If you visit The Escapist (which you should be doing anyway to check out Jimquisition!), you might have heard of Bob Chipman and his series Escape to the Movies and The Big Picture. Both are really good shows, but I much prefer his third, game culture-related show, The Game OverThinker. With strong writing and sound logic, Bob discusses a lot of gaming's major topics carefully and methodically. He's a lot more serious than other Internet pundits, yet he never fails to keep the listener engaged.
Following last week's SOPA / PIPA drama, this week's episode touches on the issue of piracy in general and where we go from here. In contrast with Jim's strong opinion on the matter, Bob approaches the topic with a gentle but firm request to publishers. If publishers are so concerned over piracy, it's about time they adapt their business model to make piracy a non-issue. Piracy is never going to disappear, so the only option is to make piracy less convenient than legal channels.
I've been a fan of The Game OverThinker for a good while, so I'm glad I finally realized that I could be sharing his material with you groovy cats. If you want to check out Bob's back catalog, visit his website or his ScrewAttack page. And if you aren't too hot on the skit portions of his shows... I won't blame you.
The Game OverThinker - Episode 64 "Beyond SOPA" [ScrewAttack]
Tony Ponce (aka megaStryke) is a culturally confused, Canadian-born Puerto Rican who grew up in Japan and South Florida ... yet can only speak English. He specializes in writing features and maintaining an immaculate goatee. Likes: Any and all things related to Mega Man, Contra, Castlevania, 2D, PB&J sandwiches, applesauce, and candy corn.
Meet the rest of the team
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Contest:
7:30 PM on 01.23.2012 | 
Also it's "Escape to the Movies."
The controller was half the reason the game was as good as it was. You only have a general idea of how each tool operates, and it's up to you to manipulate the controller appropriately. The only time the controller completely fails is during the sword fight which only happens once at the end. The controls were hailed as one of the most clever uses of the Wii Remote in any game on the platform, and that distinction pretty much holds today.
The problem people had with the game wasn't the controls. I don't think I ever read a single review that faulted the controls save for a few instances that were easily overlooked. Even Yahtzee, who is known for his sheer disdain of any and all motion controls, was able to enjoy the game.
No, the reason we didn't get a sequel was because no one bought the first one, and no one bought the first one because they looked at the title and the box art and threw up their hands in confusion. No one knew what the game was supposed to be unless they actually played it or seen videos. I remember for months, commenters on sites like Kotaku had no idea that Z&W was a point-and-click puzzler, and these are supposedly "serious gamers."
Waggle had ZERO to do with why the game received no sequel.
Wow, I mucked that up big time. I fixed it. Sorry!
The controls were ok other than stupid waggle when the game didn't need it. My point wasn't that "the controlz" is why the game failed.
My point was it easily COULD be on any other system. The controls weren't 100% necessary for enjoying the experience. See all 100 adventure games that are released every year for the PSN/XBLA and PC that are more complicated than Zack and Wiki (also, all TellTale games ever).
I think it sold poorly because of misconceptions with the Wii, and Capcom/pretty much every other third party not caring about the system, or caring to market for it, etc. If it was a Steam/Xbox/PS3 game, I think it would have sold gangbusters.
We already have plenty examples of games that have gone from being Wii-exclusive to receiving ports and sequels on the other consoles. It never really helped. It didn't help No More Heroes, it didn't help Dead Space Extraction, it didn't help de Blob 2, it didn't help GoldenEye, and so on.
Zack & Wiki would NOT have sold gangbusters on the PS3/360/PC, and the controls, though not necessary, were easily a big draw for enough of the people who did enjoy the game. On the other platforms, the game would still have been a strange pirate game with anime-esque art and a name that would not have appealed to anyone had they not already known ahead of time that the game was a point-and-click puzzler.
I wish there was a SINGLE game that someone could demonstrate that made the jump from the Wii to the other platforms and was better off for it. The only one I can think of has been Tales of Graces, but that series is shopped to so many platforms and has no consistency when it comes to what platform gets which mainline sequel or spin-off. Only the most recent entry, Xilia, has shown any signs of turning the series' fortunes around.
retards can constantly claim how nintendo should pull off Sega, but without Nintendo consoles all those great original games that pushed the gaming industry forward would not be released, period. and stop kidding yourself if you think that publishers would simply released those games on HD platforms or psp instead - those games would not be even made.
gta chinatown wars sold more on other platforms
bit trip runner in all likelihood sold more on pc than on the wii especially considering it at least sold 400.000 times in the humble indie bundle alone.
often its quite hard to find the total sales but that doesn't mean they don't sell more elsewhere.
Still a fun game just hated the point system.
I don't think pointing to a lack of sales performance from titles that are port-ups of games that are (visually) behind the curve by 7 or more years is good proof that 360/PS3 owners don't buy niche titles.
I also think you are giving just a BIT too much credit to the Wii for the publishing of "original games". Original games come out on every platform, every year. I own between 30-40 disc titles and between 40-60 downloaded titles each for my 360 and PS3. Barely a handful of them are shooters, and even fewer are "brown".
I'm not trying to say there aren't some good original games on the Wii too, but let's not kid ourselves into believing that Nintendo is some sort of champion for developers who want to publish something new and exciting. DeBlob and Zack & Wiki are swell games and all, but if you think they are singular beacons of original game design, the likes of which can't be found on other platforms or be appreciated by anyone who also likes shooters and action games, you are gravely mistaken.
Glad to see he's back on Youtube; I'm gonna have to catch up.
"so I'm glad I finally realized that I could be sharing his material with you groovy cats."
again, this seems weird given the other stuff people link to and share in their articles sometimes.
"And if you aren't too hot on the skit portions of his shows... I won't blame you."
I'm going to give him a look but I'll sa that I don't usually get putting skits into things.. Like, okay, I kinda see the merit, but it usually makes these people look stupid, rather then someone I want to bother getting my news and opinions from (*cough* Angry Joe *cough*)
"Zack & Wiki would NOT have sold gangbusters on the PS3/360/PC"
It wouldn't have, but not because of the controls. The issue with most -if not all- of the games you mentioned is the fact that they weren't the best games to begin with, coupled with the fact that they weren't given even half way decent marketing campaigns in most cases, even when they were coming to the Wii.
I hate to say it and sound like "one of those guys" but the publishers didn't find a reason to care about these titles from the start, when they were on the Wii, and proved it when they tried to cash in on making them jump to other systems. What you would like to see would could have happened at some point had the effort been put into it (and its sad that didn't happen, at least, with Dead Space, seeing the huge love the main games get)