When people protest, sometimes things get out of hands. Sometimes people end up setting themselves on fire, sometimes they end up shutting down international air ports, and sometimes they end up rioting so much that the national guard has to come down and shoot a few college students to make a point.
Fortunately, Bob Pelloni, an independent game developer who has labored all by himself for five years on the home brew title Bob’s Game, has decided to take a considerably more passive, Gandhian approach to resolve his beef with the head honchos at Nintendo. Instead of taking a gun and holding Nintendo HQ hostage until his reasonable requests are met, he’s decided to lock himself in a room for 100 days (with food and water, but no television or internet) until Nintendo gives him what he wants.
See, Bob is trying, just like everyone else, to live the American dream. He’s worked hard, made his own game over the course of five years and 15,000 hours of hard work (including coding, music composing, etc.) and now all he needs is a silly development kit from Nintendo to finish his work. He’s not asking for a loan from Nintendo, he’s not asking them to publish the game, hell, he’s not even asking them to invest anything into his game. He already has that taken care of, because apparently, there are publishers that are genuinely interested in Bob’s project.
But is Nintendo impressed with Bob’s achievement?
Apparently not. Despite Bob going through all the red tape (filing applications, meeting with people, etc.) Nintendo has decided to repeatedly deny his requests for a development kit. According to Bob, this development kit is the only thing he needs before he can make his game and it would cost absolutely nothing for Nintendo to give it to him.
So what’s the deal Nintendo? All this guy wants to do is prove that he can make games just as good if not better than the myriad shovelware that Nintendo insists on pouring out on a weekly basis, and all you can give this poor guy is a giant “Fuck you?”
If this were a sports movie, Bob would be the underdog, minority football team from the streets and Nintendo would be the Aryan, prep-school dickheads.
Nintendo may have its reasons for denying Bob, but I certainly can’t think of a legitimate excuse for not giving the guy a chance. If his game sucks and no one wants to play it, that’s for the publishers, the critics, and the gamers to decide. It shouldn’t be Nintendo’s call. It’d be like a doctor going up to a parent and telling them that they can’t deliver their baby because the staff thinks it’ll turn out to be ugly or something. Bob’s not asking Nintendo to rear and nourish his baby, he’s just asking them for a chance to deliver the damn thing.
Nintendo champions all this Wii (as in “we -together, all of us) garbage and yet apparently all they’re thinking right now is more about the Mii. See what I just did there? Har har har.
Joystiq and Kotaku have already picked up this story, but this writer also wants to throw in his support for Bob also. This is America where hard work, ambitions, and dreams should be rewarded. Nintendo shouldn’t bend over backwards and make every average joe’s homebrew title into a video game, but that’s not what Bob is asking for. Not at all. He’s already made the game all on his own, and now he just wants the chance to transform his hard work into a viable product that he can pitch to publishers.
Independent film makers don’t have to put up with this crap in order to pitch their reels to studios, so why should Bob’s situation be any different.
It’s an interesting story that I’ll definitely be following, and I think you should to.
Visit his site here for regular updates or
Write to Nintendo and tell them that you want to play Bob’s Game
Check out Youtube for video clips from his game.
No idea if you’ll ever read this Bob, but good luck all the same. I’m cheering for you.
Your thoughts?
Mark Fujii: I'm your typical college student who plays too much video games. I also work as an electronic sales associate, meaning I sell Ipods and violent video games to your children when not trying to sneak off and play Super Smash Bros while the boss isn't looking. Oh, and I'm totally awesome. True fact.
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Buzz Magazine
Mark Fujii
I'm your typical college student who plays too much video games. I also work as an electronic sales associate, meaning I sell Ipods and violent video games to your children when not trying to sneak off and play Super Smash Bros while the boss isn't looking. Oh, and I'm totally awesome. True fact.