Kit and Krysta addressed this on their podcast. Basically, Nintendo’s mentality is: “Why do you NEED to know right now? You’re going to find out when you read the credits.”
It’s also weird to act like this is a new thing from Nintendo, when they’ve been doing it for ages. They didn’t announce that Grezzo was making the Links Awakening remake, that was leaked information. Mario Party 9 doesn’t have NDCube on the front of the boxart. Oracle of Ages/Seasons only shows the Capcom logo once you boot up the game, after you’ve already bought it.
To add a point as to why Nintendo sometimes doesn't reveal the company who is making some of their games, remember the reveal of Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. A lot of the headlines surrounding the reveal were about how Retro Studios was making "another damn Donkey Kong game". Reputation can harm the marketing and sales of games, so instead of potentially harming the sales of games by using the reputation of the developer Nintendo just wants to use their own reputation to sell the games.
I feel like Monolith is the exception because Takahashi had some very specific conditions for Nintendo when Monolith was bought out. One of them was Nintendo should not interfere in the creative process of Monolith's own games. Who knows, maybe the logo thing is part of that agreement too. Also... Monolith is one of the few not using Nintendo IPs (I know Xenoblade is a Nintendo IP for all intents and purposes but you know what I mean... they're not borrowinf Nintendo's brain children, Xenoblade is Monolith's own brain child) for their games. So that could also be a factor.
Speaking of Nintendo outsourcing development to other developers, the original developer for Mario Party games up to 8 on the Wii and the one for the DS, Hudson Soft, was Nintendo's first third-party developer, which went back to the days of the Famicom. They've even made officially licensed NEC PC-88 games based on Nintendo's properties back then, such as ports and versions with newer levels and other features.
I feel like it works in favor of smaller teams that Nintendo partners with lately. People would dismiss a game made by a lesser known 3rd party, especially if they didn't do anything significant with Nintendo. Silent Hill 2 suffered because Bloober was the developer. It required a bunch of good reviews and player impressions to have people recognize it as a really solid title.
"Companies should be protected from their earned bad reputations." Anti-consumer nonsense. Silent Hill 2 was good. All that tells me is I should pay attention to whether Bloober is writing an original work or giving a facelift to a story that already exists. No one said they couldn't make a good horror atmosphere. Just that their writing on mental health was way off the mark.
to be fair to nintendo, theres lots of complaining online too for tantalus releases... so theres some reasons to hide the dev team before release as to not let people complain directly to the devs. nintendo receives then all the complains. of course, one could say that complaints and praise should always be there at all time towards the dev team, but stuff like pricing models is never decided by the dev team.
10:10 These reactions are not indicative of the average person buying games. The average person would not react this way, hell, they wouldn’t even be watching a Nintendo Direct. Most people really couldn’t care less about the people behind the games, as sad as that is. They care about the game, and I think Nintendo is aware of this.
Normally I would agree with that statement but... for this specific game it doesn't make any sense. The Octopath Traveller games are loved by the RPG community, especially the second one, and knowing that the team behind them was the one behind the new Mario & Luigi would have only improved the hype. So why keeping it a secret the whole time?
@@grayfox4819 It is much MUCH harder to have rules be on a case-by-case basis, rather than just say "Enjoy the game for what it is and see who made it at the end" for all situations though. It makes total sense to me.
You brought up Monolith Soft so I did feel obligated to bring up that internally in Monolith Soft credits, a lot of artists names get scrubbed to "Monolith Soft Art team" or similar monikers in the art books (maybe in the credits too? unsure on that but definitely in the art books) which i feel is a real shame.
I'm fairly confident that they do this BECAUSE people leak stuff and inevitably complain. Keeping things on brand is fine and all, but they know how people on the internet operate.
I think Nintendo hiding their developers makes a lot of sense in this era of huge developer hacks. The last of us part 2 had some of its biggest moments leaked. Insomniac had dozens of its workers have their personal financial information, along with release plans for the next 8 years. And now game freak has been hacked too. I have no doubt that the events of the last few years have made Nintendo more secretive, not less, and with good reason! The last thing a developer needs 3 months from release when they’re trying to finish everything up is a hack. You can’t hack the developer of Mario & Luigi Brothership if you don’t know who it is. I also think this is changing how companies like Nintendo and Sony announce games. Most games will be announced 3-6 months from release. Some games will still get announced 2-3 years early, but I don’t think that’s the norm anymore. More secrecy, protection, and anonymity for both developers and publishers.
But they did this before that. Before the internet existed even. Of course, back then it was nearly all publishers doing that. Or worse, not allowing real names in the credits. We've come a long way, but Nintendo is stuck in the past on this.
This wasn't always the case, even during the Switch era. I know this to have at least been true for Nintendo's US website, but they used to have development studios listed on each game's individual page. It's was in the section at the bottom where they tell you things like publisher, number of players, file size, etc. They completely scrubbed this detail from their website a few years into Switch, even for third-party developers with third-party publishers.
Most of games produced by Nintendo are actually codeveloped actively by Nintendo themselves: Nintendo World Championship is developed by indeszero AND Nintendo; the same goes for Echoes of Wisdom, Paper Mario and so on.
I think Nintendo is right to hide it. When it's a team that Social media hates, then a hate campaign starts. ILCA and Bloober teams were "rumored" to be the devs for some of the recent Nintendo games, then people went crazy saying the games would be bad without any basis.
I remember people getting made that ILCA was making Mario & Luigi….only for that to be completely false If people knew beforehand it would’ve prevented discourse But does the layman think “oh Nintendo’s making a new Mario RPG” and doesn’t question that further?
Yeah, but ILCA can made great thing when they have budget and not a timeframe of only 1.5 years to made a game lol (One Piece Odyssey, Sand Land, etc).
This isn’t really related to the topic at hand but it’s been a while since I’ve seen a video with Jon in it, and I’m being reminded of just how rich and soothing his voice is.
They may not acknowledge the studio names, but in the past, they have at some points acknowledged at least what games they have made before. I remember the Cadence of Hyrule trailer where they pointed out that it was from the team that made Crypt of the Necrodancer.
It should be noted that Monolithsoft assists with the world design for BotW and TotK but isn't credited there. It's definitely just that Xenoblade is sufficiently not-Nintendo.
It's a perception thing. It looks like Nintendo is this other worldly development house that can churn out top quality games while other studios can't. And at the end of the day, they are their IPs. They are so strong that they can carry this volume of content. No other development company in the world has the stable of IP that Nintendo does.
On the front of Switch boxes is only the publisher, never the developer (unless it's the same company, of course), and in some cases additionally an IP holder.
When I watch a game trailer with gameplay, I let the footage tell me whether this is a game I’m interested in or not. The developer behind it doesn’t influence my decision.
I respect where you’re coming from John regarding crediting devs, but this also has an opposite effect when you start using developer names as branding. For example, people where acting super skeptical when Mercury Steam did Metroid, and were ready to jump on the game when they heard IlCA might be doing M&L. Do you then just advertise the “good” devs? Tons of talented devs just haven’t had the chance to shine. Similarly, it’s disingenuous to say Acquire is the Octopath dev when that explicitly omits the huge contribution from team Asano and the art/music teams at SE. I think it’s fine to have the dev name better listed on boxes and logo intros but using them as marketing has bad connotations.
He and the others with similar opinion think that putting a company name on the boxart or the opening is better than actual credits of the developers individually at the game.
Just the fact that the rumor that IICA developed causing people to immediately turn against Brothership or become skeptical despite nothing in the trailers raising real red flags for pretty much anyone justifies Nintendo hiding who's making games until they release to me. I would argue that the Pokemon SwSh mess with people openly harassing GameFreak sent a message that Nintendo needs to keep the dev hidden until after release so their games don't have a negative stigma surrounding them that could kill momentum.
My slightly hot take is that I don't think Nintendo hiding devs is that big of a deal. As long as they're in the credits, when you find out that information doesn't really matter? It matters to a very small number of extremely online Nintendo enthusiasts like us. ILCA has become the Boogeyman after making one mediocre Pokemon game so while surfacing this information would get rid of that worry, I also see why Nintendo would rather the games just speak for themselves. You're never gonna hear EPD3 as a part of marketing, either, but the enthusiasts still know what it is!
I can kinda understand Nintendo’s thought process behind this tbh. They want all their games to be seen as Nintendo games due to them still being under the Nintendo banner and published by them. Rather than an *insert developer* game. Hell, there was even a minor controversy not too long ago online due to a rumor that Ilca Inc. (same guys behind Pokémon Bank and Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl) was developing Mario and Luigi Brothership, which turned out to not even be true. And so if people can raise a stink over a fake rumored developer being behind a game, then it makes sense that Nintendo wouldn’t want to unveil them until the game has actually released. And at that point, anyone who cares to find out will be able to do so.
Yeah I think people fixate on the studio's name and form opinions about it based on that developer that don’t do the game any favors. I notice that Hyrule Warriors titles are basically counted as Zelda titles in Nintendo's marketing, even though they’re clearly very different games. It hasn’t helped them in the past to make the development team public, and it doesn’t really help the developer themselves, it seems. So this seems like a smart move
What you're talking about is having the dev studio be apart of the hype cycle/marketing. And I don't think any of that matters as long as they are credited in the credits like they always are. I would also disagree that seeing the developer logo is exactly crediting the devs it's just crediting the studio logo. If Nintendo was actively keeping the individual developers off of the credits, then that would be a problem. But I would agree with you in saying that remakes/remaster should have credits to the original people who were involved, but that is an industry issue not just a Nintendo issue.
Only two games? Emio, NWC and Zelda are all co-developed by EPD and a contracted studio which you ignore the concept of codevelopment. And if the development company and the employees are credited thats all that matters. Also Bandai Namco, Sega and Square Enix hide or dont talk bout just like nintendo for their games a lot of times, but as no one obsess with them like it happens with Nintendo no one talks about this. You yourself said many times "Team Asano" made octopath and many other games while not talking abou acquire, artdink and others
I think the reason is obvious to me, and was mentioned in the video.........what sells better to a bunch of Nintendo system owners than a Nintendo made game? Nintendo is a trusted brand, and I guess they just want average consumers to think they are buying a Nintendo made game.
I do think protecting the developers or, more accurately, the game itself is what they are doing when they don't reveal developers. You mention Bloober getting harassed, but so did Mercury Steam when Samus Returns was announced and ILCA for Pokemon.
Now I wonder whether GameFreak would be another exception if Nintendo owned them. Big N does own Pokémon the Franchise as majority owner of The Pokémon Company though.
Here's my 2 cents on this: A) yes, there's power in revealing the developer beforehand. But I think NOT NAMING them is just as intriguing and keeps the fans guessing. B) do we need to know in advance? I think there's enough bashing online that a developer could become a target for a game that hasn't released yet. So yes, while it's not typical, it's a very Nintendo-like move. And it's one I can understand for various reasons
I find it kinda hard to engage with this premise, because if it's a matter of providing proper credit- if their names are in the games credits and aren't removed for bullshit reasons like "didn't work on the game all the way to release", then that's bad. But not showing the logo in marketing... maybe this is just me, but I feel like there's never any USEFUL discourse that comes from that. What I usually see are a bunch of people who know nothing about gamedev acting like a games quality is assured / condemned just because of a single logo and I just can't vibe with that. In fact, if people were kept a little more in the dark, didn't go all in on hating / loving a game from the getgo but actually sat back, watched the qualities shown in trailer / in demos, instead of making their mind up from scratch... I think I'd actually LIKE that. It would be a far more pleasant world for me.
It's funny that John used Naughty Dog announcing a new game at a State of Play as an example, because that hasn't happened yet. Their last actually new games was TLoU2, which was announced in December of 2016. But the first State of Play only took place in 2019.
Knowing a team also doesn't really say much of quality. Because there's a Sonic RPG that exists that was made by Bioware and that game is called Sonic Chronicles The Dark Brotherhood.
I actually quite liked that game and appreciated that they were trying something new for Sonic. It's obviously nowhere near same league as the Mario & Luigi or Paper Mario games, though.
Nintendo doing something different from the other big publishers? That's never happened before... (I don't disagree with the overall point, devs should be publicized and get the attention they deserve, but that point honestly made me go "ah of course".)
It's also not true. Like we do not learn the developers of the various ports of games until we dig into the credits. The smaller Square Enix games also get obfuscated like Voice of Cards or Dragon Quest Adventure of Dai. And Ubisoft's inter studio development tends to make it unclear which studio did which game aside from Massive.
Nintendo usually doesn't want to push the creators / developers out too much since the old days. After all, you can tell who made the game when you see the credits. Personally, I hardly ever buy a game for the development company because good development companies can make bad games and vice versa. And when one person's name gets too attached to the franchise, it's not necessarily all good. After all, everyone (including me) can't get over the fact that Metal Gear Solid should be a Kojima game and in the end he seems to be the one to get most of the credit for MGS when many others are behind it too.
In a way, Nintendo always aims for the broader audience. So they almost habe to put the Nintendo branding on the forefront before anything else. Monolith Soft is a different beast because they specialise in games like Xenoblade. Whilst other studios you mention all dabble into Mario, Zelda, etc...
While I get the argument of hiding the devs from scrutiny, it still feels wrong for the developers to not be credited off-rip. Imagine how much more excitement that Another Code and Mario & Luigi: Brothership would've gotten if we knew that Arc System Works & Acquire respectively made those games upon their reveals. Or with the inverse, imagine if Nintendo didn't say that Sakurai & Bandai Namco were making the next Smash game until the game launches. The people who work on these games deserve to get some shine, which is an issue that extends to how Nintendo does credits to remakes & remasters of old games. Though that's a whole other can of worms.
@NookLaggen Nobody says that the actual names of the employees have to be mentioned until release if they don't want to, but at least the studio's name would be nice.
I think the simplest answer is that they don't think it's necessary like Sakurai doing away with Subspace Emissary cutscenes. You can look up the credits video on TH-cam and a number of online resources like Mobygames, Nintendo Wiki and Kyoto Report have them in text format soon after release.
@@PIKMINROCK1 You can't even count on that sometimes, as Nintendo often leaves the people who worked on the original release out of their remakes/remasters.
I don't know. I mean, yeah, Super Mario RPG has way more impact than "ArtePiazza", moreso to regular buyers. Now, I don't think that should be the case as they're amazing. But maybe it could be added, like in moves, whith phrases like "from the people behind this and that". And if maybe it is a small studio that's having a first shot, then you don't need to put anything and let the game speak for itself. Also, there's a difference in trailers, I think that Nintendo Directs and trailers are looked by more common folks than PS presentations, maybe I'm wrong, but I have that perception.
Honestly Yoshi's Crafted World was a big platformer. Very easy and cozy, yes, and perhaps underwhelming for some, but the level design was really cool, creative and the levels were big! It must have taken them a lot of work to make this game. I hope to see Yoshi's Wooly World someday on the Switch 2. The main problem I have with Crafted World isn't the difficulty because I enjoyed the coziness, nor the level design which I thought was very creative, but the music... It wasn't great.
"We have no confidence in our chosen partners and their reputations. Please prepare to be bamboozled as we bring you 4 entries in a series with different developers of varying quality."
They credit them in the end credits for the games. So kind of a non-issue IMO, considering these are games made using Nintendo's IP and co-developed with Nintendo teams. It'd be an issue if they were new IP like W101, which did credit Platinum right from the get-go IIRC.
Nintendo doesn’t NEED to. Point blank simple. Their games are good. Also if people find out they could go after developers for leaks and info. The world is crazy. Best to keep quiet.
The reason that Nintendo hides their developers is because of the unified brand 100%. Although, I would argue a more insidious take where they take the credit for other people's work so that the world sees Nintendo as quality, even if Nintendo is doing none of Nintendo's work. It also works in the circle, because most of their fans don't want to buy anything but a Mario game, because what they know is that Nintendo has great developers. So Nintendo gets to trick them into a purchase that they otherwise wouldn't have given to that developer for a different branded game. Nintendo is in a far more precarious place than people think they are now, because in-house development is at an all-time low in a market that is constantly being consolidated. But hey I mean, play stupid games.
Considering the harassment devs go through on social media by terminally online assholes, i understand why nintendo and a few others would rather hide the devs names till the game is out
I think the reason why Nintendo doesn’t always reveal the studio who is making their games is because the headlines of the reveal can be impactful for the games marketing and sales. I do wish the studios that worked on those games could get the recognition they deserved but i understand why they don’t want to
9:35 This was quite a long time ago now, but the opening credits of Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii do say "Nintendo Presents a Retro Studios Game". This is extremely unusual for Nintendo as far as I can tell. Notably, Mercury Steam don't get a logo at the start of either Metroid Samus Returns or Metroid Dread. This really stuck out to me, because they did get their logo at the start of their previous game, on Nintendo 3DS, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate, albeit this of course being a Konami published title. I guess it's a case of Konami doing what Nintendon't.
...Do they really need to? I get that there are pros to making it known right off the bat, but is this really a problem that needs addressing, as the video title seems to imply? It just strikes me as a lot of fuss over something rather mundane. It simply seems like a choice to me. Besides, from a consumer perspective, Nintendo is pretty good about showing gameplay immediately whenever they announce a game, and throughout the lead-up to release. It *usually* is not that difficult to get a grasp for the quality and direction of a new game, and at that point, perhaps its just as well that the game speaks for itself in the first place, rather than letting past work immediately colour perception of the new game. 9:28 Now, I'm no expert on how these things go behind the scenes, of course, but wouldn't it be reasonable to suppose that the developers themselves have some say in the matter?
Aquire wasn't the only devs on Octopath. Square Enix DOES have a team that develops octopath. Team Asano. The leader of which has worked on Bravely Default, Bravely Second, and BD 2, that's why Octopath has the DNA of those. They also work on other HD-2D games.
It's only odd if you expect to know everything and that isn't how Nintendo works and has been like that for a long time. Most people don't know the developers in the first place, its only those that consume online media that would be interested and that isn't that relevant for Nintendo and the mass market. They will find out at some point, like when these stories come out so why should they do that before hand.
I can safely say why they started to hide developers. It's because of one developer in particular. Arzest. I think their reputation with games like Yoshi's New Island and Hey! Pikmin speaks for them being the weakest games in their respective series. And let us not forget they made Balan.
I wasn't aware of this phenomenon and how unconventional it is until I heard this channel say it several times and I appreciate this video you elaborate more on it. It certainly is odd... though there definitely are advantages AND disadvantages to revealing developers early on, so I don't really think there is an overall "right way" to approach this, it's ultimately just an interesting way of doing it.
I just wonder why Nintendo is singled out for this. Arc System Works has also been pretending they're the only ones behind the games they're publishing since last decade, even with IPs that weren't originally theirs like River City and Double Dragon no less.
Nintendo aren't ones to withhold information, nor are they ones to give it willingly. Their revealing Grezzo was doing Echoes of Wisdom was so blase that they just put it in an Ask the Developers column. For whatever reason, it's not a part of the message they want to push, and so it's either given incidentally or not at all.
The reason I can think of is that Nintendo doesn’t want people to pre-judge the game based on the developer and if they liked previous games from them.
The thing is... for this one it wasn't necessary. The Octopath Traveler games, especially the second one, are beloved games from RPG fans. Knowing that the team behind them is the same for the new Mario & Luigi would have only raised up the hype. So why keeping it a secret? (And no, don't tell me "they still had haters, they would have had some people harassing them regardless", because every developers have their haters, so it wouldn't have been any different from the likes of The Last of Us Part 2 haters harassing Naughty Dog when they announced their next game).
Its probably better that they do. People act crazy about games pre-release as expectations run wild. Better to put a nebulous Nintendo and people wont brigade developer social media in advance to accuse them of ruining a game that isnt out yet lol. e.g. Bloober Team with Silent Hill 2's remake, or Arzest with any game. Then when the games out and things have calmed down players can see the developers in the credits the reactions will probably be less intense.
@@manuel0578 NDCube, now named Nintendo cube is nowadays 99% owned by Nintendo. It has always been a joined venture between Nintendo and Dentsu. Nintendo owned 78% of the companys shares when it was founded in 2000, since 2010 they owned 96%, since 2015 97% and since 2023 99%.
Maybe in part because of the massive negative reaction to the Metroid prime: Federation Force reveal back in 2015, and all the reactions leading up to its release. Probably quite discouraging for the dev (Next Level Games)
The developer i can think of where Nintendo say who the devolper are up front beside Monolithsoft, is Gamefreak, ILCA (i don't know why) and MercurySteam.
I'm torn because on one hand from a consumer stand point knowing the dev is tremendously relevant to if I want to buy your game. On the other hand; just imagine how different the discourse around Silent Hill 2 would have been if Bloober Teams involvement was kept secret until AFTER people decided it was pretty good. As always it's the shitty people ruining things for everyone else. Edit; I forgot to say. I think I'm actually ok with hiding the devs during prerelease so long as they're credited appropriately. I'll still know if a good team made the game or not in the end, so if it shields people from the crazies? I'll just wait to find out before I decide to buy it or not. Big shrug. Really the only thing they lose out on is potentially good PR if it's a banger studio.
In this case especially, I don't know why would they keep it a secret. The Octopath Traveler games, especially the second one, are beloved games. So why would they be silent about their developers being the one behind the new Mario & Luigi game? Nintendo's recent practices really bother me a lot, one of the reason of why I'm gonna quit gaming soon....
Simple, since second party dosen't count because the internet told me games like Helldivers 2 and Rise of Ronnin doesn't count for Sony because they dont have games but Nintendo games all count, they are all first party games to the internet even thought the reason they have a high first party output is because of their second party relationships. Double standards I guess 😂
Kit and Krysta addressed this on their podcast. Basically, Nintendo’s mentality is: “Why do you NEED to know right now? You’re going to find out when you read the credits.”
Counterpoint: leaks.
I agree with Nintendo. Let the game speak for themsevles. It looks great.
It’s also weird to act like this is a new thing from Nintendo, when they’ve been doing it for ages. They didn’t announce that Grezzo was making the Links Awakening remake, that was leaked information. Mario Party 9 doesn’t have NDCube on the front of the boxart. Oracle of Ages/Seasons only shows the Capcom logo once you boot up the game, after you’ve already bought it.
@@BakedApple989counterpoint most people don’t read the credits
We NEED to know because as long as Nintendo expects us to buy preorders we should expect them to be up front about what we’re getting for our money.
To add a point as to why Nintendo sometimes doesn't reveal the company who is making some of their games, remember the reveal of
Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. A lot of the headlines surrounding the reveal were about how Retro Studios was making "another damn Donkey Kong game".
Reputation can harm the marketing and sales of games, so instead of potentially harming the sales of games by using the reputation of the developer Nintendo just wants to use their own reputation to sell the games.
"Should have been Metroid", the game.
All while Tropical Freeze ended up being such a phenomenal game, too. It's a little saddening.
I would've been trolled had they hinted at the company starting with the letter "R"
Me: "R-Rareware...!?"
I feel like Monolith is the exception because Takahashi had some very specific conditions for Nintendo when Monolith was bought out. One of them was Nintendo should not interfere in the creative process of Monolith's own games. Who knows, maybe the logo thing is part of that agreement too.
Also... Monolith is one of the few not using Nintendo IPs (I know Xenoblade is a Nintendo IP for all intents and purposes but you know what I mean... they're not borrowinf Nintendo's brain children, Xenoblade is Monolith's own brain child) for their games. So that could also be a factor.
Nintendo branching out so much to outside developers is so damn cool, and is gonna lead to so many more cool games.
They arent branching out, nintendo always have worked with outside developers, most of their games are from contracted studios for decades.
Speaking of Nintendo outsourcing development to other developers, the original developer for Mario Party games up to 8 on the Wii and the one for the DS, Hudson Soft, was Nintendo's first third-party developer, which went back to the days of the Famicom. They've even made officially licensed NEC PC-88 games based on Nintendo's properties back then, such as ports and versions with newer levels and other features.
@NookLaggen, I'm not entirely sure that various members of Hudson left because of Konami acquiring the company.
I feel like it works in favor of smaller teams that Nintendo partners with lately. People would dismiss a game made by a lesser known 3rd party, especially if they didn't do anything significant with Nintendo.
Silent Hill 2 suffered because Bloober was the developer. It required a bunch of good reviews and player impressions to have people recognize it as a really solid title.
"Companies should be protected from their earned bad reputations." Anti-consumer nonsense. Silent Hill 2 was good. All that tells me is I should pay attention to whether Bloober is writing an original work or giving a facelift to a story that already exists. No one said they couldn't make a good horror atmosphere. Just that their writing on mental health was way off the mark.
to be fair to nintendo, theres lots of complaining online too for tantalus releases... so theres some reasons to hide the dev team before release as to not let people complain directly to the devs. nintendo receives then all the complains. of course, one could say that complaints and praise should always be there at all time towards the dev team, but stuff like pricing models is never decided by the dev team.
10:10 These reactions are not indicative of the average person buying games. The average person would not react this way, hell, they wouldn’t even be watching a Nintendo Direct.
Most people really couldn’t care less about the people behind the games, as sad as that is. They care about the game, and I think Nintendo is aware of this.
Pretty much. Even in the internet most people act like Nintendo develop everything because they cant use google for their life.
Seeing Mario, Link or Samus on screen is 10x more powerful than seeing Naughty Dog, Santa Monica or any studio.
I think the reason Nintendo doesn’t reveal the studio till release is because they don’t want their partners being harassed online pre-release.
Normally I would agree with that statement but... for this specific game it doesn't make any sense. The Octopath Traveller games are loved by the RPG community, especially the second one, and knowing that the team behind them was the one behind the new Mario & Luigi would have only improved the hype. So why keeping it a secret the whole time?
@@grayfox4819 It is much MUCH harder to have rules be on a case-by-case basis, rather than just say "Enjoy the game for what it is and see who made it at the end" for all situations though.
It makes total sense to me.
@@grayfox4819I remember Octopath 1 getting a lot of hate when it released
You brought up Monolith Soft so I did feel obligated to bring up that internally in Monolith Soft credits, a lot of artists names get scrubbed to "Monolith Soft Art team" or similar monikers in the art books (maybe in the credits too? unsure on that but definitely in the art books) which i feel is a real shame.
I'm fairly confident that they do this BECAUSE people leak stuff and inevitably complain. Keeping things on brand is fine and all, but they know how people on the internet operate.
I think Nintendo hiding their developers makes a lot of sense in this era of huge developer hacks. The last of us part 2 had some of its biggest moments leaked. Insomniac had dozens of its workers have their personal financial information, along with release plans for the next 8 years. And now game freak has been hacked too. I have no doubt that the events of the last few years have made Nintendo more secretive, not less, and with good reason! The last thing a developer needs 3 months from release when they’re trying to finish everything up is a hack. You can’t hack the developer of Mario & Luigi Brothership if you don’t know who it is.
I also think this is changing how companies like Nintendo and Sony announce games. Most games will be announced 3-6 months from release. Some games will still get announced 2-3 years early, but I don’t think that’s the norm anymore. More secrecy, protection, and anonymity for both developers and publishers.
Harassing people online has become more common so I can see the mindset behind
Exactly!
But they did this before that. Before the internet existed even. Of course, back then it was nearly all publishers doing that. Or worse, not allowing real names in the credits. We've come a long way, but Nintendo is stuck in the past on this.
I guess people haven’t got anything better to do
@NookLaggen It isn't repeating if they never stopped.
@NookLaggen What?? What do layoffs or Microsoft have to do with Nintendo in the 90s, 00s, and 10s?
This wasn't always the case, even during the Switch era. I know this to have at least been true for Nintendo's US website, but they used to have development studios listed on each game's individual page. It's was in the section at the bottom where they tell you things like publisher, number of players, file size, etc. They completely scrubbed this detail from their website a few years into Switch, even for third-party developers with third-party publishers.
Most of games produced by Nintendo are actually codeveloped actively by Nintendo themselves: Nintendo World Championship is developed by indeszero AND Nintendo; the same goes for Echoes of Wisdom, Paper Mario and so on.
not the same for paper mario but yes for nwc and zelda. a few games are codeveloped others are only produced.
Correction: NES World Championships was co-developed by EPD Group #4 & Echoes of Wisdom was co-developed by EPD Group #3
@@MarioMasterProductions
EDP group #445 can no longer develop games, sadly
I think PlatinumGames has also been an exception? Their logo tends to pop up when their Nintendo collaborations are announced
I think Nintendo is right to hide it. When it's a team that Social media hates, then a hate campaign starts. ILCA and Bloober teams were "rumored" to be the devs for some of the recent Nintendo games, then people went crazy saying the games would be bad without any basis.
With how common online harassment is these days Nintendo not revealing the developers upfront is fine
I remember people getting made that ILCA was making Mario & Luigi….only for that to be completely false
If people knew beforehand it would’ve prevented discourse
But does the layman think “oh Nintendo’s making a new Mario RPG” and doesn’t question that further?
Yeah, but ILCA can made great thing when they have budget and not a timeframe of only 1.5 years to made a game lol (One Piece Odyssey, Sand Land, etc).
@@Terranigma23 true, but that’s a whole other discussion
ILCA got thrown under the bus by TPC and I feel awful for them!
@@1mrcow143 true sadly.
This isn’t really related to the topic at hand but it’s been a while since I’ve seen a video with Jon in it, and I’m being reminded of just how rich and soothing his voice is.
If they could, Nintendo would tell you all their games are made by elves in Santa’s Workshop.
like any other company to be fair.
They may not acknowledge the studio names, but in the past, they have at some points acknowledged at least what games they have made before. I remember the Cadence of Hyrule trailer where they pointed out that it was from the team that made Crypt of the Necrodancer.
@NookLaggen At minimum, it did help people want to check out Necrodancer before the game came out.
It should be noted that Monolithsoft assists with the world design for BotW and TotK but isn't credited there. It's definitely just that Xenoblade is sufficiently not-Nintendo.
The ironic thing is that once Silent Hill 2 came out everyone absolutely loved it so the two years of harassment was completely unwarranted
It's a perception thing. It looks like Nintendo is this other worldly development house that can churn out top quality games while other studios can't.
And at the end of the day, they are their IPs. They are so strong that they can carry this volume of content. No other development company in the world has the stable of IP that Nintendo does.
On the front of Switch boxes is only the publisher, never the developer (unless it's the same company, of course), and in some cases additionally an IP holder.
When I watch a game trailer with gameplay, I let the footage tell me whether this is a game I’m interested in or not. The developer behind it doesn’t influence my decision.
I respect where you’re coming from John regarding crediting devs, but this also has an opposite effect when you start using developer names as branding. For example, people where acting super skeptical when Mercury Steam did Metroid, and were ready to jump on the game when they heard IlCA might be doing M&L. Do you then just advertise the “good” devs? Tons of talented devs just haven’t had the chance to shine. Similarly, it’s disingenuous to say Acquire is the Octopath dev when that explicitly omits the huge contribution from team Asano and the art/music teams at SE. I think it’s fine to have the dev name better listed on boxes and logo intros but using them as marketing has bad connotations.
He and the others with similar opinion think that putting a company name on the boxart or the opening is better than actual credits of the developers individually at the game.
Just the fact that the rumor that IICA developed causing people to immediately turn against Brothership or become skeptical despite nothing in the trailers raising real red flags for pretty much anyone justifies Nintendo hiding who's making games until they release to me. I would argue that the Pokemon SwSh mess with people openly harassing GameFreak sent a message that Nintendo needs to keep the dev hidden until after release so their games don't have a negative stigma surrounding them that could kill momentum.
My slightly hot take is that I don't think Nintendo hiding devs is that big of a deal. As long as they're in the credits, when you find out that information doesn't really matter? It matters to a very small number of extremely online Nintendo enthusiasts like us.
ILCA has become the Boogeyman after making one mediocre Pokemon game so while surfacing this information would get rid of that worry, I also see why Nintendo would rather the games just speak for themselves. You're never gonna hear EPD3 as a part of marketing, either, but the enthusiasts still know what it is!
1990: "There's no such thing as a Nintendo".
2024: "Every video game are made by Nintendo".
This is a good practice, actually.
"A Research and development team 1 Game"
We shouldn't complaint for this, there's a lot of weirdos out there stalking devs and even press some times do articles in bad sight.
I can kinda understand Nintendo’s thought process behind this tbh. They want all their games to be seen as Nintendo games due to them still being under the Nintendo banner and published by them. Rather than an *insert developer* game. Hell, there was even a minor controversy not too long ago online due to a rumor that Ilca Inc. (same guys behind Pokémon Bank and Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl) was developing Mario and Luigi Brothership, which turned out to not even be true. And so if people can raise a stink over a fake rumored developer being behind a game, then it makes sense that Nintendo wouldn’t want to unveil them until the game has actually released. And at that point, anyone who cares to find out will be able to do so.
It's a good move on their part, people online are very toxic and they get lost in the sauce of discourse, let the game speak for itself
Yeah I think people fixate on the studio's name and form opinions about it based on that developer that don’t do the game any favors. I notice that Hyrule Warriors titles are basically counted as Zelda titles in Nintendo's marketing, even though they’re clearly very different games. It hasn’t helped them in the past to make the development team public, and it doesn’t really help the developer themselves, it seems. So this seems like a smart move
What you're talking about is having the dev studio be apart of the hype cycle/marketing. And I don't think any of that matters as long as they are credited in the credits like they always are.
I would also disagree that seeing the developer logo is exactly crediting the devs it's just crediting the studio logo.
If Nintendo was actively keeping the individual developers off of the credits, then that would be a problem.
But I would agree with you in saying that remakes/remaster should have credits to the original people who were involved, but that is an industry issue not just a Nintendo issue.
Only two games? Emio, NWC and Zelda are all co-developed by EPD and a contracted studio which you ignore the concept of codevelopment. And if the development company and the employees are credited thats all that matters.
Also Bandai Namco, Sega and Square Enix hide or dont talk bout just like nintendo for their games a lot of times, but as no one obsess with them like it happens with Nintendo no one talks about this. You yourself said many times "Team Asano" made octopath and many other games while not talking abou acquire, artdink and others
People on the internet are pretty mean unfortunately, best to not reveal it ahead of time
The naughty dog logo pops up and you say “hold on to your popcorn fellas, the movie is about to start”.
I think the reason is obvious to me, and was mentioned in the video.........what sells better to a bunch of Nintendo system owners than a Nintendo made game? Nintendo is a trusted brand, and I guess they just want average consumers to think they are buying a Nintendo made game.
and then u go to credits of remastereds and never see the original creators and none of the original people show up
Where have they actually done that?
metroid prime remastered. for example @@manuel0578
@manuel0578 Metroid Prime Remastered, Mario RPG (to a lesser extent), Paper Mario TTYD. This will continue.
@@Andreou4-u1l well that sucks. Capcom is actually pretty good in having credit rolls for the original and remaster staff
I do think protecting the developers or, more accurately, the game itself is what they are doing when they don't reveal developers. You mention Bloober getting harassed, but so did Mercury Steam when Samus Returns was announced and ILCA for Pokemon.
Now I wonder whether GameFreak would be another exception if Nintendo owned them.
Big N does own Pokémon the Franchise as majority owner of The Pokémon Company though.
Here's my 2 cents on this:
A) yes, there's power in revealing the developer beforehand. But I think NOT NAMING them is just as intriguing and keeps the fans guessing.
B) do we need to know in advance? I think there's enough bashing online that a developer could become a target for a game that hasn't released yet.
So yes, while it's not typical, it's a very Nintendo-like move. And it's one I can understand for various reasons
I find it kinda hard to engage with this premise, because if it's a matter of providing proper credit- if their names are in the games credits and aren't removed for bullshit reasons like "didn't work on the game all the way to release", then that's bad.
But not showing the logo in marketing... maybe this is just me, but I feel like there's never any USEFUL discourse that comes from that. What I usually see are a bunch of people who know nothing about gamedev acting like a games quality is assured / condemned just because of a single logo and I just can't vibe with that. In fact, if people were kept a little more in the dark, didn't go all in on hating / loving a game from the getgo but actually sat back, watched the qualities shown in trailer / in demos, instead of making their mind up from scratch... I think I'd actually LIKE that. It would be a far more pleasant world for me.
I don't care. until this video I though NN internal studios are doing these games
It's funny that John used Naughty Dog announcing a new game at a State of Play as an example, because that hasn't happened yet. Their last actually new games was TLoU2, which was announced in December of 2016. But the first State of Play only took place in 2019.
Knowing a team also doesn't really say much of quality. Because there's a Sonic RPG that exists that was made by Bioware and that game is called Sonic Chronicles The Dark Brotherhood.
I actually quite liked that game and appreciated that they were trying something new for Sonic. It's obviously nowhere near same league as the Mario & Luigi or Paper Mario games, though.
Nintendo doing something different from the other big publishers? That's never happened before...
(I don't disagree with the overall point, devs should be publicized and get the attention they deserve, but that point honestly made me go "ah of course".)
It's also not true. Like we do not learn the developers of the various ports of games until we dig into the credits. The smaller Square Enix games also get obfuscated like Voice of Cards or Dragon Quest Adventure of Dai. And Ubisoft's inter studio development tends to make it unclear which studio did which game aside from Massive.
they are literally releasing more games than i have time to play
If ArtePiazza could remaster their goat game... Opoona, then I would be really happy 😁
I find myself clicking on GVG videos with Jon on the thumbnail just to listen more to his voice
Nintendo usually doesn't want to push the creators / developers out too much since the old days. After all, you can tell who made the game when you see the credits.
Personally, I hardly ever buy a game for the development company because good development companies can make bad games and vice versa.
And when one person's name gets too attached to the franchise, it's not necessarily all good. After all, everyone (including me) can't get over the fact that Metal Gear Solid should be a Kojima game and in the end he seems to be the one to get most of the credit for MGS when many others are behind it too.
In a way, Nintendo always aims for the broader audience. So they almost habe to put the Nintendo branding on the forefront before anything else. Monolith Soft is a different beast because they specialise in games like Xenoblade. Whilst other studios you mention all dabble into Mario, Zelda, etc...
While I get the argument of hiding the devs from scrutiny, it still feels wrong for the developers to not be credited off-rip. Imagine how much more excitement that Another Code and Mario & Luigi: Brothership would've gotten if we knew that Arc System Works & Acquire respectively made those games upon their reveals. Or with the inverse, imagine if Nintendo didn't say that Sakurai & Bandai Namco were making the next Smash game until the game launches. The people who work on these games deserve to get some shine, which is an issue that extends to how Nintendo does credits to remakes & remasters of old games. Though that's a whole other can of worms.
@NookLaggen Nobody says that the actual names of the employees have to be mentioned until release if they don't want to, but at least the studio's name would be nice.
I think the simplest answer is that they don't think it's necessary like Sakurai doing away with Subspace Emissary cutscenes. You can look up the credits video on TH-cam and a number of online resources like Mobygames, Nintendo Wiki and Kyoto Report have them in text format soon after release.
@@PIKMINROCK1 You can't even count on that sometimes, as Nintendo often leaves the people who worked on the original release out of their remakes/remasters.
@@Neoxon619 It's is the same reasoning though. You can look up the old game's credits on the respective sites I've mentioned.
I think every company should copy Nintendo's formulas at this point.
I don't know. I mean, yeah, Super Mario RPG has way more impact than "ArtePiazza", moreso to regular buyers. Now, I don't think that should be the case as they're amazing. But maybe it could be added, like in moves, whith phrases like "from the people behind this and that". And if maybe it is a small studio that's having a first shot, then you don't need to put anything and let the game speak for itself.
Also, there's a difference in trailers, I think that Nintendo Directs and trailers are looked by more common folks than PS presentations, maybe I'm wrong, but I have that perception.
Honestly Yoshi's Crafted World was a big platformer. Very easy and cozy, yes, and perhaps underwhelming for some, but the level design was really cool, creative and the levels were big! It must have taken them a lot of work to make this game. I hope to see Yoshi's Wooly World someday on the Switch 2. The main problem I have with Crafted World isn't the difficulty because I enjoyed the coziness, nor the level design which I thought was very creative, but the music... It wasn't great.
"We have no confidence in our chosen partners and their reputations. Please prepare to be bamboozled as we bring you 4 entries in a series with different developers of varying quality."
Back in the day Nintendo promoted Rare and it was a sign of a good game. What's changed now. Weird
They credit them in the end credits for the games. So kind of a non-issue IMO, considering these are games made using Nintendo's IP and co-developed with Nintendo teams. It'd be an issue if they were new IP like W101, which did credit Platinum right from the get-go IIRC.
It's a complete non-issue when the company and the staff is credited in the game.
Nintendo doesn’t NEED to. Point blank simple. Their games are good.
Also if people find out they could go after developers for leaks and info. The world is crazy. Best to keep quiet.
The reason that Nintendo hides their developers is because of the unified brand 100%. Although, I would argue a more insidious take where they take the credit for other people's work so that the world sees Nintendo as quality, even if Nintendo is doing none of Nintendo's work.
It also works in the circle, because most of their fans don't want to buy anything but a Mario game, because what they know is that Nintendo has great developers. So Nintendo gets to trick them into a purchase that they otherwise wouldn't have given to that developer for a different branded game.
Nintendo is in a far more precarious place than people think they are now, because in-house development is at an all-time low in a market that is constantly being consolidated. But hey I mean, play stupid games.
Considering the harassment devs go through on social media by terminally online assholes, i understand why nintendo and a few others would rather hide the devs names till the game is out
I think you overestimate how many people care about this
1:01 to 1:05
Yeah, I don't think Naughty Dog should be listed as an example of "hold on to your butts, we're going for a ride here" developers.
I think it's more about what they've done in the past vs anything more recently
I think the reason why Nintendo doesn’t always reveal the studio who is making their games is because the headlines of the reveal can be impactful for the games marketing and sales. I do wish the studios that worked on those games could get the recognition they deserved but i understand why they don’t want to
Naughty Dog? Halo Studios? Ninja Theory? I see these companies (past 2012), *I avoid the game.*
I was about to say Naughty Dog started to ruin itself with Uncharted 4 and completely ruined their name with The Last of Us 2.
I never realized Splatoon and Animal Crossing are by the same studio
Your point is proven.
As a huge fan of Octopath 1 and 2, I will now check out Brothership, since it is developed by Acquire.
Nintendo just announced Xenoblade X Definitive edition and the trailer started again, with the Monolithsoft logo.
I ususpect its so these teams can work in peace
Yoshi's Woolly World is one of the best Yoshi games ever... *woven* 😎
9:35 This was quite a long time ago now, but the opening credits of Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii do say "Nintendo Presents a Retro Studios Game". This is extremely unusual for Nintendo as far as I can tell. Notably, Mercury Steam don't get a logo at the start of either Metroid Samus Returns or Metroid Dread. This really stuck out to me, because they did get their logo at the start of their previous game, on Nintendo 3DS, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate, albeit this of course being a Konami published title. I guess it's a case of Konami doing what Nintendon't.
...Do they really need to? I get that there are pros to making it known right off the bat, but is this really a problem that needs addressing, as the video title seems to imply? It just strikes me as a lot of fuss over something rather mundane. It simply seems like a choice to me.
Besides, from a consumer perspective, Nintendo is pretty good about showing gameplay immediately whenever they announce a game, and throughout the lead-up to release. It *usually* is not that difficult to get a grasp for the quality and direction of a new game, and at that point, perhaps its just as well that the game speaks for itself in the first place, rather than letting past work immediately colour perception of the new game.
9:28 Now, I'm no expert on how these things go behind the scenes, of course, but wouldn't it be reasonable to suppose that the developers themselves have some say in the matter?
Nintendo has a team of secret Avengers
That’s so interesting for Nintendo!
Aquire wasn't the only devs on Octopath. Square Enix DOES have a team that develops octopath. Team Asano. The leader of which has worked on Bravely Default, Bravely Second, and BD 2, that's why Octopath has the DNA of those. They also work on other HD-2D games.
Not to mention Asano himself is the person responsible for Square's greatest game, LIVE A LIVE.
Hmm never thought about that. Kinda assumed it was internal
It's only odd if you expect to know everything and that isn't how Nintendo works and has been like that for a long time. Most people don't know the developers in the first place, its only those that consume online media that would be interested and that isn't that relevant for Nintendo and the mass market. They will find out at some point, like when these stories come out so why should they do that before hand.
I can safely say why they started to hide developers. It's because of one developer in particular. Arzest. I think their reputation with games like Yoshi's New Island and Hey! Pikmin speaks for them being the weakest games in their respective series.
And let us not forget they made Balan.
The video: Nintendo keeps hiding developers.
The thumbnail: NINTENDO KEEP HIDING DEVELOPERS!!!!
You also didn’t show their logos 🤔
I wasn't aware of this phenomenon and how unconventional it is until I heard this channel say it several times and I appreciate this video you elaborate more on it. It certainly is odd... though there definitely are advantages AND disadvantages to revealing developers early on, so I don't really think there is an overall "right way" to approach this, it's ultimately just an interesting way of doing it.
I just wonder why Nintendo is singled out for this.
Arc System Works has also been pretending they're the only ones behind the games they're publishing since last decade, even with IPs that weren't originally theirs like River City and Double Dragon no less.
Nintendo just want you to think thru make every game and that’s my take from it
Nintendo aren't ones to withhold information, nor are they ones to give it willingly. Their revealing Grezzo was doing Echoes of Wisdom was so blase that they just put it in an Ask the Developers column. For whatever reason, it's not a part of the message they want to push, and so it's either given incidentally or not at all.
The reason I can think of is that Nintendo doesn’t want people to pre-judge the game based on the developer and if they liked previous games from them.
The thing is... for this one it wasn't necessary. The Octopath Traveler games, especially the second one, are beloved games from RPG fans. Knowing that the team behind them is the same for the new Mario & Luigi would have only raised up the hype. So why keeping it a secret? (And no, don't tell me "they still had haters, they would have had some people harassing them regardless", because every developers have their haters, so it wouldn't have been any different from the likes of The Last of Us Part 2 haters harassing Naughty Dog when they announced their next game).
@@grayfox4819 seems to just be the police they implemented. Why they make an exception for monolith? No idea.
It's called the credits in the game. This sounds kinda parasocial if you ask me. And it's always not the developers trying to make this a thing.
Yes John I do know who EDP is.... Oh you mean that EDP!
Video description is real good
Its probably better that they do. People act crazy about games pre-release as expectations run wild.
Better to put a nebulous Nintendo and people wont brigade developer social media in advance to accuse them of ruining a game that isnt out yet lol. e.g. Bloober Team with Silent Hill 2's remake, or Arzest with any game.
Then when the games out and things have calmed down players can see the developers in the credits the reactions will probably be less intense.
I don’t understand why you said “only two games I mentioned were developed by Nintendo?” Which ones? Don’t you mean 3?
Mario vs DK and Mario Party
@@GVG but Mario party was developed by NDCube 🤔
@manuel0578 well nintendo cube now as they've changed their name
@@manuel0578NDCube is fully owned by Nintendo so I guess they count it has being an in house Nintendo game
@@manuel0578 NDCube, now named Nintendo cube is nowadays 99% owned by Nintendo. It has always been a joined venture between Nintendo and Dentsu. Nintendo owned 78% of the companys shares when it was founded in 2000, since 2010 they owned 96%, since 2015 97% and since 2023 99%.
Maybe in part because of the massive negative reaction to the Metroid prime: Federation Force reveal back in 2015, and all the reactions leading up to its release. Probably quite discouraging for the dev (Next Level Games)
The developer i can think of where Nintendo say who the devolper are up front beside Monolithsoft, is Gamefreak, ILCA (i don't know why) and MercurySteam.
I'm torn because on one hand from a consumer stand point knowing the dev is tremendously relevant to if I want to buy your game.
On the other hand; just imagine how different the discourse around Silent Hill 2 would have been if Bloober Teams involvement was kept secret until AFTER people decided it was pretty good.
As always it's the shitty people ruining things for everyone else.
Edit; I forgot to say. I think I'm actually ok with hiding the devs during prerelease so long as they're credited appropriately.
I'll still know if a good team made the game or not in the end, so if it shields people from the crazies? I'll just wait to find out before I decide to buy it or not. Big shrug.
Really the only thing they lose out on is potentially good PR if it's a banger studio.
In this case especially, I don't know why would they keep it a secret. The Octopath Traveler games, especially the second one, are beloved games. So why would they be silent about their developers being the one behind the new Mario & Luigi game?
Nintendo's recent practices really bother me a lot, one of the reason of why I'm gonna quit gaming soon....
Simple, since second party dosen't count because the internet told me games like Helldivers 2 and Rise of Ronnin doesn't count for Sony because they dont have games but Nintendo games all count, they are all first party games to the internet even thought the reason they have a high first party output is because of their second party relationships. Double standards I guess 😂
EPD5? Didn't they lock that guy up?