we weren't given any notice on it's closure. They told us more than a year ago what the date was.

There should be a easy way to play all these games. Closing the eshops is just something that had to happen but they should have already had this same library available on the Switch from the start, imo. I get some of them can't work as easily on a Switch but most can. The NSO service is fine to exist but not as a good alternative to having a library on Switch, it doesn't even have nearly all the games available either.

@Fazermint
This is what they do over here at Nintendolife. Remember the whole “ Mario is dying” and the never ending articles on Reggie’s book.

@Cashews
Yeah, by the way people act you’d think we found out it was closing a week before.

@MarioFan432 Most of the games on the 3DS simply do not translate to the Switch. The really good games use both screens effectively. How would you port it? What about 3D?

It would be a completely different game. The games that were able to be easily ported - like common platformer Steam Dig 1 and 2 - were ported eons ago.

The 3DS (and Wii U and DS) were all novel consoles that may never be able to be ported well. Like them for what they were. If you didn't grab them in the 12 years you had a chance? Sorry bro.

@Cashews If emulators on a PC or Steam Deck do enough of a good job to do it (I don't use those myself but see everywhere, clearly a lot of people do) then Nintendo could find some way to have them work on a Switch. Same for the GBA, GameCube and even Wii library. A sensor and a Wii remote working would be doable. A split screen on the same screen and touch support would be enough of something to work too and the Switch does have touch screen support.

I'm sure there is a way.

It should have been thought about way in advance but instead it just wasn't. I suppose they wanted to sell there own ports of a ton of Wii U games to Switch and didn't want to loose money. At least I expect that was part of the reason.

Would have been nice if they added the same downloadable library on Wii U and 3DS on Switch in the first place. It could have been done.

I can live with the Wii U eshop closing as long as the rare games get ported to the Switch, but the 3ds had quite a charm and unique games that will never see the light of day again. Wouldn't mind seeing the 3ds live alongside the Switch as a retro console. It is worth it to me. DSI, virtual console, handheld, 3d; Nintendo could've kept this device alive.

Awful lot of commenters complaining this article exists instead of just not clicking on it. If you don't care that games are vanishing into thin air permanently, and your only argument is you didn't want them anyway or they weren't making anyone any money, you're part of the problem. That attitude is exactly why this is happening.

We're in a troubling age here where digital storefronts are closing and these are not just products being lost. This is art, and it is history, and it is disappearing as a result.

Famous movies, music, books, and more throughout history have been lost to time because nobody preserved them. The same thing is happening to games today, despite piracy saving a lot of it. Preservation matters, not just for retro game compilations and ports to new platforms. This is part of human culture.

@Roibeard64
Other morally and most likely illegal alternatives you mean. There are still plenty of VC games that are now lost. New fans of these games are missing out on great games because of poor planning and corporate stupidity. “Oh this Steamworkd game on Switch has other games on other platforms that could enrich and enhance my newfound joy for this series?! Too bad I’ll never experience it since the only way to get it has closed even if I can buy a used (often very pricey) console it’s impossible.”

What if a great fire destroys countless priceless books and works of art? Maybe they weren’t digitized or copied would your argument still be it’s no great loss and say to move on that it wasn’t important?

I would've loved to check it out but my DSiware fridge on my 3DS is full and shuffling titles back and forth between the SD card and system memory is too cumbersome for me to really bother with. Really wish Nintendo had handled this aspect of memory management better on 3DS! Even doing something like the Wii which let you play titles from the SD card by copying them to the system and launching them in a single step would've been enough of an improvement to get me to buy more DSiware.

I just downloaded it this 27th march. I´m glad i did it.