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[MaloEspada]

To be honest I think TIGSource feels snubbed because they weren't allowed characters in Indie Brawl and because their Huzzah meme has been taken away from them. But it amazes me that people are acting like it's evil corporation syndrome and the original creators are just innocent bystanders out of control.

Dude, do you even know what is happening? Game was released clearly unfinished and full of glitches. It's nothing to do with IB or "huzzah meme". Those only added up to the list.

Imagine someone has been working on your game for almost 3 years and then it's released. Less than 2 days later, people already found game breaking bugs and several other problems. I don't see anything wrong. It seems perfect to me.

Clearly not enough effort was put into CS and La Mulana and possibly NightSky are risking the same fate.

[Eclipse]

Also: ultimately, about some of these things, it's not the decisions that are the problem ultimately, but the fact that the decisions remain unexplained, and not even commented on by Nicalis. (As far as I know, Nicalis hasn't made any statements regarding DC's videos being taken down, or about Night Game's PC version being cancelled, or about why two noncommercial fan projects (Indie Brawl, the DS port of Cave Story) were refused permission, while other, similar instances (Gang Garrison 2, the PSP port of Cave Story) are allowed.)

Both PSP and DS ports (and the gp2x port too) were allowed by Pixel himself. GP2x and PSP ports were the first to be finished, before Nicalis taking any right on the game. Ds port (and several other ports too) wasn't finished so pixel had to request the author to stop working on it

[Ntero]

The things I'm reading from Googoogjoob seem to have an odd stance.

A contract is designed to be a mutual agreement for 2 parties.  Not 1.  Nifflas is in charge of creating a game.  If it has to do with mechanics or design, it should be his power and his decision.  Nicalis is in charge of releasing said game.  If it has to do with financial return, or advertising it is their decision. Due to ease of piracy on a PC, and extreme piracy of World of Goo as a key example, it's pretty easy to see why a Wii only release is a good idea.  And this decision falls entirely into a financial return category.  Regardless of return, Nifflas is making his money.  He is not involved in those decisions, because he is not the one fronting the supplies to make such returns available.  

For example, if you make a small game, and I give you $200 000 to expand it, I get to decide the price it goes for, because I am the one who has an investment to at least break even on.  If it was up to you, and you chose free(or too inexpensive for me to expect a return on Investment), would it be immoral of me to pull your decision because your decision would destroy me so you could get a couple more fans?  If Nifflas somehow tried to deny Wii-exclusive, he would be taking his partner and screwing them over.  He has nothing to lose from a PC port, but Nicalis has ALOT to lose, and so it is an issue of mutual respect.

Second, as far as Indie Brawl, If you don't cover your copyrighted material you lose it.  If they openly allow Indie Brawl and Tigsource to use Cave Story, then the next company that wants to use those sources can do so openly.  It becomes a sticky situation where contracts must be laid and organized so that Cave Story IP can be used in a freeware game.  Contracts cost money, and meetings would have to be done as well, and for a freeware game this becomes a difficult sell.

As far as NDAs and transfer of IP, these are extremely common.  Remember Nicalis is in charge of marketting.  That's one part of their end of the bargain as a publisher.  If Nifflas just starts giving out free code samples and telling all sorts of news whenever he is just sitting around, he undermines Nicalis' attempt at marketting.  It ruins his ability to build hype, and tease the customer with snippets of information.  And the transfer of IP also means that advertising of said products does not result in new contracts and deals made for each snippet of IP used in each advertisement.  It also ensures that your programmers do not walk out on the last day and give all the code away for free.

Overall, it seems that you have a misunderstanding of the Developer-Publisher relationship.  Nifflas gets paid to create a game.  All game making procedures and mechaincs are in his control, and he is in charge of all game design related decisions.  Nicalis is promoting, selling, and funding a game.  This means that all financial, advertising, and cost decisions become his. If there was a PC port would you complain that Nicalis' financial obligations were in jeopardy?

[Alex May]

Hmm - Nicalis is also a developer, and Nicklas is working for them I think. Though that doesn't massively change the probable situation in terms of them working together.

[s0]

Clearly not enough effort was put into CS and La Mulana and possibly NightSky are risking the same fate.

Again, Nicalis has a lot less of a say in La-Mulana than they did in Cave Story. It's being mostly developed by NIGORO themselves as far as I'm aware.

[TheDustin]

I think the problem that a lot of the people have here is that Tyrone is doing his job of being a publisher, and that in and of itself doesn't jell with a lot of people. There's a lot of camaraderie between indie developers and their fans; there's a lot of love in this community. Tyrone doesn't seem to understand this and doesn't have a very good relationship with the community at large. I haven't spoken with the guy and only have second-hand accounts of him, so he's somewhere between "a nice guy" and "a colossal dick". I think he just doesn't jive with the indie aesthetic is all, and has made some decisions that seem dickish from our point of view. The lesson to be learned here is that if an indie game hits the big-time that the publishers should have a connection with the fan base and us indies should understand the baggage that comes with releasing on a console.

[Melly]

It's true, indies, and the people that support them, tend to have a sort of 'us vs them' mentality, one of the most common things in human behaviour. In their minds it's the creative, passionate independent movement against the cold, greedy, impersonal mainstream. The recent sad affair with Activision and Infinity Ward probably didn't help that notion any, and I have to admit that I personally tend to dislike mainstream companies by default for various reasons, so it's an attractive idea, even if it does cloud judgement from time to time.

When people started seeing practices common (but not necessarily bad or evil, all things considered) in mainstream development make their way into independent games and developers, sparks would obviously fly. That one of the games in question previously evolved into cult status, and is credited by some as one of the reasons the indie movement grew as fast as it did, with several developers citing it as inspiration, well, that's double the sparks. And when the product of such an alliance came with several issues (disregarding script changes), it makes it seem to most people like Nicalis doesn't care about the spirit of the games they're helping distribute and are in it for the money.

Among one of those common mainstream practices in most media is carefully divulging/hiding information, which means questions are not all answered all the time and most often a good time after they're asked, unless the situation is somewhat urgent. This is one of the things that clashes most with independent developers, that are generally far more open and communicative with the public at large, and not just with friends and fellow developers.

[TheDustin]

I will add that this does set a shitty precedent for indie-mainstream relations.

[Melly]

I personally have never been a fan of full NDA contracts. I can understand not allowing developers to divulge specific information about the game, like content, mechanics and code, or things like release dates, which the publisher would want to use during special moments. What I don't find necessary is to prohibit developers from discussing their business relation with the company in non-specific terms, unless the company's tht afraid of them telling the truth.

(to clarify, I'm not stating anything about Nicalis here, just talking in general)

[TwilightVulpine]

I will add that this does set a shitty precedent for indie-mainstream relations.

I agree. If a publisher of indie games acts as a publisher of mainstream games, what's the difference.

Is Nicalis required by Nintendo to act like this?

[Rumrusher]

is nic up there with tim or two levels under?

[Melly]

That would require Tim Langdell (who I assume you speak of) to, you know, have a company that comprised of more than himself, a shitty website, an empty store and a mail box in a non-descript street.

[team_q]

Guy works to bring great indie games to new platforms and make their creators some money.

Community sees this as a bad thing and makes wild conjectures about him. 

[moi]

The problem is that Nicalis is obviously surfing on the indie popularity wave and picking from only the most popular/well-known developers, so they should be cautious and take extra steps not to anger the very audience which built these games popularity.
Now if they had a more varied line up of games and devellopers, maybe people would be more tolerant.
Right now it looks a bit like indie exploitation.

[JackieJay]

Nicalis IS a publisher. Publishers usually help developers in the form of assets (graphics, music etc...) or personal which seems to be the case with all their projects. Just because the publisher also helps with development doesn't mean they aren't publishers anymore.

What I don't find necessary is to prohibit developers from discussing their business relation with the company in non-specific terms, unless the company's tht afraid of them telling the truth.

When you sign a NDA you're basically promising you won't disclose any internal information or media related to the project in question. You can still express your feelings towards anyone freely, not allowing so would mean it's an illegal contract because it directly forbids freedom of speech.

[TwilightVulpine]

Guy works to bring great indie games to new platforms and make their creators some money.

Guy disregards community and releases unpolished game.

Community sees this as a bad thing and makes wild conjectures about him.  

The Indie Brawl refusal was kind of ungrateful and I actually think it was a mistake to change "Huzzah!". It was a little thing? Yes, but it was a little thing cherished by many. I don't care and wouldn't care about other translation changes.

Sound bugs are a little more excusbale, it's not rare a game to be released with bugs. As long they are fixed, there is no problem.

[salade]

Why are so many people acting like they themselves are entitled to the works of indie freeware developers? Once someone gives something to you for free, any comment/criticism you have towards their further actions is unwarranted. What Pixel, Nigoro, and Nifflas do with their IP's is their buisness.

Having played  on the wii, it is very far from an unpolished product...
Also, Nicalis is doing an above average job in being awesome in keeping the community updated...

[Widget]

Why are so many people acting like they themselves are entitled to the works of indie freeware developers?

I know I'm a nobody but, please...

the close contact between developers and the playerbase within the indie scene can make us feel we have a very personal involvement in the process of getting a game to "market"

It's because we can talk to, debate with and discuss the potential benefits of any particular development with (many) indie freeware developers. Within the indie freeware scene, players are more involved and, as a result, feel more entitled to a direction-changing opinion.

I'm not defending or degrading this but that's the reason.

[Aquin]

@salade:  Why do we get a say?  Um, maybe because we paid $12 for this product.

Last I checked, NOBODY was complaining about the lack of polish on the original freeware game. 

[raigan]

I was discussing this with Mare and she made a good point: until we know how e.g Pixel and Nifflas feel about selling their IP, it's useless to speculate. Because, maybe Pixel was more than happy to sell Cave Story in exchange for whatever he got (I'm hoping/assuming some money up front and some royalties).

Someone buying the rights to Cave Story definitely gets my hackles up, but that could be because I value that property VERY highly. To ballpark it.. $1M? Is that crazy? Maybe -- but at the same time, it's priceless in that it is one of the best-made and most respected (and well-known) freeware games to have ever been made, and that is worth something.

And since I can safely assume that Pixel received little or no up-front money (AFAIK Nicalis is a small developer and not a big VC-backed company who could afford to pay a lot), this does seem exploitative.

HOWEVER, as Mare said, if Pixel is happy then that should be the end of the story, right?

And yet.. it just seems wrong to walk off with someone else's legendary work for a pittance.

The thing to realize is that, if Nicalis actually does own Cave Story (and not just license rights to make Cave Story Wiiware), that is incredibly valuable since they can now make a sequel, official merchandise, XBLA/PSN versions, etc. I suppose this is me being a deluded fanboy because realistically who besides a few internet nerds is going to be interested in e.g CS II? At the same time it just seems weird/wrong that Pixel no longer controls his own game, but.. that's why you should never ever sign away IP.


As an aside, to respond to previous comments: just because NDAs/etc. are common business practice, that doesn't make them inherently fair and it doesn't make it "plain wrong" to call them unfair. Many common clauses in contracts are arguably unfair, and you need to negotiate to get them pulled out.

Perhaps the implied argument was "if X signed it, they must have considered it fair, therefore it is fair", but that's not a valid argument -- quite often the two parties have different amounts of knowledge and if the terms of the contract were made public, it would be apparent than one party was being ripped off. Not to mention, often you must cede to a more powerful company and allow unfair terms which harm you, because they have leverage over you; that doesn't make the contract "fair".

Also last night I had 4-5 back-to-back crashes around the balcony, which was supremely frustrating.. every time I went through a door the game would freeze.

[edit: removed the 90684 times I used the word "personally".. yikes]