'Understand your craft, and then come back to us,' says Fils-Aime
Nintendo has further clarified how it chooses to partner with the new generation of independent game creators, following the firm’s divisive claim that it wouldn’t be working with ‘garage’ developers.
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told Joystiq that its new 3DS system is not catered for unproven talent, and advised inexperienced indies to cut their teeth on other systems.
"We've been clear that we want to work with independent developers who understand this business, who have experience in this business," Fils-Aime said.
Fils-Aime’s new claim comes days after his previous suggestion that Nintendo “is not looking to do business today with the garage developer”.
Asked by Joystiq on the distinction between ‘indie’ and ‘garage’ developer, Fils-Aime went on to explain:
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"[Indies we want to work with] are people who spent time working with larger publishers and larger developers, but had that idea in the back of their head that they needed to bring to life.
"These are talented developers,” he added.
“That's different from the person who envisions themselves as a developer, but actually hasn't necessarily created anything, who doesn't necessarily understand what it takes in this business to create compelling content. That's where we draw the line."
He said Nintendo would pursue developers who meet this criterion, in a new bid to create an external developer ecosystem – something that the company has historically struggled with despite its successes.
"I'll tell you, if someone calls us tomorrow who has no experience in the gaming industry, but has a passion and has a great idea, our perspective would be, 'great, but get some experience. Understand your craft, and then come back to us,'" Fils-Aime said.
Elsewhere in the Joystiq article, Reggie spoke of competition with the NGP and the need to improve Nintendo’s digital game services.
Okay Nintendo, we've heard you. Now stop making so much noise!
Also, is it a platform for unproven companies that do have money? Because that's what the Wii is.
The Wii is actually a platform where indies with money make no money. It's great!
Vast majority of indie games > plumber jumping and running to the right.
Respect to the other platforms for innovating. But, I guess when you go after "non-gamers" so aggressively, I guess on Nintendo's platforms it really is the safe option that sells.
Hold on, why would anyone want to spend several thousand pounds developing a game if they didn't have a solid business to successfully market their product?
If you think your game will sell, hit the bank with some figures and get a business loan. Nintendo has licensed an indie without an office (probably under the premise they were capable of making a good game that would sell), so they are open to us indies. I'm quite shocked about that myself, but they clearly had the kahunas to apply and risk it all.
Nintendo trying to sound less bitchy about indies.
It's not what they're saying, just the way that they're saying it.
There definitely is a difference between the 'bedroom coder who's big on Destructoid' and the 'microstudio with a big idea'. And it's clear that Nintendo only wants to work with the latter (i.e., they want to control the quality of the software on their platform), which is fine also, nothing wrong with that.
It's when they start saying that bedroom coders aren't 'Talented' it starts to get a little offensive.
MR_K: which indie dev without office did they sign?
what puts me off at warioworld.com it states:
Development Kits: Approximate development costs range from $2,000 to $10,000, depending on the size of your team. Financial stability is expected by Authorized Developers in order to purchase the necessary development equipment for your project.
2D Boy (World of Goo for WiiWare) didn't have a registered office.
Approximate development costs are the exactly reason why I would question anyone without a solid business who wants to make Nintendo handheld titles.
