[Developer Musings] The journey into the unknown: indies offer insight into Nintendo’s potential mobile strategies

Nintendo’s entry into the mobile market through its partnership with DeNA is a natural fit, but moving forward it does beg a lot of questions. When you combine Nintendo’s notoriety for doing things their own way with the unforgiving nature of the mobile market outside of the already flooded free-to-play space, its not as simple as making a Mario endless runner and calling it a day. Nintendo has an interesting set of challenges put forward to them, as the kind of investment they make in this space could have some unprecedented consequences for their own handheld platform.

We reached out to developers Springloaded Software, Joost van Dongen, Rawkins Games, and Yazar Media Group for their take on the best way for Nintendo to get some of the mobile limelight and use it as a way to get more consumers back where they really want them – on their own systems. How can the two spaces co-exist without diminishing what’s already there with the 3DS? Is it possible for the mobile titles to exist as both good standalone products as well as a good entry point for Nintendo systems? Will Nintendo finally have to follow the trend rather than setting it when it comes to working on a platform that’s not their own? Having existed in both the traditional console and mobile spaces themselves, our guests this week offer some insight into some of the possibilities Nintendo has going forward.

James Barnard – Springloaded Software

Previous Works: Springloaded has mostly been known for its work in the mobile space. Games like Hiragana Pixel Party and Atomic Test Pilot Zero have made their way to mobile platforms. The developer recently started bringing its games to the 3DS eShop, including Heart Beaten.

Upcoming Games: Hiragana Pixel Party and Nuclien are two games expected to make their way to the 3DS eShop in the future. Depending on how Springloaded’s eShop games perform, it’s possible that the studio will create even more titles for Nintendo’s handheld.

Springloaded is primarily a mobile free to play developer these days, so my opinion is going to be fairly obvious.

There are a lot of interesting facets to the whole thing though, not least of which is public perception. Like most people I love Mario / Zelda / Pokemon etc. I just finished Pikmin 3, which I think makes my top 5 games of all-time list! Is there a single free to play game in that list? No.

I think when most people ask themselves why none of their favourite games are free to play mobile games, they jump to the simple obvious conclusion, “These games are terrible. They are repetitive, mindless and designed to take my money”. I think this is thinking about things in a very defensive way, while I can agree that a lot of that is true in most cases, the thing people need to do is remember that the medium of F2P is still very new, and that if people didn’t enjoy the games then they wouldn’t continue to exist.

If we look at the mobile market, it’s inescapable for developers, the pull of billions of players and the potential of having that many people potentially playing your game is simply too hard to resist. But the developers have been caught largely off guard, we spent the last 30 years figuring out how to make stand alone, amazing adventures that take 20 hours to get through, Pikmin, Journey and Half Life are to some, the pinnacle of gaming. And to those who believe that, they feel that the very foundation of the medium the love so much is being destroyed by F2P games made by greedy publishers.

If you think about other things, taking music as an example, when Punk came along everyone who was quite happy with the music they were listening to at the time hated it. If we compare that to mobile games, then we get lots of people saying “These aren’t games” just as people said “Punk isn’t music”. It’s simply different, and for us to have a closed mind towards it shows a lack of empathy for games as a medium that is driven by the players who play them, and not the opinions of a few people who feel they know better.

Almost everyone is playing mobile games now, and if you talk to anyone under the age of 25, they don’t really have a problem with f2p, they have spent their formative years playing mobile games and are accepting of it, and see it as a great way to play games socially with their friends. Minecraft is more popular with teenagers than any other age group, and to many people it’s a bewildering sandbox with a lack of goals and scripted content. However we don’t see Minecraft as evil because it isn’t mining us for our money, and it offers creative expression. Despite that, many people still don’t understand what makes Minecraft work as a game. Mobile games are similar, many people really enjoy defeating time limited world bosses with their friends and don’t mind paying for the experience. For some, this experience is as much a social one as it is a game.

In short, games have changed, and we just need to be aware that a lot of people haven’t kept up, or shown a desire to evolve with the medium.

For Nintendo, going to mobile seems like an obvious choice for a whole host of reasons:

1 – They will expose their IP to millions of new users, and ensure their brands endure, and become more mass market. I don’t see why Pikmin can’t have the audience of a Pixar movie, it certainly has the beauty and the depth.

2 – In the process of making their IP better known, they may convert a few users into playing on the Wii-U or 3DS, but in reality I can’t see this being a big driver of their strategy, as many people wont see the need to own another device to play games on when they already have a phone.

3 – Obviously Nintendo hope to make money from the situation. I am sure we all want to ensure that Nintendo remain a prolific developer for the rest of time! And making their business as stable as possible can only be good for that. Will this ultimately lead to the end of the Wii/DS line? Perhaps it will, but realistically is anyone expecting a PS4, XBoxTwo or VitaX? Games have changed, and so has the way people want to play them. We can feel sad about it (I do), but it’s like people who still buy records (like I sometimes do!) we are clinging on to the past, and are in the minority. Eventually everything will be streamed, and we will take our media with us wherever we go on a single device.

4 – Nintendo is Nintendo! We all love Nintendo, and believe them to be probably the best developer on the planet, I really can’t see them doing a bad game. I think they might actually be the saviour of the mobile F2P industry! My belief is they will make stunningly beautiful games, that will show the publishers out there that there are many other ways to make money and sustain yourself in the mobile market. Currently most companies follow the same monetization strategies, and I hope Nintendo manage to open up the market with innovative ideas and creative products. This could usher in a new leap in creativity for mass market games.

While I am sure most people reactions to the news were somewhat sceptical, we have to trust Nintendo to carry on being amazing, and a world with more Nintendo products is better than a world with less. So don’t fear, Everything will be OK!

Joost van Dongen – Ronimo Games

Previous Works: Ronimo Games’ first project was the excellent Swords & Soldiers for Wii. The studio went on to create Awesomenauts, a multiplayer online battle arena game. Joost van Dongen was personally involved with the creation of Proun+.

Upcoming Games: Ronimo Games is just a few days away from releasing the Wii U-exclusive Swords & Soldiers II. Look for the game on May 21!

Nintendo going mobile is of course big news, as mobile games are heavily competing with their own 3DS. The big question is what Nintendo is going to do. It is possible to think of scenarios where Nintendo might dilute their own market, like if they would offer their main franchises for only a couple of bucks on mobile. I have no idea what Nintendo is planning, but I doubt they will do this. Nintendo has a track record of innovation, polish and fun, and I think there is plenty of space for doing something different in mobile.

They mentioned “a new multi-device membership service”. They could do all kinds of fun cross-overs with this, my imagination goes wild with the endless possibilities. How about a Farmville-like Pikmin game on mobile that gives special perks in the big Pikmin game on Wii U? Or managing a village on mobile that shows up in the world of the next Zelda game, exactly like you are building it in the mobile companion game? There are endless possibilities here and if there is one company that has proven to be able to surprise us with exciting new angles, it is Nintendo.