Reggie on Bob's Game: Refused license doesn't reflect on Nintendo's support for the little guy

by Ben Gilbert on Apr 4th 2009 11:00AM

You remember Bob's Game, don't you? The humble 2D RPG made by a single, possibly loony, individual? Well nearly two months have gone by since the game's creator Robert Pelloni was denied developer status by Nintendo and -- other than a NYC littering spree -- we've heard little about the game as of late. In an interview with Nintendo big boss Reggie Fils-Aime on MTV Multiplayer last week, however, the record was set considerably straighter.

When asked for his side of the story on what had come to pass, the Regginator had this to say: "He did submit to be a licensed developer. We have an evaluation process. We evaluated the opportunity. We decided at this point in time that he did not meet the requirements to be a licensed developer." Well that about does it then, no? Apparently MTV wanted more from the conversation, pushing the CEO on what to do if a developer wants to work with Nintendo but doesn't necessarily have two or three major games under its belt, "My hope is that any developer who has a compelling idea will reach out to our licensing organization and share their idea and go through the process of becoming a licensed developer for the Nintendo platform," Fils-Aime said, "And we have a legacy of supporting that type of development."

Unfortunately, as it seems, Mr. Pelloni's game wasn't quite "compelling" enough of an idea.

Source

Tags: 2d, bobs-game, development, DS, mtv-multiplayer, Nintendo, reggie-fils-aime, regginator, robert-pelloni, rpg, stephen-totilo

Reader Comments (126)

It boggles the mind that people still give a shit about this guy.

It boggles the mind that they find All-Star Cheer Squad a more compelling game than this, though.

Hardly anybody gives a shit about Bob any more.
His 100 days of "protest" got a lot of attention, but as soon as the game demo came out, the response was "meh" and Bob lost a lot of publicity.

People are far more interested in how Nintendo work.

I personally think it looks like a really cool game, one I would actually get for the DS if I still owned one, but it's Bob who is killing the chances on it.

Seriously, he keeps toting "Hey, I built this game in 5 years!" Well, you're really slow then. Being a licensed developer means that they expect you to make new games every year. Being a one-staffed team isn't going to help your chances there.

I can't wait for the sequel Bob's Game 2 in 8 years with more content all made by one person. Since, you know, the average gamer always factors in how many people worked on a game to judge it accordingly. /sarcasm.

All bob needs to do is take his head out of his ass, and try to form a real game development studio. Then after having a realistic amount of people working on games I'm sure the studio would get the license.

That probably won't happen though because he seems too stuck on "zomg, I did this myself"

I don't think Bob needs to create a "real studio" to be legitimate. Plenty of decent games have been made by one person. The size of a development studio has little to say about the quality of a game. Despite being a bit of a turd, at least Bob is holding on to his vision, which might not happen with a "real studio".

ITT: People who didn't get the whole purpose of bobsgame.com

He was making an IRL parallel to the villain in the game.

@Tiptup300:
I see the point in your argument. Thing is, if you've played ANY Shanghai Alice game [the entirety of the Touhou Project series], you'll learn that the games are mostly developed by ONE man. This includes game engine, graphics, characters, animation, and MUSIC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou_Project

And jeebus, Joystiq's comment system is absolute shit.

@tuptup300

I agree and kinda disagree with you. It does seem like a fun game and I think what Bob is saying and doing are killing his chances, but the whole thing about starting a game studio, not really necessary, although it could help.

I understand that it took him QUITE a while to make his game, but if he gets upset about his game not getting picked up by Nintendo and doing all these things because he's pissed are just screwing up his chances at possibly working with NIntendo in the future. Maybe Bob could've asked why it wasn't picked up by Nintendo and made the necessary changes.

He could have also tried to release it as DSiWare.

How could Nintendo expect one guy to make a game every year when they barely make enough games for their own systems?

I bought All-Star Cheer Squad just to spite Bob.

ASCS ROX, BTW.

I seriously don't like Pelloni and his antics. He gives independent creators a bad name. I've already linked the wiki to the Touhou Project. If Pelloni wants to prove himself as an awesome and creative coder, he'll have to outclass the style and polish of the Touhou Project games.

F-ing Joystiq comment system is f-ing broken. F-ing POS.

I guarantee it would have been better than half the crap Nintendo is promoting these days.

I've played it. It's not.

let me guess, its either a self-indulgent fantasy or a bad Earthbound clone.

lol no

It HAS to be better than wii music though....right?

It's Retro Games Challenge, except instead of tributes (if Tetrids is any indication) the games are inferior knockoffs and the main character, who is obviously supposed to be Bob, is autistic or something. And yes, it's completely self-indulgent. Everything about it just screams "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT WHAT I DID!"

Not an Earthbound clone, though. It's not really an RPG at all, from what I can tell. Unless it suddenly turns into one later. There's probably an RPG game in it somewhere, though. Called Linal Lantasy with Back Mages and Dighters. Welcome to Borneria!

Seems like its just more of a quality issue. If it doesn't stack up, they're not going to bother. Though Nintendo definitely has a substantial recent history of utter garbage published. Ninjabread Man or Jenga anyone?

First time I've heard of this Bob fella, but I'm not surprised Nintendo would make such a dick move--and that's really all it is. If you want to play garbage, just pick up any other DS or Wii title. And I'm even including first party stuff. (Though I guess it'd be recycled garbage technically.) I know this guy's game is a lot better than the stuff you normally see on Nintendo platforms.

Nintendo didn't publish either of those titles.

So you mean this guy is better than the best of the best? That's unpossible

He's not trying to get Nintendo to publish his title. He's trying to get certified as a developer for Nintendo platforms. Publishing and developing are two very different things.

I think a lot of people are missing a crucial point here. What Bob wanted is more than just some license, he wants the DS development kit. That's obviously something you don't just hand out to crazies in a basement.
These developers that make often crappy games have still managed to justify things such as marketability, reliability, and security to Nintendo. So while Bob's Game might be better than some games out there, it doesn't mean he's qualified to have a dev kit handed over to him.

@tdawg: What Bob wanted is more than just some license, he wants the DS development kit

And this is so highly classified secret that is only allowed to elite of elite... or anybody with common sense, internet connection, ability to type in Google "ds homebrew development" and press Enter.

@Dummy00001

I'm sure NIntendo wouldn't publish Bob's Game if Bob got any homebrew software to make it.

@Dummy00001

"And this is so highly classified secret that is only allowed to elite of elite... or anybody with common sense, internet connection, ability to type in Google "ds homebrew development" and press Enter.

That's like saying the U.S. Military should hand out napalm to anyone who asks for it simply because any idiot who googles "how to make napalm" can create it themselves.

Oh, and in case this wasn't evident, I just wanna explicitly point out that you're an idiot for trying such broken logic.

Gotta agree with Richard here. That was some piss poor logic. Also, istuffedsunny, since you haven't heard of this guy before and all of his self praising bs, you really shouldn't venture a guess as to Nintendo's correctness. This guy came off as a nutbag, whether he was trying to behave as his game character or not. He has been an obnoxious fool who has made new developers look riskier than ever before. I wouldn't have given him a dev kit either.

Haven't heard much from him lately? Other than him admitting the protest was all a scam and a homebrew demo being "leaked"? Do you even read your own site?

Really MTV, just fucking drop it. Nintendo gave you their answer, they evaluated him and decided no. They shouldn't have to answer any other question about it. The more publicity we give bob the more he gains.

I'm as much against giving this guy attention as the next guy, but i think MTV was pushing for a little transparency here, a noble journalistic endeavor

Perhaps you are right. I just get bugged a little by this guy for some reason.

Oh, it's probably because the guy is a stupid douche, Shmil, don't feel bad.

You guys realize that A) Bob has already released proof that the
100-day protest/littering campaign was all viral marketing and
didn''t really happen, and B) a demo has been released for Bob's Game
that works on most if not all major flash carts and shows a lot of
promise. Learn 2 news, Joystiq.

"Promise"?

What game did you play? Bob's a fucked up attention-seeker who 'sperged out for five years developing an absolute turd worthy of the top spot in the RPG Maker Wall of Shame.

Really, I'd like to know exactly what game you played that showed any "promise"

A.) Yes, which at no point in the piece above did we say was not the case. B.) If the demo is for flash carts and, ya know, flash carts are illegal and used for pirating (er wait, did you buy one just to try Bob's Game?), chances are we're not checking it out.

I'm pretty sure flash carts aren't illegal themselves, and this isn't piracy, and it works fine in a DS emulator which definitely isn't illegal.

Any site that claims to be covering the DS but whose bloggers don't even have flash carts might as well just be Nintendo Power and should just pack it in.

As for the Nintendo PR line about how they hope developers will "share their idea and go through the process", what they don't mention is that they won't sell an SDK to any developer who isn't incorporated or who doesn't have office space in a commercial district separate from their homes, as others have mentioned here on Joystiq. Petri Purho will not be getting a Nintendo SDK anytime soon, unless iPhone Pocket Physics makes him a lot of scratch or Nintendo changes their rules. While they have allowed unique titles to come out on their systems, and pseudo-indie games like World of Goo developed by industry vets with Nintendo is not really serious about indie development.

Bob's game would be deeper and more professional than most of the games in the iPhone store, and rather than relying on only DS homebrew for distribution I think he should consider an iPhone port as well. Don't have one, don't really like them, but at least Apple isn't snobby about who they'll allow to download the iPhone SDK.

A flash cart is not an integral part of the DS experience and it's not necessary to have one in order to write for a DS news site. And there's nothing "psuedo" about the indie factor of 2D boy. They're two dudes with laptops in a coffee shop.

@kinneas123: That's not even what this article is about! Just because there's a "Bob's game" image above the article doesn't mean the entire article was written to give more homage to Bob. This article is news because Reggie gave MTV interesting information about how Nintendo works, not because that conversation began due to Bob's antics. Learn to read through the lines, much?

And, while flash carts aren't illegal in themselves, the majority of DS owners don't own them and thus won't be able to play this "promising" demo -- distribution fail. Joystiq especially has no need for flash carts, so why expect them to have owned them and checked out the demo?

@Saria the Cat
OMG you are stupid -.-
you don't need a flash cart to play the demo, you just need an emulator
bob even posted a link for it
do some research idiot
btw, no distribution fail for bob and EPIC FAIL for you

I've contacted Joystiq directly, but I might as well put it here as well. Mr. Gilbert, please remove from your comment the reference to my personal information. It violates Joystiq policy and I'm surprised that, as an employee for Joystiq, you would do such a thing.

@Harrie: OMG yeah because most DS owners without flash carts have DS emulators for when they want to play DS games not on their DS...oh wait.

@Saria, you can download one, it's what I used to play the Bob's Game demo... And a Jake Power: Fireman ROM.

@Everyone, Flashcarts, with the exception of the Games 'n' Music and maybe some other random ones ARE illegal. NIntendo's use of a proprietary storage system (DS Cartridge) could be classified as TPM (Technical Protection Mechanism). On top of that, the games are encrypted, and Most Flash Carts have hardware in them to make them think that the game think they are a legitimate cartridge, thus allowing them to run clean roms. This is a second form of TPM.

In Australia, New Zealand (I believe), the US, Canada, the EU, Japan, and probably many other places, a device that circumvents TPM/DRM and allows you to run "Legal Backups" (such as a modchip) is against the law to own and sell. So therefore in ALL major territories where Nintendo products are available for sale modchips are banned. QED

espoch, its legal in Australia unless it was changed in recent years.

Everyone seems to make a big deal about this guy, The guy had a hissy fit over the fact that he didn't meet Nintendo's guidelines for being a developer. There are lots of other new comer developers who have no experience who are creating games for Nintendo.
Medaverse Studios was just 3 friends in a one room office who have never created a single game in their lives, yet Nintendo gave them the OK for a Devkit.

EDIT: WE don't like stupid links. And you meant www.letmegooglethatforyou.com. Thaaaaaanks!

EDIT: Unnecessary, hombre.

Thank the lord there's someone else out there who is over the let me google that for you crap. It was only mildly amusing the 1st time I saw it. Everytime after I just died a little on the inside. SWELL JOB, BEN.

Well I thought the game was compelling until we realize how batsh*t crazy Bob really was.

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Reggie on Bob's Game: Refused license doesn't reflect on Nintendo's support for the little guy

Reader Comments (126)

Posted: Apr 4th 2009 11:04AM (Unverified) said

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