Wii, Bad Games, and You
May 1, 2008GameFunk has an article up today about the high percentage of crummy games on the Wii.
Whoever wrote this article (I didn’t find an author name) is getting a pretty rough reception in the Comments section, and I don’t feel the need to pile it on further. I do, however, feel the need to make a couple point that gamers just don’t seem to understand.
Nintendo doesn’t care about the quality of third-party games. Period.
The author calls for Nintendo to start enforcing quality control for their platforms. Both Microsoft and Sony have concept approval processes before a developer can even begin working on a game for their platforms, but Nintendo does not. They used to, but dropped them years ago in an effort to shake the reputation that they were too strict and difficult to work with.
I can say, as an employee of a third-party game publisher, that Nintendo is now quite easy to work with, and a big part of that is because they’re not concerned with game quality. As long as a title meets “lot check” requirements, meaning it functions as intended (doesn’t crash, save files work, etc.), it’s approved.
So why doesn’t Nintendo enforce stricter quality control on third-party games? Simple. They make money on them. They get a platform holder fee for each game sold, so cutting the number of games on their system takes money out of their pockets. And because Nintendo first-party games still review so well, it’s not their brand that’s tainted. It’s the evil third-party publishers that gamers decry. Microsoft and Sony get called out for being hard to work with for maintaining concept approvals, while Nintendo sits back free of blame and collects massive checks.
On another note, the author also claims that casual gamers are choosing games like Pirates of the Caribbean over No More Heroes because the recognize the franchise. That’s probably true, but tacitly implies that they would by No More Heroes if the Pirates game didn’t exist. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. Joe Casual isn’t going to buy No More Heroes if the Pirates game wasn’t available - he’s going to leave the store empty-handed. No matter how high the Metacritic score of No More Heroes, Joe Casual isn’t going to buy it because Ubisoft failed to effectively inform the consumer of the actual content of the game. Even if they had, Suda 51’s avant-garde game design style isn’t exactly known for crowd-pleasing hits.
You’ve failed to address quite an important point to your arguement.
You say that Nintendo are “now quite easy to work with”. Does this mean that they were previously difficult to work with? So because they’ve made life easier for the publishers, this means their quality control has slipped? Perhaps their quality control was too stringent to begin with, and now they’re just in line with the other console manufacturers.
Which leads me to my point - you say that quality control is low, but how does this compare to the other consoles? Are you saying that Sony have much more involved testing in their games before they’re released? Or Microsoft? Because from where I’m sitting, theres just as many bad games on the Wii as there is on the PS3, the Xbox, the PS2, the DS, etc.
As I stated in the post, there is no concept approval process for the Wii. Both Microsoft and Sony will veto a game before development starts if they are unhappy with the concept behind the game. Sony will also kill a game in development if it doesn’t meet a certain level of quality. This is decided during a process known as a “Stage 2 Submission.”
Great post man, just a few misc comments:
-While Joe Schmoe might not buy NMH in place of PotC, the existence of a mass of filler crap games does detract from quality titles. If a game doesn’t receive any hype, in the eyes of the public, it just gets mixed in with the rest(which, in the case of the Wii, happens to be a lot of ass). Granted, NMH is a very niche game that probably wouldn’t sell to the masses anyways.
-Great to know at least someone has some idea on what goes on behind the scenes. People wonder how much control Sony has over what gets put on their systems, but they don’t seem to get really how much power Sony has. Sony put several 2D devs out of business in the 32 bit days because they wanted the PS1 to look super advanced. Even great studios like Working Designs went under because of this.
Isn’t Nintendo’s console “tainted” if there’s a bunch of crap titles on it?
Would you follow Nintendo’s position or Sony/Microsoft’s if you had the choice?