More Thoughts From Me #25: Broken Indie Promises

As you all know, I’m a huge fan of Indie developers. I talk about Indies a lot and I review their games a lot too. I’m a Wii U and 3DS owner only and Indies are major third party developers for both systems. But there has been a small trend among Wii U Indie developers that has me worried! What is this trend? Read on to find out!

Another Indie developer left Wii U development recently. This hasn’t been happening a lot, but its been happening enough to get me worried. The developer’s excuse? They say they don’t know how much longer Nintendo will support the Wii U and if its worth the effort to bring their game to the system! The worst part of this is that the game was kickstarted. People actually gave money for the game to be developed for Wii U. If it had just been a developer funding their own project, that would be bad enough. But for people to actually give money and then the developer to cancel the project is incredibly lame. We also don’t know what Nintendo’s next system is and whether or not developers will like the system even…

Nintendo has told none of the Indie developers what the NX will be or whether or not they will even be able to develop for the system. I don’t understand developers getting excited about a system we know nothing about. Worst yet, I’ve seen some developers announcing games for the new system or considering bringing their games to the NX. Thats so very stupid. Some people are ready to throw the Wii U under the bus and hope that the NX is better. But without any information about the system, this attitude is foolish. People buy Indie games on the Wii U. There have been some very successful Indie games on the system. People might not be buying a lot of Wii U’s, but the people who buy the systems, support the system well. Its wrong for Indies to promise games for a system and then back out of doing the game for the system, especially when people support these developers with money! Of course, when we do eventually find out about the NX, this trend might continue…

Its only a small group of developers at the moment, but I’m worried that once the new system is out, we may see more developers decide to cancel Wii U indie games and take their game to the NX instead. There are games I’ve been waiting on forever now and I wonder if they’ll ever make it to the Wii U. Kickstarter games are especially unreliable. Even when these games do come to the Wii U, more often then not, they are just not as good as we had hoped. The only clear kickstarter success I can think of is Shovel Knight. Of course, not all Indie developers are abandoning the system yet and I am very thankful for those developers.

We still have a lot of Indie games coming to the Wii U. There are many that I’m excited for (like Y2K!) and hopefully more developers will keep coming to the system. I suppose only time will tell if this recent trend of Wii U indies canceling games will continue or if developers will see sense and stick with the system. The NX is a huge question mark at the moment, but we do know where the Wii U stands. The system is not doing as well as the PS4 or the Xbox One, but the system is not a failure either. Plenty of Indies have made money on the system. I’m hoping that they’ll continue to make money and develop games for the system for a few more years at least.

What do you think of Indies leaving the Wii U? Let us know in the comments. Bonus question: What is your favorite Wii U indie game and why?

Next week: The Denpa Men!

More Thoughts From Me is an opinion column. The opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone. No Wii U systems were harmed in the making of this column.