Nintendo Not Paying Some WiiWare Developers

The concept of paying for work, whether through monetary means or otherwise, goes back to the beginning of the human race. Apparently Nintendo didn’t get the memo. Some developers for their WiiWare service are not receiving compensation for the games they make that people purchase.

According to IGN, Nintendo has a threshold that developers must reach before receiving payment. If a certain number of downloads are not reached, “somewhere in the mid-quadruple digits for America and low quadruples for other territories”, the developer will receive no payment. “Sources in the WiiWare development community have confirmed this information,” IGN claims.

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The WiiWare service only launched about a year ago (May 12, 2008) in North America. Since then it has seen over 75 games get released. It was originally touted as a means for small developers to reach Nintendo’s audience, but these payment limitations raise the question of why they are being targeted. While quality concerns certainly play a role, the amount of shovelware coming from retail releases (disproportionately large publishers) has not been objectionable to Nintendo.

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