Nigoro opens up on overseas La-Mulana WiiWare cancellation
A few days ago, Nicalis shared the surprising news that the company wouldn’t be publishing La-Mulana on the North American/European Wii Shop Channels. Nicalis made the announcement even though the game had been confirmed for both regions close to three years ago.
Now Nigoro is sharing their side of the story. La-Mulana’s director Takumi Naramura answered a few questions in an IndieGames interview, commenting on publisher agreements, contracts, any possible deadlines, and more.
Head on past the break for Naramura’s words.
Naramura on any agreement to publish in NOA/NOE by a certain deadline…
“I think the deadline was not fixed in particular. We have an agreement that we submit the game when it is finished. I say later, LA-MULANA had a lot of checks with Nintendo several times. When the problems are pointed out, we passed to Nicalis the fixed master data by about few weeks each time.”
Naramura on whether or not fixing the game for distribution in the US/EU markets was Nigoro’s responsibility…
“Fixing the game was in our charge, and we have left Nicalis to submit the game to NOA and NOE. We have a contract with Nintendo Japan, and Nicalis have contracts with NOA and NOE. Therefore, we have no way to check the progress of LA-MULANA English version for WiiWare directly.”
Naramura on whether or not anyone neglected their duties as developer or publisher…
“We have responded quickly and in good faith, while we are puzzled that the matters pointed out received a lot of checks. NOA and NOE are different from Nintendo Japan. I believe Nicalis had a sense of responsibility as a publisher in good faith, too.
“Unfortunately we wanted to release DLC, but we were supposed to cancel the DLC because of a number of factors and Nicalis’s request. If there is a person who has neglected their duties, it would be us. We are sorry that we could not publish any information for several months because of the contract and circumstances with Nicalis.
“It has happened like this, and we should have talked to fans about it all sooner. In this regard we want to apologize obediently. We must keep an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) with Nintendo and Nicalis, naturally, so we could not speak details even if you wanted to talk about it.”
Naramura on the necessity of overseas sales…
“In order for us to succeed as an indie game developer in the future, overseas sales are essential. In recent years downloadable content and indie games have begun to attract attention in Japan, the population of Japan is much less than in North America firstly. Also it sold a indie game in Japan, to acquire the sales equivalent to the development fund is very hard.
“Indie game developers continue to work in Japan without also considering overseas sales is difficult. In order for us to distribute the games to gamers overseas from now on, we want gamer overseas to know details of indie game scene in Japan. We must open up the export market so Japanese indie games will be accepted.
“The digital distribution only game is never “sold out” because it is a different from a physical package. Therefore, it can be expected to sell for a long period of time. So, we thought LA-MULANA must be exciting and perfect. We were encouraging the production without considering our profit…
“I think that to get enough sales to fund our next games, sales in Japan only are not enough. We did our best in a situation where we didn’t get income.
“Unfortunately, the incident had happened like this, we hope you judge by whether LA-MULANA is exciting or not rather than to judge Wii or Nicalis and NIGORO. So, we have been developing the final part of the PC version with all our might, with nothing stop us anymore.
“In conclusion, let me add a few words. If there was no offer from Nicalis, we would not have remade LA-MULANA. We are grateful to Nicalis even now. Before an offer from Nicalis came, we did not even know how to enter the consumer world. Because we have spent a lot of time in the making of the original LA-MULANA, we did not intend to remake it as our first consumer game.”
Naramura on any interest in working with Nicalis to publish future games…
“I think it is difficult to be active in the consumer market for indie game makers, such as our small company. Since Nicalis has been also active in the consumer market, I think they will become one of the candidates as publisher if we make new consumer games in the future. However, I think we are the awkward developer for the publishers since we have a policy to make the game we want.”
Naramura on how many people work at Nigoro…
“NIGORO as a game development team is composed of three people.”
