Nintendo denies official DS developer status to 'Bob's Game' creator

Yuu's made a mess of his room...

If it's actually any good, people won't pay him the $5 anyway. People are like that.

This is actually a question I'd like to see explored more, even outside the context of Bob's Game. Would it be legal to sell a homebrew ROM you created? (Questions of whether anyone would buy it aside - I'm speaking purely from a hypothetical legal standpoint.) Perhaps more accurately, would Nintendo go ahead and try and sue you anyway even if it were legal, in hopes of pressuring you to stop?

I'm kinda bummed the DS generation doesn't have its Color Dreams yet. The ease of internet distribution and the anecdotes I've heard of widespread proliferation of ROM-capable devices would suggest this ought to be easier than ever. But either there's some precedent or obstacle I'm not aware of or in this age of the DMCA and its children worldwide, no one wants to take the legal risk.

I wouldn't pay him the $5 because he's a dick.

Yes, it would be legal. Tengen won the legal battle for this back with the original NES when they sold their own cartrages for games like Gauntlet.

put it on the iPhone, iPod, get on board with an exciting platform as opposed to one playing catchup tech-wise (DSi)

It's not a good game. It's interesting would probably be a decent homebrew adventure, but a commercial-quality (whatever that is) product it is not.

Also, he didn't have as much public support as Yuu'd imagine and causing trouble at a Nintendo Store is not the best way to draw support...

You can youtube it. The game is no more than exploration game a la Myst, with 2D rpg graphics. It is NOT an rpg, yet Bob touts himself for all his "pretty art work" done by, guess who? Rob Pelloni. He starting firing off on all cylinders too early. Hey, people fuck up. They write songs thinking, super star, and they play sports thinking, pro-player. He just happens to know how to make a game. Welcome to reality Bob, with all that time and effort, he was better off getting a job with Nintendo and hoping he could use his resources from within to accomplish his goal. He reminds me of the Matrix designer guy from the movie Grandma's Boy.

@Tem:

Unless you have played it, you have no idea if it's a good game or not. Looking at screens, descriptions and video of Earthbound, I'd say it sucks. But playing it proves otherwise. Criticize his stunts, but don't confuse that with a game that has potential to be very good.

As for Bob, the guy has a point--Nintendo is much more restrictive about its SDK than, say, Microsoft, which provides anyone for FREE the tools to create community games. That said, one guy isn't going to change Nintendo.

As for Bob and Bob-wannabes, know exactly what you're to make and make sure you have everything you need BEFORE you spend any significant time and money on it. And know that you're not going to force or emotionally blackmail a large corporation to do something they've not done before and won't do.

I would love to try Bob's Game and decide for myself how crappy it is. However, Bob's insistence on making it impossible for anyone to play it by refusing to go with any publisher other than Nintendo has forced me to rely on his Youtube videos and years of experience playing RPGs. You're right, I can't judge how well the game plays without playing it, but from all the media Bob has released on it, the game looks to be extremely mediocre, contains little if no traditional RPG elements (it claims to be a traditional RPG), does not support dual-screen (if they could do it for the Chrono Trigger port, I'm sure Bob could think of something), and the developer lacks creativity on almost every front.

That being said, send me a copy Bob and I'd be more than happy to review it for Yuu.

"He reminds me of the Matrix designer guy from the movie Grandma's Boy"

Exactly. Bob got caught up in his own bs here and now just comes across as a loser psycho who nobody in their right mind would back. It's really sad he had to go the route he did for attention, but in the end he can bask in the glory that is being posted as a news story on gaming sites and being issued a form rejection letter by a game company. In some weird way that matters to him, so conrats Bob - you showed the world what a loon you are and we wasted time paying attention.

I've heard that all you actually need is:

- a business license
- a development studio in a commercially-zoned area

In which case, if he just had a real office he could have gotten the SDK

I wonder what Nintendo's training video has to say about this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYjgHLFZMa0

When you look at some of the titles the Wii has you gotta wonder how 'bad' Bob's game is. Either that, or the only requirement for making a Wii game is to have an office and employees...

Its annoying how the Wii is getting swamped with dud titles. It makes the good titles look bad when its flanked on the shelves by "Crappy Generic Waggle Fighter" and "Poorly Implemented Waggle Racer"

Anyway, back on topic, this dude has most definitely burned his bridges and I wouldn't be surprised if he ruined his career as a developer. There are a few 'weird' devs out there but at least they have some weight behind them *looks at Peter Molyneux*

Um. Every fighter and racer on the Wii has classic controller support...your analogy is terrible.

Because his dream was to make a Nintendo game.

He is that spastastic.

Have you ever paid $10-15 for a homebrew title?

Didn't think so...

No, but maybe I should've said "if he was smart".

I don't follow...

No-one ever claimed he was smart.

What do you want to bet the kid has rich parents and has never had a real job in his life?

People who take the initiative, are the people who drive innovation. Even if they end up messing up completely.

Ignoring them, in long term, only ensures business road to oblivion.

Essentially, to have a future, business need to have people who care about product and platform.

Nintendo has one such guy - Miyamoto. But having only one such guy marginalize chances of company to tap to wider markets - because view of the company then is one-sided. And surprise-surprise - Nintendo's view of gaming market *is* one-sided.

I fail to see how Bob's Game would 'drive innovation'.

I agree. But I still think Bob is a little crazy.

See, the problem is suckage isn't relative. The games you listed sucks. This game looks sucky.

And I can't speak for Nintendo but they likely didn't want him because of whatever initial reasons, but these later reasons - littering in their store, going insane, having no financial security like Ubisoft does, disrespecting Nintendo high ups are all going to put the brakes on this.

Also his inability to draw sprites.

Bob, is that yuu?

The quality of the game has nothing to do with it. If Yuu look at the criteria necessary to be a developer for NOA, Bob doesn't fit any of it.

And New Guy, we know Yuu're Bob, so stop hiding.

I still think my game looks better than any pokemon game, or any other 2d rpg. There is tons of stuff to do, over 100 hours of gameplay and tons of characters!

RDRR!

I wouldn't say so. What drives pokemon is the excessive customization and collection do-whackey. Your RPG just looks dull and uninteresting compared to the good RPGs out there.

I'll be pathetic since your taking the easy road in this matter. Compare kids titles , to bob's game = "hey whats the big deal, i rather bob's game!" From what i have seen, It doesn't support both DS screens. Its actually looks to have no purpose in general.


Really i think you are just taking a stab at Nintendo by your statement. His game was intended for the DS not the Wii. Although i am not a big fan of Nintendo products currently. I can see that your just taking shots at Nintendo in general. You can reach bob, im sure he would be glad to sell/give you a copy...

Woops, if you are claiming to be Rob himself, then scratch what i said. Go sit down, take a deep breath and reflect on how you failed at getting Nintendo to work with you.

"You guys are pathetic, im supporting this guy 100%"

Also Bob, insulting your potential customer base isn't the best way to garner support. May I recommend taking a business class or two to develop professional etiquette and the basics of not being a whiny little b*tch when things dont go your way.

XNA is your friend, Bob.

If newguy isn't bob, then (s)he's some asian chick hired via Craig's list.

Ubisoft might have lots of crap games but it has a million dollar capital making them "financial stable".

Oh and I'm pretty sure Nintendo will release something like XNA for DSi.
DS SDK must include some sort of encryption used to boot the games. If the encryption leaks to the scene Flash Cards will be perfected.

Oh stop pretending - You're not Bob. The guy in the videos isn't Bob either. And neither is the guy on Bob's website.

Bob is the Keyser Soze of video game development. When you saw Bob being kidnapped by aliens, it was actually you that was being kidnapped.

Hmmm - in hindsight, that's even better in Bobspeak:

Oh stop pretending - Yuu're not Bob. The guy in the videos isn't Bob either. And neither is the guy on Bob's website.

Bob is the Keyser Soze of video game development. When Yuu saw Bob being kidnapped by aliens, it was actually Yuu that was being kidnapped.

(As an aside, I think it would be awesome if, as Mko predicts, there were some kind of more-widely-available devkit for the DSi. However, I'm not holding my breath. While I don't agree with what Bob is doing, he HAS run up against one of the few flaws at Nintendo, which is that they have a view of developers and the development process that has remained essentially unchanged since the 1980s, and there is no room in that process for small indies. It makes a certain amount of sense. In the '80s, the video game industry was collapsing under - among other things - the weight of a ton of crappy games for consoles anyone could code for. One of the reasons for the NES' enduring success was that Nintendo strictly controlled who could program for it, thus filtering out much of the crap. This is a lesson they've taken to heart since - always retaining tighter control over their SDKs than any other console manufacturer for fear of a trade secrets leak leading to a wave of debilitating awfulness. However, their measuring stick is outmoded - they trust any large corporation and shun any one- or two-man developer, not realizing that large corporations and lone indies are both capable of producing genius (Bioshock, Braid) and crap. (Bratz, Kitchen Sink Wars))