Wii developers have a special place in my thoughts. It’s not a pretty place. Hell, it’s not even a static place. In fact, the place set aside for Wii developers is on the move… and it’s not going to be a pretty journey I’m afraid. They’re on a crash course for the very same spot I’ve set aside for professional spammers.
Let’s jump into the flame war together, after the jump!
Before all you Nintendo fanboys get your panties in a bunch, hear me out. This all comes down to a numbers game in my opinion. Spammers do what they do because it’s relatively cheap, it’s easy, and all they need is a very small percentage of people to “bite” to make it worth their small amount of time and effort expended. That same description also applies to Wii developers (other than Nintendo themselves of course, while not all first party titles are equal in merit, it’s clear when they set their mind to it, Nintendo can crank out a decent game regardless of platform.)
Wii development is cheap and easy because largely it’s an iteration above Gamecube development. You have similar and more refined tools, allowing a wider audience to crank out games. As the install base of the Wii grows, you can easily profit by selling a cheaply developed game to an increasingly smaller and smaller subset of the install base. This makes for good business (ie. profiting) but bad gaming. I can’t help but think this “new market” for gaming is partially to blame for this sort of developer behavior being rewarded. People buying the Wii on a whim or as part of the fad, are also buying crap games, allowing developers to profit on half-assed work.
I look at the ever expanding Wii install base and the number of absolutely cookie cutter, half-assed titles being spewed out by every range of developer and by and far, most of it is complete garbage. The problem is so bad that some games that should get the attention of gamers, are getting lost in the diluted sea of new releases. Boom Blox, according to most people that have played it, should be selling really well, but it’s not.
I think part of these games problems, is the fact that of the 221 Wii games listed on Metacritic.com, 196 of them are below an 80% score and 47 of them are below a 50% score. That’s a metric crap-ton of mediocre and truly terrible games. By comparison, the 360 has fewer sub-50% games despite a library nearly TWICE the Wii’s size. The PS3 has approximately 1/5th the number of sub-50% games in its slightly smaller game library. The Wii’s got the market cornered on crap games.
I think Wii developers are using the same basic plan that all these folks emailing me about the British lottery, enhancing my manhood, selling me replica watches, and name brand handbags. To be honest, I think my wife might’ve actually clicked on one of those links about the name brand handbags, ensuring I’ll receive spam for the rest of eternity… come to think of it, she also bought the kids Chicken Little for the Wii. If P.T. Barnum’s competitor David Hannum were still alive, I can’t help but think he’d be invested in spamming of some sort AND making Wii games… because he was never more right than when he said “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
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8 responses so far ↓
1 Yousty // Jun 25, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Well put Rothbart, but to be honest, who didn’t see this coming from a mile away? What we have here is GBA 3.0 with the DS being iteration 2.0.
The GBA was pretty much the first handheld to absolutely dominate their market and as a result every developer and their mother jumped on the bandwagon and started spewing out crap titles week after week, because they knew that there were enough GBA owners out there, that if they put a pretty picture on the box, some stupid parent would buy it for their child.
History started repeating itself with the DS. Everybody in the world owns one of those things so all the worthless developers flocked to it in order to make a quick buck off uninformed buyers.
Now we have the Wii sucking in every form of soul-less developer just trying to make a gimmicky fun-looking game in order to make a few bucks.
You wanna know what the problem is? It’s Nintendo. Nintendo started a little thing called the “Nintendo Seal of Approval” way back with the NES where they actually tested games and made sure they were fun before releasing them on the unsuspecting public because Nintendo knew their name was going to be on that box. Well now Nintendo has completely abandoned that and went straight to sucking straight from the teet of the stupid cash cow developers.
So screw you, Nintendo and your cash whore ways, screw you.
2 Sean "Rothbart" Workman // Jun 25, 2008 at 2:06 pm
What?!?!?! Yousty??? You’re still alive??? And you’re agreeing with this rant?!?!?! Welcome back… I guess… but tell me… where’s the REAL Yousty?
For them to have done this to you… a Nintendo fan… wow. That’s hard-core!
3 Yousty // Jun 25, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Haha, yes I’m still alive and still a Nintendo fan, just not nearly as hardcore as I used to be, and to be honest it’s pretty impossible to be a hardcore Nintendo fan nowadays because there’s no such thing as hardcore Nintendo games.
After playing the slowed down SSBB and the dumbed down Mariokart Wii I’ve lost a lot of respect for Nintendo. I’m just holding onto the dream that they’ll continue making games as great as Mario Galaxy and Zelda Twilight Princess. As long as they don’t screw up those two franchises I’ll stay a fan.
4 Sean "Rothbart" Workman // Jun 25, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I hope you’re patient man, I hope you’re patient…
Nice to see you around though, seriously!
5 penguinfury // Jun 25, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I’m a Nintendo fan, but only like Nintendos’ pre-Wii systems. I was going to buy a Wii, but everyone was out of stock at the time (Nov. 2006). Then gradually people began to see what kind of crap people were putting out on the Wii, so I changed my mind about buying one. And that is thanks to those spammers (Wii developers). At least I can still enjoy N64 and SNES. I hope Nintendos’ next console isn’t so sickeningly for casual gamers.
6 Keith K // Jun 26, 2008 at 6:08 am
I knew it was all going down when Square-Enix jumped on the wagon with Life as a King.
Now, admittedly I purchased the game.. but apparently my Wii runs it so poorly that its almost unplayable (It needs to be repaired, but I cant be bothered, even though I could walk the box over to Nintendo HQ in Toronto myself. That says a lot right there). Fortunately I later learned that the game cant even be beaten unless you pay more money. (Thats just hearsay admittedly)
Now I know Square-Enix’s appeal is not as mainstream as Nintendo themselves, but they’ve held a pretty amazing standard of quality over the years and their foray on to the Wii has stomped on that reputation. I just hope they’re not leeching off Nintendo fans to pay for the losses endured for PS3 fans. (Its all the same to me, in one of my pockets and out the other…)
7 Shadowbird // Jun 27, 2008 at 3:00 am
I purchased my Wii used with about 15 games for nearly half the price of a new one. Why? 70% to play GameCube games, and only 30% for the Wii stuff. ‘Cuz there’s almost no Wii stuff worth mentioning out there. Admittedly it’s a bit more expensive than buying a GameCube, but then again, I like to involve my non-gamer friends (which is about 100% of them) in gaming, and Wii is the easiest way to do it. Along with Guitar Hero (and Tekken, for some reason).
8 BoxOfFun // Jun 28, 2008 at 9:19 am
It’s just the fact that bad developers only want money, so they go for the console which is the most popular in order to get the most money. That’s why the PS2, the most popular console of all time, has a larger library of bad games then any other console.
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