wraggster
August 5th, 2013, 20:35
The Wii U eShop is expected to play home to an additional 20-30 indie games by the end of 2013, according to Nintendo of America's indie outreach specialist.
Speaking to Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/31/nintendos-indie-guy-on-opening-the-gates-for-developers/), NOA business development manager Dan Adelman discussed the steps Nintendo is taking to ensure more indie developers release games on the Wii U eShop.
http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3007/image_300714_460.jpg (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/viewer.php?id=300714&mode=article)"Historically, Nintendo has seemed kind of hard to approach, kind of like there's a closed system where if a developer already knows somebody at Nintendo or has some kind of 'in' they're in, but otherwise there's no way to interface with the company," he said.
"I think we're putting a lot of effort into changing that and making ourselves more accessible, so I really want to make sure that people realise that it's actually pretty easy now - and we're trying to make it easier - to work with us and release games on our systems."
During the Wii's lifespan Nintendo was regularly criticised by indie developers for being too difficult to work with. Nintendo placed a 40MB cap on WiiWare games, a restriction labelled "horrible" (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/337519/wiiwares-40mb-restriction-is-horrible-team-meat/) by Super Meat Boy (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/nintendo-wii/platformer/11873/super-meat-boy/) studio Team Meat.
For Wii U, Nintendo has revised its policies to make developing for the system easier, Adelman said. "Our guiding philosophy is that if you're able to make games on Nintendo platforms, we want to help make sure that you can do that on our systems.
"Our primary consideration is an ability to make a game. You don't have to have a record of published titles, or have to have worked at a large company in the past. If you're actively working on a game, that should be sufficient."
Last November, Trine studio Frozenbyte said Wii U was "more indie friendly" (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/379332/wii-u-eshop-is-more-indie-friendly-than-other-consoles/) than PS3 and Xbox 360 thanks to the flexibility it offers developers in terms of pricing and free patches.
And this June, Nathan Vella, president of Sword & Sworcery studio Capybara Games, said Nintendo was attempting to make up for lost time by reaching out to smaller developers (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/411999/nintendo-is-reaching-out-to-indie-developers-says-dev/).
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/422559/20-30-more-indie-games-coming-to-wii-u-in-2013/
Speaking to Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/31/nintendos-indie-guy-on-opening-the-gates-for-developers/), NOA business development manager Dan Adelman discussed the steps Nintendo is taking to ensure more indie developers release games on the Wii U eShop.
http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3007/image_300714_460.jpg (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/viewer.php?id=300714&mode=article)"Historically, Nintendo has seemed kind of hard to approach, kind of like there's a closed system where if a developer already knows somebody at Nintendo or has some kind of 'in' they're in, but otherwise there's no way to interface with the company," he said.
"I think we're putting a lot of effort into changing that and making ourselves more accessible, so I really want to make sure that people realise that it's actually pretty easy now - and we're trying to make it easier - to work with us and release games on our systems."
During the Wii's lifespan Nintendo was regularly criticised by indie developers for being too difficult to work with. Nintendo placed a 40MB cap on WiiWare games, a restriction labelled "horrible" (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/337519/wiiwares-40mb-restriction-is-horrible-team-meat/) by Super Meat Boy (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/nintendo-wii/platformer/11873/super-meat-boy/) studio Team Meat.
For Wii U, Nintendo has revised its policies to make developing for the system easier, Adelman said. "Our guiding philosophy is that if you're able to make games on Nintendo platforms, we want to help make sure that you can do that on our systems.
"Our primary consideration is an ability to make a game. You don't have to have a record of published titles, or have to have worked at a large company in the past. If you're actively working on a game, that should be sufficient."
Last November, Trine studio Frozenbyte said Wii U was "more indie friendly" (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/379332/wii-u-eshop-is-more-indie-friendly-than-other-consoles/) than PS3 and Xbox 360 thanks to the flexibility it offers developers in terms of pricing and free patches.
And this June, Nathan Vella, president of Sword & Sworcery studio Capybara Games, said Nintendo was attempting to make up for lost time by reaching out to smaller developers (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/411999/nintendo-is-reaching-out-to-indie-developers-says-dev/).
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/422559/20-30-more-indie-games-coming-to-wii-u-in-2013/