User Banned (1 week): trolling and platform warring, threadmaking privileges revoked
There is already a thread about whether it is the most anti consumer company of the big 3, but in my opinion that isn't as interesting a discussion because it is well.....kind of obvious at this point.
What I think is a much more interesting question is whether or not it is the most anti consumer company in gaming currently. For the sake of this discussion, please do not conflate workplace ethics and anti consumer. ActiBlizz is the clear winner of the most unethical company and the one I don't like the most, but this is a discussion about how their policies effect the average consumer directly not morally.
Now, to list out the current array of what I'd personally consider anti consumer foibles that Nintendo has pulled
1. Nintendo Switch online
Nintendo Switch online when launched for free for an entire year, and that was a good thing because it was and remains a truly mediocre service for anyone concerned with online, the point of the service, what the majority of consumers are actually paying for. Instead of actually addressing anything at all to do with connectivity issues in a console where the majority of owners don't so much as have an option for a built in option for an ethernet port, they eliminated the virtual console and tied a bunch of SNES games that most people have played or don't care much about to this sub service. I am not saying those games are bad, I am saying they are a poor justification for a yearly subscription and not what the majority of NSO users are paying for. So the question remains, what do NSO online players pay for? Cloud saves, fair enough, but also peer to peer connection with no servers being committed to helping online run smoothly at all. And boy, does the online not run smoothly. Mario maker, Mario 35th, basically any game requiring online but tetris has been a mess far too often, smash bros connection especially is laughably bad half the time and gets no much needed server support, it is just a truly horrible service as far as the online aspect goes.
Eliminating virtual console and tying it to the NSO sub only served to force people who didn't care about those games to pay a higher sum to a service that was only acceptable due to being free with a frustrating justification being given, and force those who do not are about online but do care about retro games to have to sub to an annual 20 fee in order to maintain them. Say if you really, really love super Metroid and yoshis island and you want to have the option to replay it once a year on your switch. At this point, that option has cost you 100 dollars if you've been playing Switch since it's launch.
2. Nintendo Switch online + expansion
Clear overlap with one so I'm not going to get into it, but the idea of charging an entire 30 dollars extra for an annual sub to emulate N64 games on a level far below what is available to people on PC and far below some of the options Nintendo themselves has given us in the past is just bad to put it nicely. If Sega games and Banjo really cost them that much (DOUBT) then okay, cool option for the purist, but really it just feels like they are taking advantage of their most loyal fans
3. Mario 3d all-stars debacle (limited release)
Replicating the Disney vault concept, which I believe basically everyone can accept is an anti-consumer way to produce false scarcity....but in some ways, far worse. Why do you ask? Because far, far more people have or had access to DvD players when a Disney vault announcement would come around, if you wanted to go all digital and buy Mario 3d all-stars but did not get your switch within the first 4 years of the consoles life cycle, too bad for you. In the future if you want a 3d all-stars copy, have fun getting overcharged for a used game. Not only that, but this was very conveniently announced when Switch pro rumors where at their height, and ended a few months prior to the Switch OLED announcement. It is also one of the only ways to play sunshine on modern console, and now you can't digitally. Sucks to suck loosers
now I'm not saying that they used 3d all stars in part to sell as much of the first version of the Switch prior to the OLED releasing but looking at the dates, I do find it suspicious.
4. The fire emblem 30th anniversary Shadow dragon and blade of light debacle (limited release)
Nintendo didn't get enough of pressuring their consumers with 3d all stars apparently, they had to do the same thing with fire emblem.
First ever release outside of Japan, first ever fan translation....oh, but you only have 4 months to buy it, we are going to end sales of this AND 3d all stars right before the cut off for our fiscal year, and we strongly suggest you buy it NOW, immediately whether you are positive you are interested or not if you ever want to have an option outside of getting a physical collectors edition for hundreds down the line.
Again, anti consumer
4. Shutting down online Melee tournaments during a Pandemic who's profits where going to charity
Look, I get that Nintendo is hard on piracy. That is their right. But to shut down and basically destroy a communities ability to have tournaments when the world was still in lockdown is cruel to people who have passionately played their game for literally two decades.....and frankly for reasons I wont go into here where a far better representation of their brand then the more modern Smash community. Oh, and on top of that, all profits where going to charity, likely due to trying to avoid such a situation but still for a good cause. Tone def and frankly messed up, especially when Melee is not in any way shape or form purchasable.
5. They no longer have the benefit of being the company without Gacha or Microstransactions
This one is pretty simple really. They have Mobile games with strong gacha mechanics on mobile, and they have first party games with microstransactions now such as kirby crash. Maybe it isn't their main business strategy (yet) but it shows a clear openness to profiting in this way, and people can can no longer claim they take the moral highroad as far as their business models go
6. 60 dollar ports of Wii U titles and the DKTF debacle
I get that the Wii U was a failure of epic proportions and those exclusives deserved a fair shake on Switch, but they literally took the 20 dollar version that was available on the Wii U down upon release of Tropical freeze on the Switch. That is almost comically evil because 1. those people had to have a Wii U! They are your biggest fans, just let them have that and 2. DKTF nor pikmin 3 nor any other Wii U port had the effort put into it that Mario kart 8 deluxe clearly had, yet where still released at a full fledged 60 dollar price point and remain there. It was not that their biggest fans simply got caught in the cross-fire of the Wii U's massive failings and the switch re-releases being low effort full price ports to earn back profit for those titles, they clearly showed they wanted to take advantage of those fans as much as possible by taking down DKTFs cheaper version that was only available to Wii U owners. It ironically brought a whole lot more attention to the price point then simply leaving it at 20 on wii u eshop ever would have
7. Nintendo went years without offering to fix joycon drift
It took an insane amount of outrage for them to fix joycon drift for free despite how apparent it was a problem from the get go, not changing their policies until late 2019. Now, this is is more confusing when account for the joycons costing an astounding estimated $90 to manufuncture making it the only component of the Switch they ever sold at a loss, but whether it is due to incompetence or mal intent, it was still a massive problem for years, and it is still an embarrassingly common occurrence/hassle for consumers to this day
8. Shutting Down Etika pro controllers who's profits where going to charity
Is it their legal right? Sure. Is it anti consumer/anti community to shut down the sale of controllers that where not being profitted on and where in memory of one of the most famous streamers and his recent suicide...Yes.
Now, there are a lot of other things I do not LIKE about Nintendo and how they have handled business with the Switch. I do not LIKE that a yoshi game that has the same theme playing for almost the entire thing is the same cost as BOTW without ever going down in price, but I respect it, and I respect my ability to not buy it which I wont. I will increasingly dislike how old their hardware feels if we don't get a Switch 2 in 2022 or early 2023. But These are not anti consumer. The things I listed above though clearly are.
I understand EA has microtransactions/gacha far worse then nintendo, actiblizz hasnt said a word on their utterly and completely broken diablo 2 lobby system, only tried to fix cheating in CoD when it became a financial problem for them, stuff like that. But a lot of the things that gamers tend to hate such as overpriced releases, gacha, unfinished releases with DLC to finish it out, these are all things Nintendo has now thrown it's hand in too. As evil as these corporations can be in regard to other matters such crunch and employee rights I can't think personally of a company as blatantly almost mean towards their own community as Nintendo has been in the last few years.
So, is Nintendo the most anti-consumer company in the last 5 years of gaming?
If not, please list your counter points, thank you for your consideration. Please be excited (to answer this poll)
What I think is a much more interesting question is whether or not it is the most anti consumer company in gaming currently. For the sake of this discussion, please do not conflate workplace ethics and anti consumer. ActiBlizz is the clear winner of the most unethical company and the one I don't like the most, but this is a discussion about how their policies effect the average consumer directly not morally.
Now, to list out the current array of what I'd personally consider anti consumer foibles that Nintendo has pulled
1. Nintendo Switch online
Nintendo Switch online when launched for free for an entire year, and that was a good thing because it was and remains a truly mediocre service for anyone concerned with online, the point of the service, what the majority of consumers are actually paying for. Instead of actually addressing anything at all to do with connectivity issues in a console where the majority of owners don't so much as have an option for a built in option for an ethernet port, they eliminated the virtual console and tied a bunch of SNES games that most people have played or don't care much about to this sub service. I am not saying those games are bad, I am saying they are a poor justification for a yearly subscription and not what the majority of NSO users are paying for. So the question remains, what do NSO online players pay for? Cloud saves, fair enough, but also peer to peer connection with no servers being committed to helping online run smoothly at all. And boy, does the online not run smoothly. Mario maker, Mario 35th, basically any game requiring online but tetris has been a mess far too often, smash bros connection especially is laughably bad half the time and gets no much needed server support, it is just a truly horrible service as far as the online aspect goes.
Eliminating virtual console and tying it to the NSO sub only served to force people who didn't care about those games to pay a higher sum to a service that was only acceptable due to being free with a frustrating justification being given, and force those who do not are about online but do care about retro games to have to sub to an annual 20 fee in order to maintain them. Say if you really, really love super Metroid and yoshis island and you want to have the option to replay it once a year on your switch. At this point, that option has cost you 100 dollars if you've been playing Switch since it's launch.
2. Nintendo Switch online + expansion
Clear overlap with one so I'm not going to get into it, but the idea of charging an entire 30 dollars extra for an annual sub to emulate N64 games on a level far below what is available to people on PC and far below some of the options Nintendo themselves has given us in the past is just bad to put it nicely. If Sega games and Banjo really cost them that much (DOUBT) then okay, cool option for the purist, but really it just feels like they are taking advantage of their most loyal fans
3. Mario 3d all-stars debacle (limited release)
Replicating the Disney vault concept, which I believe basically everyone can accept is an anti-consumer way to produce false scarcity....but in some ways, far worse. Why do you ask? Because far, far more people have or had access to DvD players when a Disney vault announcement would come around, if you wanted to go all digital and buy Mario 3d all-stars but did not get your switch within the first 4 years of the consoles life cycle, too bad for you. In the future if you want a 3d all-stars copy, have fun getting overcharged for a used game. Not only that, but this was very conveniently announced when Switch pro rumors where at their height, and ended a few months prior to the Switch OLED announcement. It is also one of the only ways to play sunshine on modern console, and now you can't digitally. Sucks to suck loosers
now I'm not saying that they used 3d all stars in part to sell as much of the first version of the Switch prior to the OLED releasing but looking at the dates, I do find it suspicious.
4. The fire emblem 30th anniversary Shadow dragon and blade of light debacle (limited release)
Nintendo didn't get enough of pressuring their consumers with 3d all stars apparently, they had to do the same thing with fire emblem.
First ever release outside of Japan, first ever fan translation....oh, but you only have 4 months to buy it, we are going to end sales of this AND 3d all stars right before the cut off for our fiscal year, and we strongly suggest you buy it NOW, immediately whether you are positive you are interested or not if you ever want to have an option outside of getting a physical collectors edition for hundreds down the line.
Again, anti consumer
4. Shutting down online Melee tournaments during a Pandemic who's profits where going to charity
Look, I get that Nintendo is hard on piracy. That is their right. But to shut down and basically destroy a communities ability to have tournaments when the world was still in lockdown is cruel to people who have passionately played their game for literally two decades.....and frankly for reasons I wont go into here where a far better representation of their brand then the more modern Smash community. Oh, and on top of that, all profits where going to charity, likely due to trying to avoid such a situation but still for a good cause. Tone def and frankly messed up, especially when Melee is not in any way shape or form purchasable.
5. They no longer have the benefit of being the company without Gacha or Microstransactions
This one is pretty simple really. They have Mobile games with strong gacha mechanics on mobile, and they have first party games with microstransactions now such as kirby crash. Maybe it isn't their main business strategy (yet) but it shows a clear openness to profiting in this way, and people can can no longer claim they take the moral highroad as far as their business models go
6. 60 dollar ports of Wii U titles and the DKTF debacle
I get that the Wii U was a failure of epic proportions and those exclusives deserved a fair shake on Switch, but they literally took the 20 dollar version that was available on the Wii U down upon release of Tropical freeze on the Switch. That is almost comically evil because 1. those people had to have a Wii U! They are your biggest fans, just let them have that and 2. DKTF nor pikmin 3 nor any other Wii U port had the effort put into it that Mario kart 8 deluxe clearly had, yet where still released at a full fledged 60 dollar price point and remain there. It was not that their biggest fans simply got caught in the cross-fire of the Wii U's massive failings and the switch re-releases being low effort full price ports to earn back profit for those titles, they clearly showed they wanted to take advantage of those fans as much as possible by taking down DKTFs cheaper version that was only available to Wii U owners. It ironically brought a whole lot more attention to the price point then simply leaving it at 20 on wii u eshop ever would have
7. Nintendo went years without offering to fix joycon drift
It took an insane amount of outrage for them to fix joycon drift for free despite how apparent it was a problem from the get go, not changing their policies until late 2019. Now, this is is more confusing when account for the joycons costing an astounding estimated $90 to manufuncture making it the only component of the Switch they ever sold at a loss, but whether it is due to incompetence or mal intent, it was still a massive problem for years, and it is still an embarrassingly common occurrence/hassle for consumers to this day
8
Now, there are a lot of other things I do not LIKE about Nintendo and how they have handled business with the Switch. I do not LIKE that a yoshi game that has the same theme playing for almost the entire thing is the same cost as BOTW without ever going down in price, but I respect it, and I respect my ability to not buy it which I wont. I will increasingly dislike how old their hardware feels if we don't get a Switch 2 in 2022 or early 2023. But These are not anti consumer. The things I listed above though clearly are.
I understand EA has microtransactions/gacha far worse then nintendo, actiblizz hasnt said a word on their utterly and completely broken diablo 2 lobby system, only tried to fix cheating in CoD when it became a financial problem for them, stuff like that. But a lot of the things that gamers tend to hate such as overpriced releases, gacha, unfinished releases with DLC to finish it out, these are all things Nintendo has now thrown it's hand in too. As evil as these corporations can be in regard to other matters such crunch and employee rights I can't think personally of a company as blatantly almost mean towards their own community as Nintendo has been in the last few years.
So, is Nintendo the most anti-consumer company in the last 5 years of gaming?
If not, please list your counter points, thank you for your consideration. Please be excited (to answer this poll)
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