Archive for December, 2009

An interview with ARN: Nic Watt on Nintendo, R18+ classifications and gaming software

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Matthew Sainsbury for ARN website. Below is the full interview which you can also read on their site.

Nic Watt, founder and creative director of games and application software developer, Nnooo, is on the cutting edge of the industry. The Independent Software Developer’s sales model is entirely around digital downloads for the iPhone, Nintendo Wii and DS. He speaks to MATTHEW SAINSBURY about the future of digital distribution and the broader gaming software industry.

Can you give me an overview of Nnooo and your background?

I’ve been in the industry for about 10 years now. I was working at Electronic Arts in London, and my partner got offered the chance to come to Australia, so we made the decision to move out here. It was at that point I sold some property I had in the UK, and decided to make the jump to running my own small games company.

It was around about the time that the small downloadable titles were starting to come to market. Microsoft had just launched Xbox Live Arcade, and I thought the future of these small downloadable games was quite exciting. Particularly from a small company point of view, it was something we could achieve.

What are the advantages of downloadable titles over a full retail release?

For us, the one thing I wanted to do was to make the games I wanted to make. When you work with a really big company, such as EA, that becomes very difficult, because you’ve got to go through so many different stages and there’s so many approval mechanisms. Quite often, the people higher up in the company have their own vision for the kinds of games they want to have made.

Also, the hard part of making a full retail game is it costs a lot of money – when you start up a new company, it’s very difficult industry for people to give you $5, $10 or $20 million to make a videogame unless you’ve done something like make a Halo or World or Warcraft in the past. (more…)

An Open letter about video game ratings in Australia from the CEO of an Australian games company

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Dear Mr Atkinson,

I am writing to express my thoughts on the current situation of video game ratings in Australia. As the CEO and Creative Director of an Australia based video games company (currently situated in Sydney) I am somewhat saddened by the fact that Australia does not allow adults to purchase games which are available elsewhere in the world at a rating suitable for adult content. IE an R 18+ or similar rating.

It appears, to me, to be somewhat contradictory to allow both Television and Film to be rated against a wider range of ratings than Video Games are. As far as I am aware only people over the age of 18 are allowed to purchase R 18+ films and television products (DVD, Blue Ray etc) so why can this not be the same for games? We have a very robust video games retail service in Australia who already currently use the rating system to sell games to a wide range of people based on their age. Furthermore everyone in Australia is already familiar with this ratings system so providing a new R 18+ rating for games would not result in children or people under the age of 18 obtaining said products unless an adult purchased it for them (as adults can do currently with both Film and TV products). (more…)

myNotebook gets 8/10 from Aussie-Nintendo.com

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Depending on your needs, myNotebook could be an essential purchase. Personally, having a digital notebook on the DSi just makes a lot of sense. I tend to take my DSi with me when I set out for my daily trips to Mars and back, but pen and paper? Yeah, not so much. It’s really something that should have been included with the system in the first place, and while Nintendo’s Flipnote Studio offers the basic functionality, this has a much better feel to it.
From Australian developer Nnooo, myNotebook is basically just that – a notebook. You get 32 pages to fill up (I felt the urge to draw Captain Falcon in mine) with a variety of pens and pencils. Holding the DSi on its side, pages are flipped with the D-Pad, or the X and B buttons for us lefties. The page turning animation and sound effect is pretty authentic! This is virtual reality, baby.
The application offers a range of options, including what colour pen you want to use, its thickness, an eraser and a clear screen trigger that’ll instantly wipe the page. This option bar can be tucked away with the tap of a button. The paper type can also be switched between lined and grid. Over time you’ll find yourself unlocking new paper designs, there are 18 in all. Those with Nnooo’s Pop+ Solo on their DSi will receive a special bubble-themed design.
Your notes are saved automatically, and the application will boot up on the last page you were writing on. It’s very quick, easy and convenient. There’s also some excellent chill out music by Beat Therapy; it’s almost scary how well suited it is. Of course, it can be turned off if you feel the need. Oh, and this review is based on myNotebook: Blue. There’ll also be a Red and Green edition, but the only difference between them is the colour of their front cover and paper.
Score: 8/10 – “Good buy”
Shopping lists, a game of hangman, general notes while out and about, Captain Falcon, whatever! It’s obviously not going to be for everyone, but myNotebook is a handy and well designed application.

Aussie-Nintendo recently reviewed myNotebook: Blue and gave us an amazing 8/10 :) You can read the review below or on Aussie-Nintendo.com (here).

Depending on your needs, myNotebook could be an essential purchase. Personally, having a digital notebook on the DSi just makes a lot of sense. I tend to take my DSi with me when I set out for my daily trips to Mars and back, but pen and paper? Yeah, not so much. It’s really something that should have been included with the system in the first place, and while Nintendo’s Flipnote Studio offers the basic functionality, this has a much better feel to it. (more…)

myNotebook gets 7/10 from Nintendolife.com

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

Nintendolife recently reviewed myNotebook: Blue and gave us a great 7/10. Below is the full review or you can read it on NintendoLife here (and add your comments to the already massive amount). Thanks again to NintendoLife for all the great work they have put in to support us and myNotebook.

Delivering what the DSi should’ve already had. Until now, Nnooo only released one arcade-like highscore game on WiiWare and DSiWare. And though one game is hardly enough to go by, we were still quite surprised to find out that their next project was not another game, but rather a simple application.
myNotebook pretty much does what the title implies – It gives you a virtual notebook consisting of 32 pages, on which you can leave all sorts of messages, notes, doodles and drawings. When you think about it now, it’s actually really weird that such a feature was not included on the DSi from the get-go. (more…)

myNotebook turns the page

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

Sydney, Dec 3 2009

PRESS RELEASE: Nnooo are pleased to announce that myNotebook: Blue™ has reached #3 in the US, UK, AU and CA DSiWare charts (making it currently the highest ranking paid for piece of software).

“We are so pleased that the consumer reception to myNotebook has been so high.” said Nic Watt, Creative Director, Nnooo “The myLifeCollected range of software was always a risky proposition and to see that we are creating something which appeals so strongly to Nintendo DSi users is a great achievement.” (more…)