Spotty success from third-party developers on the Wii is an oft talked about subject, with many people pointing to the system’s low tie-in ratio and the dubious quality of certain titles. Speaking to GI.biz, Blue Fang Games chief operating officer Scott Triola thinks the problem for the Wii is circuitous.
“Well, there's a circular argument going around in the industry,” said Triola. “There's a low tie ratio on the Wii platform therefore it's not worth investment, therefore we'll just put out a bunch of low quality titles. From a consumer's standpoint, a lot of families have bought those low quality titles and once you spend 40 hard-earned dollars on a game that just isn't very good, you're less likely to buy another product. Or, you're more likely to buy from a proven brand like Nintendo that takes quality seriously.”
Triola noted that there’s “a bit of a downward spiral here in this industry that we need to get out of.” He hopes that the upcoming Blue Fang title World of Zoo will “cut through the noise” and “stand apart from all the lousy animal games and family games that are out there right now.”
Low quality titles, or “shovelware,” is among the various reasons why we think the core audience for Wii is hard to tap.
3 Comments
November 25, 2009
This is a good argument. However, Wii owners when they take that leap of faith and do not buy Nintendo, need to do a modicum of homework (and buy the quality title. If they are presented with four Wii games on a shelf and three are shovelware, then you have 25% of them making the right choice.
November 25, 2009
The problem is also compounded by the ease of development on the Wii and the expected lower development budgets. This represents a lower risk that spending several million dollars on a title. The means that more titles can be shovelled onto the platform which in turn lowers the overall quality and we're back to Scott's argument. Unfortunately, this will always be a function of a low barrier to entry. Ken Kutaragi was laughed at when he said that Sony had made the PS 3 deliberately complex in order to elongate the ramp up in game quality on the PS 3 but it also prevents shovelware to an extent even though its a major pain for developers who need to spend a lot more money developing the technology for the platform.
November 30, 2009
It's like something that a lot of previous gen consoles end up going through after they are "replaced"; developers tend to not be of the highest quality because the better studios have moved on and what ends up coming out is cheap because it can be. Unfortunately for the Wii, it will likely suffer from this for its whole lifetime.