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RUMOR - game industry dev fed up with third party attitude towards Wii

by rawmeatcowboy
26 May 2008
GN 1.0 / 2.0

For anyone that keeps tabs on the internet’s seedy underbelly, 4chan is on the radar. It may not be the first place you think of for video game discussions, even though they do have a section for those topics. Reader Anonymous was scanning through the VG section when he stumbled upon a post from someone claiming to be involved in an upcoming Wii title. Whether you believe the following post is real or not, it’s not hard to see devs going with this logic.

“So I started working in the games industry recently on a fairly major project for the Wii. I’ve sat through a couple big reviews, where the studio’s executives sit down and play through the latest additions to the game and voice their feedback. Let me tell you that, as a newcomer to the games industry and a Nintendo fanboy, I was unprepared for what I heard.

The people that matter in this fairly large studio (and their publisher, marketing staff, etc.) think that the Wii is a kiddy console and are forcing us to tone down our game to make it more casual. While I can’t go into details, we are making a skill-based game that has a lot of potential, but the execs keep telling us to strip out core gameplay elements in order to make it more friendly for the casual player. We can’t have difficulty settings to be raised or lowered, gritty stories, or complicated puzzles, just a fun casual game that can be picked up and put down at will. THANKS GUYS, I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO MAKE A Sh!77y CASUAL GAME.

Also, they talk in f*(%ing review numbers. “I think reviewers will give this about a 85 right now, but if you change this, we might bump it up a couple of points.” What the f^%k, guys.

TLDR: 3rd parties are ruining the Wii.”

I am inclined to believe the post, seeing that we have heard sentiments like this in the past. We are over a year in Wii development, and the game industry is still trying to figure out what to do.

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