Topic: Original VC content

[MaryJane]

You make a good point Neo, hype often leads to sales of a game, as well as previews. I would have to imagine that the bigger companies would still implement this for their Wii Ware games. Although the Indie companies wouldn't have the budget and would have to hope for free press from gaming websites such as this one.

Game demos would be a fantastic idea, especially if they included downloadable DS demos.

Although if I'm not mistaken Demos have a risk factor/cost factor that not all companies would be willing to take. The risk factor is that if you allow someone to download the whole game and then a need a code to unlock the rest of the game, someone could crack it and then spread the word on how others can do it, and then you have people playing your game free, and if you're an indie developer that could really hurt. The cost factor is that if you create a demo seperate from the rest of the game, it requires extra time, which in turn translates to extra money, and again this could hurt indie developers.

Maybe Nintendo will publish some of these games themselves in order to provide the extra funds for some sort of marketing scheme.

[JonLeung]

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Originally posted by: Kairon

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Originally posted by: JonLeung
It's really ironic because I wanted to be a film director, and I know that it's unlikely to start off as a Hollywood director right off the bat.  Indie films are the standard beginning for would-be Hollywood bigwigs.  And yet I can't bring myself to spend time looking at indie games.

You mean you never bought Cubivore? or Cooking Mama? /sad

No, no, no.  I think what I mean by "indie games" would be those not picked up by a major publisher.  I have played Cooking Mama on the DS, and look forward to Cook Off on the Wii.  Cubivore - wasn't it developed by Nintendo themselves, just published by Atlus or someone for the North American release? - was one of the games I wanted to play but that Blockbuster never stocked, and Blockbuster's lack of acquiring particular titles is my weakness for not playing games.  (Yes, I've discussed the temptation of services like GameFly in another topic...)

Perhaps I'm confusing "indie games" with "homebrew games".

Anyone can make a homebrew game.  As Ian mentioned, there's a lack of quality control, that's why there's a lot of crap out there, no matter how much you can say you found a few gems.

I stick by my point that my avoidance of homebrew games is still mostly because officially published/licensed games are marketed enough that everyone knows the game exists and that there is worth in my spending the time on it.

Think of it like sports.  Would you rather say that you can play "tennis", "golf", "hockey", etc. and spend the time on them, or would you say that you play your kid sister's variation of hopscotch, the Calvinball-like game you devised with your brother when you were younger, or BASEketball, just because you liked the movie?  There's no recognition for being skilled at a sport that isn't recognized, and the same thing goes for games.  I may honestly enjoy them, and that may be the whole point of games, but if there's something equally fun that's actually published, there's little question which I would spend my time on.

[KDR_11k]

Although if I'm not mistaken Demos have a risk factor/cost factor that not all companies would be willing to take. The risk factor is that if you allow someone to download the whole game and then a need a code to unlock the rest of the game, someone could crack it and then spread the word on how others can do it, and then you have people playing your game free, and if you're an indie developer that could really hurt. The cost factor is that if you create a demo seperate from the rest of the game, it requires extra time, which in turn translates to extra money, and again this could hurt indie developers.

Creating a separate demo isn't that hard, usually you just strip out some content and add a few lines of code to display a "please buy the full version" message at some point. Obviously it's a bad idea (though popular with western indies) to put the full version out there and just require a code for unlocking. But then again you could probably download a warez version just as easily as a crack so maybe it's not much of a problem...

Perhaps I'm confusing "indie games" with "homebrew games".

Homebrew usually means using some hacks to get your game onto a console or handheld without a license, indie means a game sold normally but not using a big publisher (keep in mind that these days publishers use selection criteria like "uses movie license"). I hear in the US these games never reach store shelves, here in Germany we see shelves full of them.

but if there's something equally fun that's actually published, there's little question which I would spend my time on.

Keep in mind that indie games are usually cheaper than normal ones. Those that aren't are often much better than the big publisher equivalents (e.g. GalCiv 2 or Space Rangers 2).

[Kairon]

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Originally posted by: JonLeung
the Calvinball-like game you devised with your brother when you were younger

Anyone who would say no to Calvinball should DIE!!!

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[MaryJane]

I don't know what the hell Calvinball is, but let's hope that devs do put demos on Wii Ware, demos for new full-fledged games would be really appreciated.

Another idea I had would be extremely simple "games" that would be free, but the sole purpose of them would be to get users acquainted with using the remote in different fashions, and having them develop individual techniques (mainly comfortability of performing said action) for the different games that would use that control scheme.

One of the upcoming airplane games (i.e heatseeker, wing island) says that the way they intend people to play is by holding the remote like you would a paper airplane, how about a 15 minute demo that would just teach someone how to do that, and get acquainted with it, even something simple like that I think would get people interested in the genre when they see how simple it is to play. It wouldn't be pure marketing since it's a generalization of all games that would use the control scheme, but it would introduce casual gamers to different kinds of games, once they see how simply they can be played with the Wii-Remote.

[jasonditz]

I wonder if the final version of the Internet Channel will have decent DHTML support. If so, it might be possible to target it for some basic original content as well.

[BlackNMild2k1]

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Originally posted by: The Omen
Point and click games need to make a comeback.   This is the perfect platform for it.

Telltale games -the makers of Sam & Max- are looking for Wii programers. They have been asking Nintendo for a Dev kit for sometime now, and it appears that they have finally recieved it. No word yet on what they are making, but they have acknowledged the S&M would be perfect on the Wii (yes, the pun was intended ).

[Kairon]

Unfortunately, Telltale says that they have absolutely not announced woprk on any game of the sort. Although... they do promise 800 cherubic trumpets to herald the announcement when/if it comes.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[31 Flavas]

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Originally posted by: NeoThunder

what makes them think people are going to up and buy a game they know nothing about.

Uh... it sounds good and is cheap? Honestly, why do you need a demo for $5-10 game? You probably spend that much on a coffee drink from Starbucks every other day.

Gamers are so whiny these days.

[JonLeung]

I like Sam & Max, and have gotten the available episodes of the current game series (or rather, "season").  Seems it'd be too big for the Wii's flash memory in a similar format for Wii games.  Even if the Wii could hold a few episodes at a time, it sure would take a fair bit of time to download each one.  Maybe Nintendo could upgrade the Wii to do background downloading via WiiConnect24, like the Forecast and New Channel probably already do?

LucasArts should adapt their SCUMM engine so that we can get their classic point-and-click adventure games.  Those would be more feasible.  Then we might also get SCUMM games not made by LucasArts too, like the Simon The Sorceror games and Beneath A Steel Sky.  (Beneath A Steel Sky was rereleased as freeware a while back.)  Hey, maybe someone could make a SCUMMVM version that works through an Internet browser, if they haven't already.  

[KDR_11k]

Beneath A Steel Sky isn't SCUMM, it got ported to SCUMMVM. The Gobliiins games are getting ported, too (or at least G2 was being ported last time I saw the guy working on it in class).

[Kairon]

Sez IGN's latest mailbag...

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Developer Woes

What's the deal with Nintendo's VC support? The classic games are great, but when are they going to start letting indy developers work on games for the Virtual Console? I'm getting sick of hobbydev projects; how about a little support Nintendo!

--Dan

Speak of the devil. If Nintendo wants true innovation, it has to get development power into the hands of - drum roll please - developers. Nintendo wants the big idea to win out over the big budget, but if there's no way for that idea to become more than just a few notes on a pad of paper then it does none of us any good.

That being said, Matty and I have a feeling you'll be hearing more about the independent VC scene very soon. Come to think of it, there's some kind of conference on the way for game developers, right? Man… it'd be great if one of the greatest game designers in the world would take the stage and give us all the skinny on Wii's future relationship with developers, huh? Oh wait… Miyamoto is talking at GDC in just under a month, and I can't think of a better time to send a message if I were Nintendo.

--Bozon

Boy, it's great to have something to rumor/speculate/get-hyped-out-of-our-minds-on since the Wii launched...

hypehypeHYPE!

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[IceCold]

Miyamoto's transcript will be a MUST READ.

[MaryJane]

If the way Nintendo has operated in the past is any sign of the future, we are in for one big F*ing treat at GDC.

Miyamoto is going to be like, oh yeah look at this game I created so easily on the Wii. It's kind of endless in the different combinations of (whatever) you can do, but it's only going to cost $8 or should I say 800 Wii Points? This game shows how easy it is to make games with the new development kit we've created at Nintendo, which we will be giving free to anyone has the (original? first? typical?) Wii development kit!

BOOYAKA!!

Miyamoto Wii Ware game :rool::

[Kairon]

HYPE HYPE HYPE!

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com