Nintendo Network Worries

With the announcement of the Nintendo Network, the internet celebrated. Finally, Nintendo were getting serious about online play and incorporating DLC, digital transactions of retail games, and even offering micro-transactions for developers if they were so inclined. But with such a step, Nintendo are now entering the murky waters of shady business practices. Despite Satoru Iwata's insistence the company will still value their customers, they are ultimately a business, and I can't help but get nervous with a service that allows Nintendo to easily go down the same path other publishers are embracing with their DLC. Cut content intentionally saved for DLC, unlock codes, DRM, broken game releases – these are the realities that face the industry today, and while we may cry out in complaint, there are too many of us that concede and buy into publishers shoddy treatment of costumers. We support this behaviour. Not only that, we actively disparage companies like Nintendo who refuse to “update” their development process to allow this sort of behaviour, a strange Stockholm Syndrome effect exclusive to the video game community. I understand that the internet is responsible for countless beneficial aspects for modern game design like encouraging a viable indie game development scene, online multiplayer (divorced from the Project $10 shenanigans), and even re-contextualising the high score as Achievements and Trophies respectively, but at the moment the bad elements outweigh the good ones. This needs to change.

Developing an appreciation for what Nintendo were doing this generation (and still are, to some degree) is a good place to start. Nintendo, in their dedication to “withered technology” over the brand new, shied away from the industry's decision to embrace an always connected gaming platform. While Xbox 360 and PS3 rushed towards the internet in reckless abandon, Nintendo were content to plod along behind them. With the prospect of an internet-enabled machine, patches and updates that were once confined to the PC became a possibility for consoles. Bugs could be fixed, online multiplayer could be continuously adjusted to accommodate unpredictable player behaviour, and even firmware updates could dramatically change the OS of the console. While Xbox 360 and PS3 games were typified by their now PC-like surroundings, the Wii was a bastion for the “old guard”. There were never any concerns when buying a Wii game that you would be getting an incomplete experience. Quality was a problem, but that's a worry for anyone familiar with the industry. What you were getting on the disc was the complete, definitive experience and it was playable as soon as you placed the disc in the machine. No “Day 1” patches and no downloading game data to a hard drive. While Nintendo Wii games typically have a firmware update on the disc now in an effort to stop the homebrew market, they still take a considerably shorter time to start playing than the rest of the gaming landscape. These efforts to instantly plunge you into the game with little hassle should be commended in an age of delayed starts.

The absence of DLC has also given Nintendo products a complete “feel”. You buy a Nintendo game knowing that, a year down the road, you won't be seeing an Anniversary Edition released with all the DLC bundled together. You're getting the definitive version right from the beginning – no exceptions – and that sort of thing is valuable to a customer. It's also valuable to preserving the history of the medium. With multiple different SKUs, nothing is definitive and it muddles what the core experience is. Who's to say that the golden Lancer in Gears of War 3 is more or less important than the vanilla Lancer? Or that the Dragon Age armour in Mass Effect 2 is more or less important than the standard armour? You might scoff and call this trivial but the inclusion of such “exclusive” items fundamentally change a player's mindset inside a game. You're not really inside of the world of Mass Effect when you're giggling over a item from another video game world. The reference breaks the fiction. It creates two differing emotional responses, and with neither version defined as the definitive experience by the developer, it lessens whatever they're trying to make us feel.

There can be a lot of good in DLC and online connectivity. Rockstar used DLC as an opportunity to make complete sequels to GTAIV that resembled the expansion packs of old on PC. Online demos are another great feature that ensures you know what you're getting into before you hand over your money. The dark designs of online connectivity far outweigh all the good that accompanies it, however. Nintendo are only just beginning to treat online play as a serious business aspect of game design and there are an awful lot of pitfalls along the way. What's stopping Nintendo from looking at other publishers DLC behaviour and supporting that? We actively encourage that business model. Ultimately, a business exists to make money and there's nothing wrong with that. Video games are a business. Nintendo's journey into the online world has the potential to treat customers with respect, we just have to support the correct behaviour.