Independent game hangs in limbo, developer locks himself in office for 100 days
Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 3:55pm by Sean B.
At some point, most gamers entertain thoughts of creating their own game – molding their dreams into the game they’ve been waiting for, but never came. Some fall prey to misleading television ads for game-design college, others abandon the idea once they realize that game programming is no casual hobby. The few that make it to the industry work in groups, contributing to the birth of a new game as a team. And then there’s Bob.
In 2003, Bob started to teach himself the C programming language to make his own game for the Gameboy Advance, and then for the Nintendo DS when it was released in 2004. Earlier this year, he showed Bob’s Game to the world – a self proclaimed “commercial quality” adventure game for the NDS, and he hopes to make history by being the first single programmer to release a game of this size on the retail market – but he’s hit a wall. Bob needs a NDS Software Development Kit, and Nintendo has stopped responding to his email – so he’s locking himself in his office without Internet, TV, or human contact in a move protest until they contact him.
Bob plans to keep up the sit-in protest for 100 days or more, and has very limited access to the outside world. “Food is delivered once a week by a friend. I have no Internet access, television, or game consoles besides those I am developing on. I can receive and send email on my Android G1, so I can get Nintendo’s reply and update my site with tether.” Bob’s been holed up in his office since the 10th, when he first announced the shut in. “The agreement on the application states I will receive a decision in 6-8 weeks. It has been 18 weeks! I fulfill all the requirements- I’m a financially stable registered company with a FEIN working from a commercial address. When Nintendo decides to approve my developer license application I will end my protest.”
While he waits, Bob is working 16 hour days to port Bob’s Game to the iPhone and Android platforms, ensuring that the game will eventually see release regardless of Nintendo’s response. Bob expressed his frustration in a short history update on December 28th.
On November 17th of 2007, well over a YEAR ago, I contacted Mr. Tom Prata, Senior Director of Project Development at Nintendo of America.
I explained to him that I had worked for several years on a console game for DS, and that I wanted to purchase the NITRO SDK in order to finish the title.
Mr. Prata responded, and we emailed back and forth about 50 times discussing the title and the NITRO requirements.
After doing a background check in December, we teleconferenced to discuss the game. He wanted to see it. This culminated in a meeting, scheduled for February 22, 2008, at the Game Developers Conference…
…At the meeting, Mr. Prata barely even bothered to look at the game he had stalled me for months to see.
He advised me to apply for a developer license, and assured me that he would “do what he could” to make sure my application was fast-tracked.
Check out Bob’s Game for videos, notes from Bob, and a web-cam feed of the imprisoned developer hard at work.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
That’s crazy… I wish I had an inkling of an idea how to program my own games, I’d be all over that.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
The game doesn’t actually look as bad as I first imagined.
I hope Bob gets his wish.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I fully support this guy. I love adventure games, and it’s great to finally see one in a more modern setting. It reminds me of those GBA Sim games. They were more adventure style than the regular simulation game.
I think this is the future of games. We’ve seen this with World of Goo and were seeing it with the new XNA community games. I’m really excited for this game and I hope he can eventually get this into stores. I’ve been trying to help out by sending around a few e-mails to some news sites. This guy’s gonna need all the support he can get!
December 29th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Is that a live camera?
if so, then i can only imagine the guys at Nintendo:
Nintendo rep: “get a chair and some popcorn; this is about to get good =D”
December 29th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
“Nintendo has stopped responding to his email – so he’s locking himself in his office without Internet, TV, or human contact in a move protest until they contact him.”
Does anyone else spot the flaw in his logic…?
December 30th, 2008 at 6:21 am
@Muggins
“I can receive and send email on my Android G1, so I can get Nintendo’s reply and update my site with tether.”
Gee, I wonder where this suddenly came from. Oh, it’s 4 lines after your quote!!
December 30th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Is the iPhone the new indie dev platform? Yes, but not all indie apps for the iPhone are that high of quality. I did, however, get more enjoyment out of the $1 iFart app I bought versus the $20 Crosswords DS.
December 30th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I really hope this guy gets the kit he needs. I saw the trailers and it looks like this game has some nice promise. What confuses me however, is the fact that Nintendo is denying this guy while simultaneously allowing Pixel to publish Cave Story (Great game BTW, also indie) on WiiWare. In fact, it would benifit Nintendo to give/sell the guy the kit. They make money off of every cartridge sold so in theory, if this game is released, they would be profiting. As Bob’s developer put it “Why is my development studio (Robert Pelloni LC) with a full, complete, polished, high-quality title being treated any differently than the hundreds of studios putting out “Fluffy Bunny’s Movie Franchise Platformer 16?”” Just my thoughts on this though, I would like to hear Nintendo’s side on this before I make any final opinion.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:10 am
@HyperPhazon
Pixel is only supporting the WiiWare Cave Story, he does not port it himself.
Nicalis is the developer and consists of an actual team, instead of just a single person like Bob.
On the question why other low-profile studios are prioritized:
1. They are supported by a publisher, or how do you think they got a license for a movie?
2. Even if they are low-profile, they are still real developers. They’ve actually made games and are making money with them.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
@ Tadashi
First of all, thank you for the information about Cave Story, I was unaware of that.
Regarding your second paragraph however, this is from the website, and I quote
“I don’t need a publisher, that’s not the issue. I must become a licensed developer to have a licensed game with licensed tools.
I’m not asking Nintendo to publish my game- they aren’t a publisher for third party titles. Many publishers are interested in “bob’s game.”"
So evidently he does not appear to have a problem finding a publisher. He also wishes to become a developer, but Nintendo is denying him the privilege of becoming one for their system.
As for point #2 in your second paragraph, EVERY developer starts off at that point. If everyone who one day decided that they wanted to become a developer was denied the position simply because they had not made a commercial game before, soon there would be no more developers left in the market.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
@HyperPhazon
A publisher would aid him with getting a developer license from Nintendo. If all the publishers who are interested require him to be a licensed developer, he is in trouble.
It’s hard to be taken serious if you are alone. I can’t think of any developers these days consisting of a single person and having a full-fledged game (e.g. not eletronically distributed) released on a console/handheld plattform.
He probably needs either a publisher or a real team behind him to (quickly) get a license.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Something important to consider here is Bob’s goal to become the first person to make a game of this size alone, keeping it “a game by one person.” If he made a deal with a publisher to get the SDK, the publishing company would probably want experienced developers to help him finish the game in order to get the product to market faster. He has to acquire the kit by himself and add the finishing touches himself for it to remain “a game by one person.”
December 30th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Maybe his plan is similar to say, High Voltage’s approach to the Conduit. They initially stated that they wanted to AVIOD getting a publisher until they had most of the main features worked out inn order to aviod having a publisher mess with the game too much. (The difference here is that it seems that Roberts goal is to finish every last detail and then provide a willing publisher with a completed product).
Also, he has made it quite clear that he intends to get the SDK without the aid of a publisher. A thought that just occurred to me was that Nintendo is withholding the SDK as a safety measure. With a single developer, there is a risk that the SDK could easily, say be distributed amongst the internet. Seeing how much Nintendo attempts to discourage homebrew, I could easily see them trying to avoid this game for fear of a surge in homebrew. If a sudden wave of good homebrew games were released, it would both encourage the use of devices, like the R4DS, which can easily be used for piracy of official DS games and it could hurt sales of retail games depending on the amount of homebrew games/apps being released and whether or not the games/apps would be freeware.
Still, this is just my opinion and it could easily be incorrect.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
He did mention that Nintendo is having a hard time deciding to give the SDK to him or not because “it blurs the line between homebrew and commercial”.
Makes sense. But then again, isn’t that what you do when your porting something? Look at Chrono Trigger, that game was made for the SNES but Square took the code and adapted it for the DS. Thats basically what he has to do here, only in this case he is taking code that has been pre-written for the DS. I don’t see why Nintendo is denying a perfectly good game a proper release. What does it matter if it’s homebrew? It is defiantly better quality than many recent DS games!