Renegade Kid applauds Nintendo's promotion of their indie games, says Nintendo is easy to work with
A portion of a Gamasutra interview with Renegade Kid's Jools Watsham...
GS: What do you think contributes to your games' success on the eShop platform, versus, say, Steam or PSN?
JW: We are a very small company, and not in a position to spend money on advertising at this time. We rely on word of mouth between players, and news announcements from the press on our games and our development progress. The Nintendo media is very active and passionate, and very supportive of indie developers.
The support we receive from the shop owners themselves helps tremendously. Nintendo's support of Mutant Mudds on the 3DS release was amazing. It got great placement on the eShop front page, and was even included with their online advertising for a period of time along with Pushmo, Mighty Switch Force, and Dillion's Rolling Western.
The amount of exposure that Mutant Mudds Deluxe received on the Wii U eShop has also been incredible with large, medium, and smaller banners promoting our game for a considerable amount of time on the eShop front page long after the game was released. Even though I would like it, I don't expect all of our games to receive this sort of treatment. I know not every game of ours can be promoted this way. There's not enough real estate on the front page to support every game equally, unfortunately. But, the fact of the matter is that exposure on the front page is instrumental in selling games. It can make all of the difference.
Yes, this is a roundabout way of saying Nintendo promoted Mutant Mudds more than Steam and Sony did. I do not fault Sony or Steam for not promoting our game as well as Nintendo did. It is not their job or responsibility to promote our games. Steam and Sony are juggling a ton of content and promote what they can and what they want to. It is what it is. But, I do believe this played a large part in the current sales numbers on each platform.
GS: A lot of devs feel that Nintendo comes off as more "closed off" than Sony or Microsoft, especially when it comes to indies. Would you agree it's a bit tougher for indies to get their footing with Nintendo?
JW: No, I strongly disagree with that statement. Nintendo is great to work with and easy to get a hold of. Nintendo's developer application process is easier now than it ever has been. The big difference is that Nintendo haven't announced it from the highest mountain, like Sony have, which they really should do. I don't see how anyone can say Nintendo is more "closed off" than Microsoft, when Microsoft doesn't even allow indies to self-publish on the Xbox 360.
GS: What do you think contributes to your games' success on the eShop platform, versus, say, Steam or PSN?
JW: We are a very small company, and not in a position to spend money on advertising at this time. We rely on word of mouth between players, and news announcements from the press on our games and our development progress. The Nintendo media is very active and passionate, and very supportive of indie developers.
The support we receive from the shop owners themselves helps tremendously. Nintendo's support of Mutant Mudds on the 3DS release was amazing. It got great placement on the eShop front page, and was even included with their online advertising for a period of time along with Pushmo, Mighty Switch Force, and Dillion's Rolling Western.
The amount of exposure that Mutant Mudds Deluxe received on the Wii U eShop has also been incredible with large, medium, and smaller banners promoting our game for a considerable amount of time on the eShop front page long after the game was released. Even though I would like it, I don't expect all of our games to receive this sort of treatment. I know not every game of ours can be promoted this way. There's not enough real estate on the front page to support every game equally, unfortunately. But, the fact of the matter is that exposure on the front page is instrumental in selling games. It can make all of the difference.
Yes, this is a roundabout way of saying Nintendo promoted Mutant Mudds more than Steam and Sony did. I do not fault Sony or Steam for not promoting our game as well as Nintendo did. It is not their job or responsibility to promote our games. Steam and Sony are juggling a ton of content and promote what they can and what they want to. It is what it is. But, I do believe this played a large part in the current sales numbers on each platform.
GS: A lot of devs feel that Nintendo comes off as more "closed off" than Sony or Microsoft, especially when it comes to indies. Would you agree it's a bit tougher for indies to get their footing with Nintendo?
JW: No, I strongly disagree with that statement. Nintendo is great to work with and easy to get a hold of. Nintendo's developer application process is easier now than it ever has been. The big difference is that Nintendo haven't announced it from the highest mountain, like Sony have, which they really should do. I don't see how anyone can say Nintendo is more "closed off" than Microsoft, when Microsoft doesn't even allow indies to self-publish on the Xbox 360.
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