2K exec unhappy with flood of 'crappy' casual Wii titles

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jan 14th 2009 at 9:25AM }

2K Games Global President Christoph Hartmann is back with another warning. Speaking with MCV, he expressed his belief that publishers bringing non-licensed casual games to Wii this year could struggle because the console is flooded by "crappy titles." Hartmann's example has publishers releasing ten games in the hopes that two hits will pay for the other eight. All this does, he said, is flood the market and confuse consumers.

According to the executive, if 2K's hit casual title Carnival Games were released today it would struggle to find an audience. Despite the Wii selling incredibly well, new casual brands seem to be lost in the flood of shovelware, with retailers already having little shelf space to spare.

Tags: 2k-games, carnival-games, christoph-hartmann, take-two

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Zertoss @ Jan 14th 2009 9:31AM

The thought of Wal-Mart denying titles any shelf space due to quality issues makes me giggle.

"I'm sorry, but that game is just too shitty to meet the high standards Wal-Mart has set for selling games."

Brodo @ Jan 14th 2009 9:34AM

Here at wal-mart we strive for only the top quality titles for our customers. We would never sell a game like elf bowling or Vampire Rain because if anyone ever bought it we would feel horrible and lose hours upon hours of sleep everynight with our conscious taking us on a rollercoaster ride through a dark, omnious cave.

Farseer (GDI) @ Jan 14th 2009 9:42AM

Seriously, though Wal-Mart has some high standards...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v457/BlackFridayRuler/walmart.jpg

borland502 (SDF Macross) @ Jan 14th 2009 9:51AM

If Walmart denies your title space then you should leave the industry not just in shame, but in utter defeat. Hell, Walmart's the last place that I get that old "PC Expo" shareware feeling when I browse their aisles.

9600baud @ Jan 14th 2009 9:43AM

Dont let him see the Apple app store

Mike @ Jan 14th 2009 9:48AM

God I love that bathroom.

mr nimblewick @ Jan 14th 2009 9:56AM

Maybe it's time he released something good then.

samfish @ Jan 14th 2009 10:45AM

It's hilarious that the Carnival Games people are saying people need to make more quality games.
Granted, Carnival Games isn't anywhere near as bad as it could be, but compared to Wii Sports, it's a piece of shit. Hell, even Wii Play has more polish to it.

The game sold well over a million copies...so it's kinda sad that they apparently didn't invest any of those profits into the sequels...

Rocketboy @ Jan 14th 2009 11:03AM

Carnival Games is a shovelware minigame collection, that for some reason, people happen to like. I can see how he might be concerned that in a market full of shovelware minigames, that yet another minigame collection might have issues being found.

The Dark Wayne @ Jan 14th 2009 10:02AM

i have no idea why but the first thing i thought of when i saw that picture was Half Life 2

I DeX I @ Jan 14th 2009 10:04AM

Ten bucks for anyone willing to drink out of that wash bowl :)

ScottG13 @ Jan 14th 2009 10:13AM

This is all on Nintendo. They're the ones licensing out the platform to anyone who wants to port of a piece of shit in Flash. Cut the crap back. Why not have internal reviewers that require at least a 5.0 or so quality. Seems like there are some free industry vets that could help out with this.

iag25 @ Jan 14th 2009 10:35AM

Back in the SNES/NES days there was quality control, but because of their lack of market share with the gamecube I think they were happy with anyone making games for them on the Wii.

Xbox360 and ps3 have the same issue. Yaris anyone ?

ScottG13 @ Jan 14th 2009 10:49AM

Do you REALLY think we could find the same ratio of quality to crap on the current gen platforms? Don't be silly. The Wii is a port factory for complete garbage. There are clearly some great titles for it, but they are easily buried.

Kye says: I like turtles @ Jan 14th 2009 10:52AM

I just wih ninty would release full games instead of just tech demos.
*coughwiiplaycough*

t_m @ Jan 14th 2009 11:01AM

Its the publishers fault more than nintendos. Heck, its mostly the fault of the Wii's success and the cost of developing titles for the PS3 and 360.

The PS2 had just as much shovelware on it.

That said, i DO wish some people would put some effort into some decent Wii titles... its past the "fad" stage now, so they could actually invest a little money in the titles.

Danny F. @ Jan 14th 2009 11:05AM

If they cut back on licensing imagine all the developers that would go insane! Look at the "Bob's Game" for the DS developer.. he went coocoo within a month. o_O (Then again not to sound too harsh but his project looked like pure homebrew quality then professional.)

offday @ Jan 14th 2009 11:13AM

"Xbox360 and ps3 have the same issue. Yaris anyone ?"

Uhh yeah that was free. Big difference giving between giving away a crappy a game and charging for it.

ScottG13 @ Jan 14th 2009 11:16AM

Even worse, they change very LITTLE for the crapware thus helping it sell and keeping it on shelves and covering up quality full priced titles that don't have Mario in them.

Mr Khan @ Jan 14th 2009 11:29AM

But those full-priced titles generally do well in their own time, if they aren't totally niche. Wario Land: Shake It!, never did well, but de Blob did, and so did Boom Blox, No More Heroes, Zack and Wiki, and many other titles that people like to point at to say "See: only shit sells on Wii!"

ScottG13 @ Jan 14th 2009 12:31PM

I'm fairly certain those titles cost more and did worse than projected and one of the causes is shovelware. Developers are scared of getting their 2 year developed title covered up by the weekly 4 month development time shovelware deluge. I own Boom Blox and NMH. I don't know ANYONE else that does unless I recommended them. And I know probably a dozen or so Wii owners. They all have Carnival Games and Wii Play and other shit. Its insane.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Jan 14th 2009 1:37PM

Remember when people complained about the lack of third-party titles on the Gamecube? The Wii is doing the complete opposite by allowing any yahoo develop crap shovelware onto their system, while relieving "1st-party pressure" by releasing less titles of their well-known franchises.

Dean @ Jan 14th 2009 10:17AM

Woaw, that toilet.... i cant think of anything else better then that toilet right now, ill place a bid for 150 quid, is it a bucket with a worktop nailed to it? Fucking amazing idea, no waste on water bills or w/e toilets take up

Just remember to empty and spit clean after use and you'll be set for life time, (Add extra support to bucket depending on where you buy)

Lolz

DiRT @ Jan 14th 2009 10:22AM

My 3 year old son loves Carnival Games. Seriously. He'd play it every day if we'd let him. I know the game gets dogged, but it's pretty good for it's intended market.

JPN @ Jan 14th 2009 10:25AM

I'm sorry but how is more choice a bad thing? People are confused? Confused about what? You pick a game and buy it. If you don't like it, you pick another one. God forbid a consumer do a little research before dropping $40 - $60 on a game. I'd rather have more choices to sift through and more options than one game a year that others might think is "good" but I don't. I don't play Halo/COD/etc. on my 360 and thank god there are more choices than that. Different people have different tastes. One man's crap is another man's treasure.

Zertoss @ Jan 14th 2009 10:29AM

Carnival Games
Minigame Carnival
Carnival of Fun
Carnival Collection
The Carnival Game
Hey Kids! CARNIVAL!

This is not an unbelievable situation.

Cody @ Jan 14th 2009 3:22PM

lmao @ the belief that there is anything other than "Halo/COD/etc." on 360

Dummy00001 @ Jan 14th 2009 5:39PM

"""People are confused?"""

Yeah. Because some crappy game for $20 and rating of 20% plays the same as some $60 games with rating of >60%.

And that what makes people confused: competition. It's bad for business (forced to lower prices) and it's bad for customers because they easily gets confused.

"""I'd rather have more choices to sift through and more options than one game a year that others might think is "good" but I don't."""

You sound pathetic. You sound like PC gamer. PC gamer who's spoiled with choice and diversity of entertainment. It's time for you to ebay SNES and confine your self to basement with Super Mario cartridge.

[/sarcasm]

Lee @ Jan 14th 2009 10:30AM

Idea: do something about it. Don't sit and complain, make a brilliant game to attract the hardcore crowd.

samfish @ Jan 14th 2009 10:40AM

I was at Best Buy a week r so ago looking at games and a HUGE chunk of the rack was dedicated to Ubisoft's shitty shovelware games. It kind of made me sick, especially when I realized that probably a lot of people are going to see literally 6-8 different 'Imagine' titles all next to eachother and think, "Oh, this must be quality, look at all the sequels!"

As much as I love Nintendo, they really need to put a stop to this. All it takes is one or two bad experiences with these horrible games to turn these newer gamers off on videogames forever.

Zertoss @ Jan 14th 2009 10:53AM

Posting after samfish to confuse Levi.

You're exactly right, though. Not that I think of quality when I think of Best Buy, but the Imagine wall is just too much.

And the peripherals aren't better. MadCatz would go out of business if Nintendo went back to their Seal of Quality campaign (even though all you have to do to get a SoQ is make a product that works).

Mr Khan @ Jan 14th 2009 11:35AM

That's been the problem, though, up to this point. 3rd Parties, up until recently, would have taken any excuse to not develop for Wii. If Nintendo had cracked down, they would've simply packed up and left

For now, however, the ball is in Nintendo's court, as the 3rd parties that are really working with the Wii are doing well, and the ones that aren't are (generally) suffering, so now could be the time to impose some sort of quality standard. Nothing draconian, just enough to stem the tide

whistlepig @ Jan 14th 2009 10:42AM

i dont believe it for one second . i thought everything on the wii is gold ? i mean thats all i hear all the time is how great the games are . i think maybe this story is a fake .

Kye says: I like turtles @ Jan 14th 2009 10:50AM

Amen brother!

Evan @ Jan 14th 2009 10:59AM

The PS2 was also flooded with shovelware and other crap.

- Over 1800 PS2 titles were produced.
- 80% of PS2 games reviewed by metacritic scored under 80%.
- 93% of PS2 titles sold under 1 million copies each.
- 74% of PS2 game sales came from titles selling under 1 million copies.

But no one whined about this crap on the PS2.

Zertoss @ Jan 14th 2009 11:05AM

I did. Fuck those shitty games.

aristokrat @ Jan 14th 2009 11:17AM

Well, your "80% under 80%" argument makes perfect sense. The top 20% were the top 20%. I wonder if there are any other alignments in the score breakdown for the PS2. One could take that as proof that the ratings actually work.

Lee @ Jan 14th 2009 12:42PM

You're forgetting the stat that says only 5 or so PS2 titles were worth playing at all.

Zertoss @ Jan 14th 2009 12:55PM

Probably because that's not accurate at all.

ymmv @ Jan 14th 2009 12:55PM

The PS2 got huge amounts of shovelware, but it also got lots and lots of excellent third party games: Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Onimusha, Grand Theft Auto, Yakuza, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, Metal Gear Solid, Zone of the Enders, God of War, Ace Combat, Soul Calibur, Disgaea, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Prince of Persia, Kingdom Hearts .... etc etc. I could go on and on.

The Wii doesn't get any of the abovementioned titles, they now all go to the PS360. All the Wii gets are the traditional Nintendo titles, party games and casual titles from third parties and shovelware.

If you want quality gaming on the Wii, you should stick with Nintendo titles because everything else (with a few exceptions like Zack and Wiki) is crap.

ill trooper @ Jan 14th 2009 4:34PM

"But no one whined about this crap on the PS2."

But the implications of your own post contradict your ending statement: you gave us stats SHOWING the percentage of people "whining" about the poor quality of the games by rating them low. So I would say people did notice and identified the crap. Respectfully, it sounds like you're a Wii fan who got his feelings hurt a little by this post.

offday @ Jan 14th 2009 11:11AM

Glad to see someone who works in games understands the situation.

Shagittarius @ Jan 14th 2009 11:14AM

"Stop releasing crap so my crap will sell!"

aristokrat @ Jan 14th 2009 11:27AM

From an economic viewpoint, the onus should be on the stores (for their own best interest). Say that as a store you decide to only offer quality, regardless of whether its hardcore or casual. You choose what to stock based on reviews (either internal or external/meta) and let your customers know this: "All our games are hand-picked to be good" with good meaning above a 70 on metacritic or something. While that would first look like shooting yourself in the foot because of decreasing consumer options, by increasing consumer confidence you could then offer good obscure games as well. Ultimately, you'd have more sell-through because all of your inventory would move (instead of hoping that Carnival Games nth sells off its two copies that are occupying shelf-space), and you'd have more return casual buyers who don't want to invest time in researching games when they could just pick up something interesting from your store. The publishers might not like it, but if you got enough loyalty from your customer base, then you'd be able to through your weight around a little more. I can imagine that some publishers would definitely be down with this idea, because then they wouldn't have to compete with LazyPortedSoftware Inc, and there'd be more incentive to produce quality games (esp. for casuals because right now a quality casual game is easily lost in the flood).

Why no retail chain has ever attempted something like this I don't know. Talk about a way to differentiate yourself.

tiamat5 @ Jan 14th 2009 12:20PM

It is amazing how everyone is always ready to make excuses for the WII. Of course Carnival Games would struggle to find an audience because it is a crappy idea. You want to know what is wrong with the WII? The WII-mote. If Nintendo would stop trying to find ways to use the WII-mote in a game and instead concentrating on better graphics, story and gameplay they would be fine.
All they think of is "How can we squeeze a WII-mote functionality into the game?" "I know let's make you spin it around to open doors" or "swing it to throw grenades" or "push it back and forth to punch" Meanwhile the game looks and plays like crap with glitches, bad animation and low level graphics.Sure Carnival Games is a perfect game for the WII-mote. But who cares? Why should I play some half- @$$ed game Nintendo and their followers came up with just so I can swing the WII-mote around and point at the screen? But I have a feeling I just wasted my time writing this.

samfish @ Jan 14th 2009 12:28PM

You know Nintendo didn't make Carnival Games, right?

mazza_man @ Jan 14th 2009 12:39PM

You have just wasted your time writing that. It's about the control method you moron. How the hell is moving the remote back and forward to punch trying to shove motion controls into a game? I don't know if you realised this, but when you punch you move your fists back and forwards. Therefore if makes perfect sense for you to do that with the Wii.

Likewise, the throwing of a grenade does usually involve some swinging of the arm. Again, it makes perfect sense to do this with the wiimote.

If you're gonna try and bash the Wii's motion controls, at least do it properly and say things actually make sense.

Jackass.

tiamat5 @ Jan 14th 2009 8:51PM

My point was ,if you could stop calling me names long enough to listen, is that once again like the DS, Nintendo has something and doesn't know what to do with it. They think of motion control first and game afterward. Look for example the Conduit. They keep taking about it being built especially for the WII-mote but the clips that they showed where so pixalated that the screen I watched it on blurred when the gun was shot.My point was who CARES if you swing your hand to throw a grenade or move the controller back and forth to punch if the game looks like garbage. The Bleach Game that they made on the WII wasn't any better because you swung your arms to chop with the sword.
My point is that Nintendo should stop focusing on the awards that they got for the stupid WII-mote and instead concentrate on using some of that money they got to improve on the quality of their games and stop making shovelware like Nerf N blaster, Carnival Games and the stupid record breaking game just because it gives you an excuse to use the clumsy controller's functionality.