Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
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My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
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Thankfully, Nintendo gets it.
One thing about them, they might be assholes when it comes to game preservation and whatnot, but they always did their own thing based on what they think gamers would like.
They're a toy company. That's how they think of themselves. The fun comes first. That's why they also try new gimmicks in games and then most of the time never do it again. In their minds they already made that toy.
Which is honestly something I love about their games. I play Nintendo for some casual gaming fun, then I go to Steam for my preferred niches.
The one glaring exception here is Pokemon, but that's technically Game Freak instead of Nintendo proper, so I guess they're okay making the same toy over and over because it's a gold mine.
Yeah Game Freak is their own thing really.
Best part of the timeless Nintendo games is they're all extremely easy to emulate and play forever. (Switch online subscription can suck my toadstool)
If Nintendo weren't such pricks about their IP, they would be a perfect company. They don't chase short-lived trends, they don't make live-service slop or loot boxes, their DLC is usually great (without feeling necessary), they constantly experiment and innovate, and most of their hardware is incredibly durable and reliable (joycon drift being the big exception). But if you make a fan game or host a tournament using one of their games, even if it's been out of print for 20 years, even if you're not monetizing it, they will come after you. It's the one thing I really hate about them.
If Nintendo weren’t such pricks about their IP, they would be a perfect company
They also have some atrocious work culture. Managers screaming at people. Developers routinely overworked to burnout. Leads can be egomaniacal in their pursuit of a particular vision.
The IP attitude is deeply rooted in a company culture of strict control and authoritarian attitudes.
That said, they produce some incredible art and style. So it's hard to argue with the results.
Wish people would be more comfortable simply feeling inspired by Nintendo and doing their own things, rather than trying to harvest Nintendo IP and fight them for control. Would make everyone happier over the long term.
That's more of a Japanese company thing than something specific to Nintendo.
Not that it makes it OK, but this is a country that looked at how workers are treated in America and decided the problem was not going hard enough.
Wish people would be more comfortable simply feeling inspired by Nintendo and doing their own things
The PalWorld devs did that. Nintendo sued them anyway.
I mean that's literally exactly what PocketPair did with Palworld and look what's going on with that.
I honestly feel like Nintendo simply can't let people do what they do, better. They can't allow it for whatever bullshit company-wide egotistical reason.
Arguing with the results is the reason we had WW2. Slaves built pyramids, but I wouldn't like going bavk to that way of work.
Just out of curiosity, do you have a source for your claims that Nintendo has a bad work environment?
I'd love to learn more about it and verify this claim.
They seem to have really high employee retention:
Nintendo's employee retention rate is 98.9%, surpassing the national average of 70% thanks to factors like brand strength and a strong employee welfare program.
That said, it's a Japanese company, and Japanese work culture is very different from western work culture (read: a lot more stressful), but they seem to be doing reasonably well vs their peers.
I was trying to look more into game dev crunch at Nintendo and the most recent articles I could find were about Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask (all for the Nintendo 64) and Metroid Prime (for the GameCube). From what I can tell all of their recent games have been delayed instead of forcing crunch.
That being said the difference in work culture means they probably still have longer hours but they aren't giving their developers actual PTSD like EA and Activision. It is really sad that the bar for AAA game devs is not having devs hospitalized from overworking. Hopefully more game dev and software dev companies can meaningfully unionize to combat that.
Has anyone told them they can probably use AI to search for opportunities for lawsuits?
Nintendo sues OpenAI after determining it infringes on its patent (JP2002-905518) for a "dystopian AI assistant" used in Metroid Fusion.
Nintendo Lawyers realizing some of their IP is represented in LLM training data and outputs.
Oh, If love it if their lawyers tore a big strip out of Open AI (not that OpenAI need any help operating their massive money furnace.)
They want AI to get to a point where they can sue it.
Good thing happens:
Lemmy: Yeah but lawsuits am I right?
Can't you people be happy for one goddamn second?
^Sadly^No
It's too early. In 10 years Nintendo will, it's the Nintendo rhythm.
You don't have to shove AI into everything but it allows for a lot of amazing and crazy things. Gameplay first and I don't think we need AI for this, but a lot of side elements can be handled by AI. Be it sounds, dialogues, voices, randomness in monster or level design etc. In general, AI could be good with filling games with content without it being generic. It will help to elevate content past obviously identifiable "random" content. Same way an AI image doesn't look AI if it's well made. However, we'll get a lot of shovelware stuff of lazy companies, no one needs those.
There is already a lot of work in generative game design that doesn't involve AI, including a lot of procedurally generated items. There is also a lot of bad generated designs as the inputs allowed to be changed are not sufficient enough to create enough variance.
Fuck Nintendo
Care to expand? They seem like one of the best video game companies out there, even though they are traditional Japanese patriarchy
Dunno why people down voted you for asking, but personally while I love some of their games and the creative direction they take their consoles - they just have way too many anti-consumer practices.
From recent memory, they've DMCA takedowned YouTube videos of people playing modded versions of Breath of the Wild before Tears of the Kingdom released. This isn't the firs time they've DMCA takedowned videos they didn't like, including videos showing emulation in the past. Their online service, despite costing money to play games online, primarily relies on peer to peer networking when their console has a very weak networking chip, meaning most online games have to account for very poor connections. They have been very aggressive in shutting down websites distributing Roms for games that no longer have a way to be accessed or played. It stinks that you have to pay for their online service if you want any form of save data backups, and even those are iffy because they really don't want you putting it on more than one console. Their handling of joyconn drift has left a lot to be desired. They replaced them... Sometimes... And when they did you had to wait a while and usually the replacement would develop it, too.
It's also worth noting that recently console modding became illegal in Japan. It's obvious who pushed for it
Edit: fucking autocorrect lol
You forgot:
No, they're for game prevention, and against preservation.
This decision is based, but fuck Nintendo in general for suing palworld and everything Nintendo does legally
They’re constantly suing people just for existing on a day that ends in Y. It’s just really twisted that a company that exists to make fun toys is so cartoonishly evil.
They can't automate the legal team yet.
Massive massive W for once
Maybe the 'what the customer wants' route would have been more successful?
Huh. Time to buy some stock.
If the "different direction" to sue everyone who liked them before?!
Yeah, how would suing something that can't feel pain help you get it up...
Sure it's nice to hear and all but I wrote them off a long time ago and this does nothing to make up for terrible ethics.
The different direction;
No more original IP, and 99% of profits come from litigating against end users.
(It's the same direction as before, just not including AI yet)
List of a few of Nintendo's new IPs from the last 15 or so years:
Just because you aren't buying/playing them doesn't mean they aren't making them. Let's also not ignore the amount of time to develop a game has increased significantly or how gamers overwhelmingly choose to buy games from well-known IP. They are a company and need to pay their employees. I'm not a fan of Nintendo's litigation practices, but I'm also not a fan of how whiny and bitchy gamers have become. If they aren't whining and or bitching, they are harassing developers and actors.