Topic: Various WiiWare Titles Disappear from Shop Channel

[Daan]

Some removals likely the result of a studio closure, while others lack explanation.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/27378

Various WiiWare titles were recently removed from Wii Shop Channels all around the world.

GameArts' The Magic Obelisk has been removed from the North American Wii Shop Channel. No reasons for its absence have been given by the company or by Nintendo.

In Europe, several more games have been removed. Hudson's Shootanto and Diner Dash and Nintendo's LONPOS are among the casualties, but once again, there are no reasons given on why these games are gone. Zallag's Racers' Islands games and Gods vs Humans are also missing.

Zallag announced the studio closure in May, which may be related to the removal of their games in Europe. Talking on his personal blog, founder David Jeuvideo talks about what led them to their downfall: ''The situation was complicated. Our games came out at a time when nothing was happening on the Wii. So even being in the top of the sales charts, we didn't gain anything in terms of money. Most journalists don't even review games from the on-line store. It was difficult to know our games from WiiWare.'' Further, it was mentioned that thanks to the poor WiiWare sales, they didn't have the resources to continue development on future properties.

All of Zallag's titles are still currently available in North America, but it is not clear if they will remain there in the long term. Likewise, the majority of Hudson's games remain available, despite being absorbed by Konami in April.

[Adrock]

Nyxquest and Konami's Rebirth series survived. Those are the only WiiWare games I'm interested in. And Cave Story but I think I'm more interested in the 3DS version (though perhaps not at full price)

[xcwarrior]

There are a lot of good titles on Wiiware. This just goes to show that Nintendo did a horrible job marketing it.

Thought it would be nice if more websites other than Nintendolife.com bothered to review the Wiiware games. Too bad there aren't really any other Nintendo based sites to review Wiiware games.

Oh wait a tic, I can name at least one more... what's it called.. Nintendo... World... Report.... nah, that can't be it.

Think about it for 3DS' eShop. Just saying.

[broodwars]

Thought it would be nice if more websites other than Nintendolife.com bothered to review the Wiiware games.

Well, when you have a service that's garnered a deserved reputation for being 95% crap, can you really blame sites for ignoring the service?  It certainly doesn't help that Nintendo hasn't shown it gives a damn, since it has put next to no effort into raising awareness of the service or advertising the truly good games on it.  Meanwhile, both Sony and Microsoft are very vocal about the download games on their services, making gamers on those services more interested in them and in turn the various sites more interested in covering them.

It's unfortunate that it's come to this, but Nintendo and the makers of crap on WiiWare have brought this upon themselves.  Maybe if Nintendo shows it actually cares about its online services next generation, we won't see this happen outside of the odd license expiration (which is how some games on PSN and XBLA have been removed the last few years).

[MegaByte]

We've reviewed every game we've gotten codes for, as well as others. Aside from the usual constraints, there are a few problems -- it's apparently hard for the indie devs to get review codes from Nintendo, and there are a lot of indie devs to coordinate with (usually we have to seek them out explicitly). If there are specific games you'd like us to review, then let us know, and we can try to work something out.

[leahsdad]

You know, what I don't quite understand is why I don't see more indie devs out there marketing their games.  Is it really Nintendo's responsibility to do marketing or PR for specific wiiware titles?  It seems like the indie devs getting the most attention with Nintendo are Wayforward, Gaijin, and...well, that's it.  But a lot of people buy their games-- I know I have almost all of Wayforward's downloadable titles, and most of the Bit Trip stuff.  So whatever they're doing, it works.

it's apparently hard for the indie devs to get review codes from Nintendo

Well, that sucks, but if push comes to shove and Nintendo isn't giving out review codes, isn't it in the best interest of the dev to...oh, I don't know, just gift it to a handful of reviewers?  I mean, even if you just pick 30 reviewers/sites to gift it to, assuming it's got a price of let's say 1000 Wii points.  That's $300.  Not chump change, but still, I know Mom and Pop Pizza places that spend more than $300 in advertising in just a single month.  It's not a media blitz, but it's better than nothing.

Of course, you would have to swap friend codes....:-)

[broodwars]

You know, what I don't quite understand is why I don't see more indie devs out there marketing their games.  Is it really Nintendo's responsibility to do marketing or PR for specific wiiware titles?

Alright, let's say for a moment that Nintendo itself is completely not responsible for ensuring the awareness of particular WiiWare titles.  They have a role to play, but let's assume they don't.  Where, then, do these companies go for exposure?  According to MegaByte, it's very difficult to get review codes out of NoA, so they probably can't send review copies to internet reviewers.  Internet ads are a possibility, but those can be expensive, and let's remember that WiiWare developers don't get see any money from their game unless they sell a certain undisclosed number of downloads.  Depending on the size of the company, that's a major investment when there aren't great odds that you'll see a significant return on your investment, especially with folks tending towards ad-blocking programs these days.

So what's left?  Go around the internet posting on forums?  We've actually had at least one developer do that on these very forums.  Begging podcasts to let you on to spam your product?  Put up a demo version?  Yeah, good luck with that considering Nintendo only relatively recently allowed you to have demos, and they don't advertise those either!  The point is that it's very difficult for these smaller developers, who are the very people Nintendo stated it was creating WiiWare to appeal to, to get any kind of media exposure.

You ask why Nintendo should have a role in the advertising, and I point to the Playstation Blog and Xbox Live's Major Nelson.  On any given week, I can think of at least two places on the Playstation Blog where you can find out what PSN titles are coming out and a brief summary of what they're about ("The Weekly Drop" and "Today's PSN Store Update").  Sometimes, if a PSN title is especially notable, there will be a blog entry with information and screenshots from the developers.  Hell, if a game is especially notable or maybe flagging a bit on sales, the PSN will have sale prices, which are also posted on the Playstation Blog.  When was the last time you saw sale prices on WiiWare? 

Those are all things Nintendo DOESN'T do, and that's why (along with Nintendo allowing the general perception of the service to become that it's not home to quality games) WiiWare is IMO a failure on Nintendo's part despite the relative handful of good games that have graced the platform.  If you want to know what's coming out on WiiWare in a given week, all Nintendo can be bothered to do is send an obligatory email several days after the fact.  That's not good enough.

[MegaByte]

Well, that sucks, but if push comes to shove and Nintendo isn't giving out review codes, isn't it in the best interest of the dev to...oh, I don't know, just gift it to a handful of reviewers?  I mean, even if you just pick 30 reviewers/sites to gift it to, assuming it's got a price of let's say 1000 Wii points.  That's $300.  Not chump change, but still, I know Mom and Pop Pizza places that spend more than $300 in advertising in just a single month.  It's not a media blitz, but it's better than nothing.

Of course, you would have to swap friend codes....:-)

That is actually what usually ends up happening. The other problem is that there's no way to send out advance copies that work on retail systems like you can with discs, so we often have to wait until the game is out. The release schedule isn't set very far in advance, so it's an unpleasant waiting game for the devs. Also, don't forget that devs get ZERO unless they sell a certain number of units, they don't get to set prices, and the marketing side of things can take a ton of time that could better go into game development, so it is a real resource drain. And then you have other inexplicable problems like the fact that DSiWare review codes don't work on the 3DS eShop. Does all that explain why very few sites review the games? Not really. It's just an explanation of why you don't see as many as you could here.

[NWR_Neal]

Remember this tidbit: we all do this volunteer. We have no such thing as a budget for downloading games. We either have to have individual interest in a game, or get a review copy/code from a company. It's not an easy process.

Also, let's get real here. A lot of the WiiWare games are bad. There are some hits, but more often than not, these companies complaining about their games not selling make bad games. Gaijin Games makes good games. They're doing alright. Other companies make bad games, and they can't hit their sales threshold.

[Ceric]

I'm not really a fan of Sales Threshold for payments on a marketplace.

Now I could see Nintendo taking say 50% till X is made up and then dropping to 20-30%

[TJ Spyke]

I think they want to avoid crappy games flooding the market just to make a few quick bucks, but putting a minimum sales mark in they might force developers to put out games that people might want to actually buy.

[MegaByte]

Yeah, I don't think that's worked out so well.