Author Topic: Nintendo Demands Take Down of Icon Games's Sales Numbers  (Read 10417 times)

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Offline KDR_11k

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Re: Nintendo Demands Take Down of Icon Games's Sales Numbers
« Reply #25 on: January 07, 2012, 04:31:44 AM »
Game developers are VERY coy about sales numbers, even the independent guys. I assume an NDA on the sales numbers is standard for all services.


WiiWare is only a small step up from XBLIG (which is abysmal), I've seen interviews where developers stated that their only reason to make WiiWare games was to get picked up by Microsoft for XBLA (which is unnecessarily restrictive with bullshit requirements like requiring a large publisher and a lot of rules that only apply to small developers). XBLA is seen as the holy grail of download services but it might be overrated, several developers (indies) have stated that they saw MUCH better sales on Steam which is still somewhat choosy but not nearly as strict as XBLA.

Offline RichIcon

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Re: Nintendo Demands Take Down of Icon Games's Sales Numbers
« Reply #26 on: January 07, 2012, 06:24:40 AM »
@ejamer
"Access to Finance: he really doesn't see a difference between sharing information at a bank to secure future funding and posting them on a publicly-visible blog?"

I think it would be good to clarify this to avoid any further confusion.

I actually have first-hand experience of trying to obtain finance with no figures to show, and this highlights the point:

During 2010 we approached several banks to request some bridge finance to cover the gap between the release of the titles and the time when the sales thresholds were reached. On any other service this would not have been an issue as you earn revenue from sales straight away.

We showed them our own figures which showed promising early sales, but the thing is those figures are fairly meaningless - especially to a bank.

They wanted to get a view of the wider picture - how other games on the service had performed, how well games within specific genres perform, and so on. The sort of data any financial institution requires before providing funding - especially to a games company, as the games industry is perceived as being a high risk industry.

We couldn't show them any such numbers and their response was negative - in effect I was asking them to finance a business but providing them with none of the traditional market research data they expect.

It was impossible to secure the finance we needed and as a result we had to let one of the team go and were unable to pay wages to the rest of the team for a while. Fortunately the guys stood by us, and our Minis releases then turned things around a little.

Offline UncleBob

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Re: Nintendo Demands Take Down of Icon Games's Sales Numbers
« Reply #27 on: January 07, 2012, 12:41:35 PM »
We couldn't show them any such numbers and their response was negative - in effect I was asking them to finance a business but providing them with none of the traditional market research data they expect.

I am curious - you were unable to acquire sales data for any other games... was this not a big, red flag before you published the sales figures? :D
Just some random guy on the internet who has a different opinion of games than you.

Offline Podings

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Re: Nintendo Demands Take Down of Icon Games's Sales Numbers
« Reply #28 on: January 07, 2012, 04:46:38 PM »
People are making quite a few weird claims here.
Let's get a few things straight.
 
 
1) Nintendo cares. They have EVERY reason to care if developers disclose their sales, because
 
2) the sales are terrible. This cannot be argued. And
 
3) bad sales will affect other companies willingness to work with Nintendo.
 
 
 
I'm the love child of an NES and a C64.

Offline Chozo Ghost

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Re: Nintendo Demands Take Down of Icon Games's Sales Numbers
« Reply #29 on: January 08, 2012, 01:07:39 AM »
Nintendo seems to be screwed either way. If they demand the sales figures get taken down (which they did) they come across as assholes and that makes them look bad. On the other hand, the sales figures are abysmal and embarrassing so allowing them to be posted makes WiiWare look like a failure compared to rival platforms. So either way Nintendo is screwed.

The way this has played out is actually the worst of both worlds, because everyone knows the figures know so that embarrassment is out and nothing can be done about it, but Nintendo still demanded they be taken down and made themselves look like jerks for ordering that tiny developer around. The logical thing should have been to either just ignore it or politely request it be taken down... not that taking it down matters much, because once something is posted on the internet everyone sees it and it can't be stopped.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2012, 01:10:22 AM by Chozo Ghost »
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Offline KDR_11k

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Re: Nintendo Demands Take Down of Icon Games's Sales Numbers
« Reply #30 on: January 08, 2012, 12:34:19 PM »
I don't think Nintendo cares about the actual figures (everybody knows that WiiWare is terrible for sales, it's only used by shovelware devs and devs hoping to get picked up for XBLA) but their release was a breach of contract. Very few developers are willing to talk about sales even if they seem like they would be eager to: Most likely all digital platforms have non disclosure clauses in their contracts.


I doubt that Nintendo cares that the numbers won't actually disappear from the internet, they just want to make it clear that there's an NDA in place and if people start ignoring that then there will be lawsuits.

Offline RichIcon

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Re: Nintendo Demands Take Down of Icon Games's Sales Numbers
« Reply #31 on: January 10, 2012, 08:05:10 AM »
http://www.tiga.org/news/press-releases/tiga-calls-on-nintendo-to-explain-its-position-on-publishing-games-data

TIGA, the trade association representing the UK games industry, today called on Nintendo to explain why it does not allow developers to publish the sales numbers of their self-published titles. TIGA made the comments following the news that Nintendo had refused to allow Icon Games Ltd to publish figures on the sales and free units downloaded for their WiiWare games.