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[Zaratustra]

state of the art wii development

[[RM8]]

Meh. Ninjabread Man is better.

I want to play it and see how bad it is. Same with Anubis II, I actually kind of like the 'theme' of that game, I wish it wasn't shovelware  

[gimymblert]

vid needed

[Tuba]

Thank God Sony always had a great quality control and the PS2 had only great classics like Animal Soccer World:



Wii has plenty of shovelware because it's the market leader, the same happened to the PS2, PSX, SNES and NES before it.. people that want a quick cash go for the console with the biggest user base. The quality control for Nintendo, Sony or MS is just checking if your game has no game breaking bugs, at max verifying if your game is not breaking any laws (copyrights, etc). You can't make a "quality seal" to put only on good games cause that's subjective, you might think a Barbie game is shovelware but I'm sure there's a bunch of 7 year old girls out there that enjoy them.

[Zecks]

IMO at least in the NES & maybe SNES times the shovelware was usually awesomely bizarre

[phubans]

Funny, 2D Boy didn't have an office for World of Goo.

[Hangedman]

This thread probably should have ended after the second post.
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=18533.msg530623#msg530623

In any case, the inevitable shovelware shouldn't really be counted towards/against the quality of the system.
It's like condemning a house because somehow bugs can get in through a crack in the wall.
Look at what best uses the hardware technology and the best available game experiences.

[s0]

herp de derp the wii has a bunch of bad games therefore it sucks derpa derpa doo

EDIT:

It's like condemning a house because somehow bugs can get in through a crack in the wall. Look at what best uses the hardware technology and the best available game experiences.

Not a very good analogy but I agree with you. The Wii has plenty of good games, it's just that they're mostly not the biggest sellers. What the Wii is good for, aside from Nintendo's first party titles are quirky, unique games that don't quite seem to fit in anywhere like Little King's Story, No More Heroes, Fragile Dreams, Sin & Punishment 2, Epic Mickey...

[Chromeleon]

This thread probably should have ended after the second post.
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=18533.msg530623#msg530623

Not quite;  It also needs someone pointing out how that analogy is wrong, because he has it backwards.
Illustrators (even freelance ones) have jobs, wherein they might typically have a deadline to illustrate a client's existing material.  "Artist" is either a catch-all term for everyone working in the visual arts, or refers to "fine art", wherein the artist essentially does whatever they want and hopes it sells.

[gimymblert]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/28/reggie-fils-aime-on-the-competition-and-what-it-means-to-be-a-g/

precision

edit:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33733/Nintendo_We_Embrace_The_Independent_Spirit.php

"To become an Authorized Developer for Wii, Nintendo DS/DSi, or Nintendo 3DS:

[...]

Nintendo looks for companies that are established game developers, or individuals with game industry experience. Authorization will be based upon your relevant game industry experience.

We require that companies are working from a secure business location. A secure business location has security systems for the building. The office space is secured from other offices in the same building. The office space is not shared with any other company. Sub-leases will need to be reviewed. The office space is not located within a personal residence."

DevKits says Hi!
but:

   
Remember that the 2DBoy people said the only reason Nintendo worked with them, is that they did not told Nintendo they had no office until the game launched.

Now Nintendo come saying they work with officeless people... no, not really, it is one of their basic rules, no-office, no business.

[baconman]

On a semi-related note, I was talking about homebrew/indie NES games being released lately with a couple of people at a trade-in game store. Turns out that many of these institutes with "Game Design" degree programs have their final (curriculum) projects be to actually develop an old-school game title, publish, and sell it as a product; as a requirement PRIOR to getting their degrees.

That's right. To be accredited with a degree in Design, you have to basically become a fully-fledged developer. And THIS is often PRIOR to looking for industry-related jobs, now. Does a college campus qualify for being "an office" now? I guess technically, it's business property that somebody is paying to use...

[Theophilus]

This thread probably should have ended after the second post.
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=18533.msg530623#msg530623

Not quite;  It also needs someone pointing out how that analogy is wrong, because he has it backwards.
Illustrators (even freelance ones) have jobs, wherein they might typically have a deadline to illustrate a client's existing material.  "Artist" is either a catch-all term for everyone working in the visual arts, or refers to "fine art", wherein the artist essentially does whatever they want and hopes it sells.

The difference is that 'hobbyist developer' is not a term defined by semantics, it means pretty much the same thing all over. If it's not your primary source of income, I'd call it a hobby.

[Zaphos]

super meat boy had a pretty big budget as far as indie games go. it's not a 'garage game' by any means.

Really?  I thought ed and tommy had pretty much no budget and were broke while developing super meat boy.  And they were working at home ...



edit:

DevKits says Hi!

I'm sure they can make exceptions for developers they like though.  See golds' comment a page back in this thread.

[The Turnip Master]

The difference is that 'hobbyist developer' is not a term defined by semantics, it means pretty much the same thing all over. If it's not your primary source of income, I'd call it a hobby.

At the same time, your source of income isn't necessarily an indication of your commitment or the quality of your work.  Francis Ford Coppola has said that his primary source of income these days is his winery, but I don't think anyone would refer to him as a "hobbyist" filmmaker.

This is, of course, an extreme example, but illustrates the idea that the distinction between "hobbyists" and "independents" is at best problematic, even when dealing with well established media, like film.  I think that the line is even harder to draw when it comes to game developers.

[PompiPompi]

Office space and working full time on a game is 0 indication of the game's quality, bug wise and gameplay\art wise.
It just means the group working on the game have more time available to work on the game.
Just like 3 people have more man hours than 1 person to work on a game. Does that mean games made by 20 people have better quality than games made by 1 person? Because more working hours were invested?
I don't think so. No, actually I am certain it is not an indication for that.
I could guess that Nintendo's rational behind these rules is that it allows them to easily filter "first time indies". Usually indies working on their first or dozens games had no big hit before, and therfore have no proven record of being able to pull off a successful game.
Developers with office space working full time are more likely developers who already have a record of at least one successful game, because that is most likely how they were able to fund their full time studio.
Nintendo can always make an exception for that lone garage developer with the big hit, but generally this rule just make it easier for them to filter most indies, and just let the already established indies make games for them.

[moi]

They say it's mostly for security reasons.
Not really for "quality".

[PompiPompi]

Err, security against what exactly?

[mewse]

Security against their development kits being stolen or otherwise going missing.

They also have policies that the kits aren't allowed to be kept somewhere visible (that is, they need to be under desks or inside cabinets, not sitting on top of desks).  Based on conversations with people in the industry, most companies seem to ignore this policy (and I've personally had to carry one through international customs, explaining what it was to border security agents who were justifiably concerned about the anonymous black box of electronic components), but technically every company signs a contract agreeing to hide the kits before Nintendo will actually sell them to that company.

This seems in line with Nintendo's "locked premises" requirements;  just trying to avoid having the kits go missing due to theft or etc.

[PompiPompi]

Still, I don't see the point of this. Maybe I am getting sometthing wrong though.
Doesn't Nintendo control who gets to publish\sell online games on their console?
Are they afraid someone will steal the kit and work on an underground homebrew game that would be illegal to sell and won't be supported by Nintendo's online store?
I don't see the issue of a kit being stolen, unless the Kits are suppose to be returned at some point.
I think the main benefit for them doing this is filtering a lot of would be developers out.
Otherwise it doesn't make much sense, but that isn't impossible either. People do insensible things.

[DjangoDurango]

It might possibly be a held over attitude from way back in the day when anyone could develop for a console and there was tons of unlicensed crap and the market for games actually crashed because of the rampant poor quality and over-saturation of titles. By being more draconian with the dev kits, Nintendo may hope that they would keep the number of titles on the market down. It wouldn't necessarily be about quality because anyone with enough money could buy a dev kit if they really wanted to, but about making sure that they are still the gatekeepers when it comes to releasing on their machines.

It seems ridiculous now since the market and industry is a lot different than it was in 1983, but I guess it's working for them still.