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[TwilightVulpine]

Does it matter whether the videos were removed or not before?
They are back on YouTube now, so whatever it was, it was solved.

[mjau]

man i was there too i'm a mod there

Okay .. sounds like you should know it didn't take months for people to notice the videos were gone then?  (Not that this is important, just struck me as an odd thing to say)

[googoogjoob]

man i was there too i'm a mod there

Okay .. sounds like you should know it didn't take months for people to notice the videos were gone then?  (Not that this is important, just struck me as an odd thing to say)

The problem is that it's now impossible to access the old forums since they crashed, so I can't double-check dates for stuff that happened before February 2009.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

did you try archive.org? maybe it was stored there.

[PaleFox]

Does it matter whether the videos were removed or not before?
They are back on YouTube now, so whatever it was, it was solved.

Of course it matters that they were removed. If nothing else, it sets the obvious precedent that noone is allowed to film their games, but it also shows their control over even the previous games they are remaking or working on (they most likely do own the rights, as part of the contract, but even if not I do not think that will stop them). It is a bit draconian and I do not approve of this practice.

[JackieJay]

i think nicalis evading the question of why they decided to make night game wii exclusive after promising it for the pc as well is the most important single legitimate criticism. if it's for piracy, or lack of funds, why not just say that? it's not very good PR to ignore questions from your core fans / community. it's bad even as a business decision.

 

What else is there to say when forum goers know more about business decisions and PR than the dudes running their publishing companies...

hey, i run a business too, i'm not just a forum-goer -- in my experience running an indie game business, i think maintaining a good connection between fans and the people who make the games is crucial. i'd never evade a question from someone about one of my games or my decisions with my games.

There's a difference between owning a publishing company and being a developer. I assume you're a developer just like me, so neither you or me have enough experience, knowledge, and know how on running a publisher to criticize their business decisions.
They might be morally wrong so to say, but look at EA, for example. Until recently they were deemed as the greatest assholes of the gaming industry but for some reason they are still the biggest game publisher atm while many others that competed with them a decade ago have now closed down or shrinked considerably.

[JackieJay]

So I got a PM from DeceasedCrab which will probably help set things straight(er).

First and foremost; I never signed anything or agreed to anything that would expressly forbid me from talking about the temporary removal of my Cave Story Youtube video links. The only reason I ever remained quiet on the subject was out of courtesy to Nifflas.

The video links to LP Cave Story 1,2,4-6 went down in late July of 2008, a few months before the announcement of Cave Story Wii. At the time, I thought the idea that they were taking down access to the videos of a game they didn't own or have the rights to as absurd. I still think it's absurd. Through nifflas, I was able to contact Tyrone, who revealed the reason behind the video removal was supposedly because people were discussing "wares" in my video comment pages.

To this day, I have no idea what the hell he was talking about, and I don't really care. I'm usually pretty quick to remove any discussion of emulation and the like.

He adamantly refused to discuss why he supposedly thought he had the rights to the freeware version of Cave Story, and tried to get my phone number for a conference call. Really, it all sounded very sketchy. I managed to get him to retract his claim against my video links (YouTube was decidedly unhelpful), and I don't know if I'll ever know the reason he did it.

So, the videos were removed several months before anyone saw that they were removed, and not even DeceasedCrab got a straight answer as to why.

oh jesus

[googoogjoob]

did you try archive.org? maybe it was stored there.

No luck; the forum has a robots.txt so the Wayback Machine has none of it archived.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

being a self-publisher i have publishing experience too; i don't publish other people's games, but what i do is still publishing my own games. so i also handle promotion, public relations, sales, etc. -- 95% of the sales of my games come from my own site, not distributors/portals.

also, correct me if i'm wrong, but EA has pretty good PR. they also don't (to my knowledge) ask youtube to remove let's plays of their games. and i imagine that when they make major business decisions that are questioned by journalists they explain why they do so, at least providing some reason, even if it's a fake one (nicalis didn't provide any reason at all).

in any case publishing a mainstream game is a different process than publishing an indie game, different techniques are involved. for instance, mainstream games need to worry more about retail, indie games need to worry more about online coverage in game blogs. mainstream games need to sell millions to recover costs, indie games only need to sell hundreds or thousands to recover costs, so their marketing can be directed toward particular niches or sites, and are much more reliant on working with the community that is built up around their games than images and knowledge of a game reaching the maximum number of eyes.

even middle-sized publishers like atlus and koei are often concerned with what their community wants and try not to annoy it, changing things in their games in reaction to the community, because smaller companies rely much more on repeat customers than large ones do.

anyway, if you can't see why an indie game company annoying most of the fans of its older games when that could easily have been avoided is a bad business decision, there's not much else to say. what is your position on why nicalis telling people why they decided to make night game wii-only would be a bad thing to do? or why them taking youtube videos down is a good business decision? other than 'they probably know what they are doing, if they did it, it must be the right choice, since they know what they're doing', i mean?

[JackieJay]

From that perspective, even the smallest freeware creator has publishing experience.
I took a look at your site, and it confirmed me that none of us are as big as Nicalis in the sense that they have a lot of money invested and are aiming for way bigger audiences than the ones you and me develop and publish games for. I mean, look at his curriculum: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tyronerodriguez

Do you really think you're in any position to tell him he made one or two bad business and or PR decisions just because you made and published a tower defense game? That's like some random choir singer from my town's church telling andre bocelli he sings off key.

Seeing some of you whining over Nicalis is just laughable, really.
Do you think they are working on those remakes for the older fans of the game who've played those games to death already ?
They are aiming for a different audience, how hard is it to understand ?

I don't even know why you brought the mainstream vs indie distribution discussion to this. Creating and publishing a game for wiiware/XBLA/Appstore is quite different from creating a game for the PC, either it's aimed for the retail or portals. What counts is not how nice the developer is, but mostly how interesting the game looks and how good the ratings/reviews it received were. Most of the people who bought (or are about to buy) Cave Story probably never heard of it's freeware counterpart before. The case with Night Game is even more obvious since it was never released on the PC.

I never said taking down the youtube videos or not saying why the night game is wii only was a good decision. The thing is, none of us knows why exactly they did that in the first place, so how the hell can anyone say it's a bad or a good decision ? For all we know, Nicalis might have signed a lucrative exclusive contract with Nintendo for the release of Night Game, and would have signed a NDA themselves, not allowing them to talk on the subject. That could be an explanation, but there many others that won't even cross our minds.
Are you going to keep telling the dudes they make bad decisions based on your laughable experience on (PC) publishing and only knowing one side of the story ?

okaaay.

[googoogjoob]

of course, even the smallest freeware creator has publishing experience.
I took a look at your site, and the thing is, none of us are as big as Nicalis in the sense that they have a lot of money invested and are aiming for way bigger audiences than the ones you and me develop and publish games for. I mean, look at his curriculum: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tyronerodriguez

He's had a bunch of different jobs, but it doesn't look like he has any experience running a games publishing company.

Do you really think you're in any position to tell him he made one or two bad business and or PR decisions just because you made and published a tower defense game? That's like some random choir singer from my town's church telling andre bocelli he sings off key.

The difference being that Andrea Bocelli has a history of critical acclaim for singing well and on-key, whereas Nicalis hasn't received industry awards for BEST DECISION MAKING and stuff.

[JackieJay]

He's had a bunch of different jobs, but it doesn't look like he has any experience running a games publishing company.

"PR Manager
GolinHarris/Nintendo"

And no need to run a games publishing company to know how things work. He was involved with several ones in the past, I think that's enough for me to admit he has a bit more experience on the subject than me.

The difference being that Andrea Bocelli has a history of critical acclaim for singing well and on-key, whereas Nicalis hasn't received industry awards for BEST DECISION MAKING and stuff.

That's called hyperbole. And how dare you bash my town's choir singers ? 

[bento_smile]

...industry awards for BEST DECISION MAKING and stuff.

That sounds like an awesome award!!! :D

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@jackiejay -- i'm not sure what you mean; my linkedin has recommendations and connections too, so i'm not quite sure what you're getting at. so yes, i do think i'm in a position to judge particular decisions as bad business decisions. i don't think his audience is much larger than mine; he probably sells in the tens of thousands of copies (like most wiiware titles), i sell in the thousands of copies. it's one order of magnitude difference. both of us are far below ea, which sells in the millions of copies, so i think his business is much more similar to mine than to EA's.

you're right that there are big differences between pc  downloadable and console downloadable sales, though. but these decisions don't really pertain to the specific issues of consoles as far as i can see. besides, the youtube videos were of the pc version of cave story, not the console version.

anyway, all you seem to be doing is saying that his decisions might be good, but that we don't know all the details. that reminds me of people who say those things about politicians (both when they govern and when they run elections). or people who say that about yoyo games' decisions, or the military's decisions. i've never really understood that stance, it feels like some sort of worship of authority when you don't know why someone does something, but assume they must be doing it right anyway. if something seems like a bad decision based on the information available, there's nothing wrong with saying that.

also, i don't see anybody whining; i'm not even that big of a fan of cave story or la mulana or nifflas's games (i see knytt as a seiklus clone). i don't particularly care that much about it except as it relates to the indie games community. i do think nicalis is doing a lot of things right, i'm not saying tyrone is bad at decision making at all. just that those particular instances (evading questions and taking down youtube videos) i felt were questionable.

and i also do think that many (or most) of the sales of cave story for the wii come from fans of the free version of cave story, yes. that's my impression, anyway. i kind of doubt that most of the people buying it for the wii never heard of it before. so connection with the community is important there. and i think they know that, for instance, i believe nicalis showcases community fanart on its site, and they made that interview with pixel for the fans. so i believe your stance that they shouldn't care about the community because they're after a larger audience is contradicted by their community-centric actions in other areas.

[bento_smile]

i don't think his audience is much larger than mine; he probably sells in the tens of thousands of copies (like most wiiware titles), i sell in the thousands of copies. it's one order of magnitude difference. both of us are far below ea, which sells in the millions of copies, so i think his business is much more similar to mine than to EA's.

The main difference between you and Nicalis, is that Nicalis has to deal with Nintendo. Don't underestimate how much this can impact business.  Nothing to do with sales figures, it's the general food-chain of the games industry which adds complications.

[JackieJay]

his linkedin has a list of all he companies we worked for and what he did. I highly doubt you have a curriculum has as good as his, and if you really sell thousands of copies of a tower defense game I've never heard of then kudos to you but still I think he has a lot more to say on the subject than you do.

and no I'm not saying their decisions might be good, I'm saying that labeling their
decisions as bad without knowing the reasoning behind them doesn't make sense. Do you really believe they don't tell people why night game is a wii exclusive out of pure assholery ? I don't know what politicians have to do with this discussion; they hide the truth to get votes, Nicalis hides the truth to..huh..lose customers ? Once again, it doesn't make sense and it won't until we know the rest of the story.
It's not a matter of not knowing all the details, the thing is we know absolutely nothing other than the fact that they keep avoiding the subject. Wouldn't it be better for everyone (including them) if they just said something ? So there must be a reason why they don't, right ? If there wasn't it wouldn't be just a bad business decision, it would simply mean tyrone is a complete moron in every sense of the word, which I doubt is the case.

[eugeneius]

all you seem to be doing is saying that his decisions might be good, but that we don't know all the details [...] i've never really understood that stance, it feels like some sort of worship of authority when you don't know why someone does something, but assume they must be doing it right anyway.

Wouldn't it be better for everyone (including them) if they just said something ? So there must be a reason why they don't, right ? If there wasn't it wouldn't be just a bad business decision, it would simply mean tyrone is a complete moron in every sense of the word, which I doubt is the case.

Anyway, Nicalis might be saying nothing about the lack of a PC version of Night Game as a sort of damage control tactic. If they gave an official reason, fans would no doubt argue against it, which could make the situation look worse: they could offer to try to reach a certain number of preorders as a guarantee, for example. Then Nicalis would get caught up in a debate trying to justify a decision they are pretty clearly not going to change. By maintaining complete silence, there's nothing to argue against.

I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, or even a good business decision, I'm just saying it could be the case.

[JackieJay]

all you seem to be doing is saying that his decisions might be good, but that we don't know all the details [...] i've never really understood that stance, it feels like some sort of worship of authority when you don't know why someone does something, but assume they must be doing it right anyway.

Wouldn't it be better for everyone (including them) if they just said something ? So there must be a reason why they don't, right ? If there wasn't it wouldn't be just a bad business decision, it would simply mean tyrone is a complete moron in every sense of the word, which I doubt is the case.

and no I'm not saying their decisions might be good, I'm saying that labeling their decisions as bad without knowing the reasoning behind them doesn't make sense.

I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, or even a good business decision, I'm just saying it could be the case.

I just love when people quote me, put a facepalm in front of what I said, and then say exactly the same.

[jwk5]

I just love when people quote me, put a facepalm in front of what I said, and then say exactly the same.

I too just love it when people quote you, put a facepalm in front of what you've said, and then say exactly the same!

Anyways, if you knowingly sell your rights to your game then you can't really complain about the outcome. For better or worse, the facts are with Nicalis you aren't just dealing with a person you are dealing with a company and all the fantastical elements that apply to the mythical title of "indie" just won't hold in most decisions made by a company. They have business to run and a profit to make. It is not necessarily because they are assholes either, in most cases it is because in order to stay afloat as a business they need to make a considerable amount of money, even if it might be a small company.

I don't know Tyrone, I am not overly familiar with Nicalis, but what I've read of the situation mostly sounds like company business, not mean spirits. It hits harder for everyone here because Nicalis' business deals with indie games but you have to remember that the indie part applies to the original developers not Nicalis and you can't expect the same from Nicalis, at least not entirely. Yeah, it sucks that information wasn't given or that characters weren't allowed to be used in the Indie Brawl game, but that is Nicalis' right (and rights they were sold). They hold that right to refuse just as any indie developer does.

I am not saying it is a good thing (or a bad thing), I am just saying business is business, and this is definitely business.
 

EDIT: Forgive me if I ramble or my spelling or wording is off, I am reeling from a major hangover right now (and woke up about 20 minutes ago). Drank a bunch of "Hot Damn!" 100 proof cinnamon whiskey, now I feel like I am belching up Red Hots. *shudder*

[JackieJay]

facepalms ftw