No Mii for You

I’ve see a lot of third-party Wii game reviews lately that that seem to dock the game points for not including Nintendo’s popular Miis. As a big part of my goal with this blog is help educate the gaming community about some of the realities of the industry, this is a subject that I feel I have to comment on.

As far as using Miis in games go, it pretty much comes down to this: We would if we could.

What people apparently don’t realize (and this includes all those game critics who have called out a game for it’s lack of Miis) is that Miis are Nintendo’s intellectual property. Just like Mario, Link and Samus, Nintendo owns them. A developer can’t just say “Hey, let’s put Miis in our game,” just like they can’t say “You know what our third-party title needs? Mario.” Here’s what Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has to say on the subject:

“Mr. Miyamoto, the inventor of Mii, himself has been saying that, “In a sense, licensing Mii is same as licensing Mario – Nintendo should grant the license when we can conclude that the proposed project is worthwhile. Should we allow any and all the licensees to use Mii license for whichever projects, Mii’s brand image will be hurt. Because we are not granting Mario license to any and all, we should not do so with Mii either.”

Nintendo has allowed Miis to be used in a couple of third-party games thus far: EA’s Fifa 08 and Mario & Sonic Olympics (there may be a few others, but definitely not many). And there will be more games on the way. But as it stands right now, Miis can only be used under the very specific circumstances that:

1. Miis are not used as a primary character. That means you’re more likely to see them in the crowd than as playable characters. They definitely will not be used as a main character in any third-party game.

2. Nintendo approves the usage. So even if you wanted to put them in the crowd, Nintendo can still say no if they don’t feel the game will be good, or if they disapprove of the subject matter, or for any reason at all.

I don’t have any problem at all with the way Nintendo decides to let other companies use their intellectual property. What I do have a problem with is critics and gamers assuming that if a third-party publisher releases a Mii-free game, it’s that publisher’s fault. We in the gaming industry know what players want in their game, and we’d like to give it to them. But sometimes, like in the case of Miis, that’s just not possible. If you dislike that, please direct your complaints to Nintendo.