Bob's Game

Bob's Game
Bob's Game logo
Developer(s)	Robert Pelloni
Platform(s)	nD
Release date(s)	TBA
Genre(s)	Role-playing video game
Media/distribution	N/A

Bob's Game was the proposed role-playing video game to be developed by independent software developer Robert Pelloni. The project is most notable for Pelloni's attempts to develop the game using Nintendo software development tools and the resulting altercations that followed.

Development

Bob's Game was to be a 2D role-playing video game developed solely by Pelloni. According to an interview done by the Orlando Sentinel, Pelloni reportedly spent over five years and over 15,000 hours working on the game. The game was to feature over 200 characters and, according to the interview, "more gameplay than just about anything out there on the portable system". In August 2008, Pelloni posted a preview of the game on YouTube, which garnered over 100,000 views as of September 15, 2008.

Development started as a result from a conversation Pelloni made with friends at a restaurant regarding video games. He discussed creating a video game that was based in the suburbs that had a Dungeons and Dragons mindset, similar to the Earthbound series. Pelloni first got the idea of creating Bob's Game from watching his brother play Dragon Warrior, whose story, he said, he found confusing. He also drew motivation from other titles such as Super Mario 64, Super Metroid, the Dance Dance Revolution series, and a similar game developed by one person titled Cave Story. He started to brainstorm ideas for this game, scribbling notes on a napkin. According to the Sentinel interview, Pelloni was fascinated by other similar video game projects getting published after participating in online Internet forums. At the same time, he was also "disheartened" over how the video game industry conducted itself business-wise, saying that "it's a standard practice for some publishers to take a game engine and put in licensed assets to coincide with, say, a movie release for example". This motivated Pelloni to self-develop Bob's Game and, as a result, spent most of 2006 and 2007 in isolation while developing the game.

Pelloni said that the hardest part in developing the game was the background graphics, which he drew by himself, despite having no artistic experience. He said that he enjoyed writing the dialogue and designing the gameplay elements the best. He didn't consider the game "100% complete" until he received the software development kit (SDK) from Nintendo, which would allow him to compile the game according to Nintendo's specifications of coding. However, he stated in the Sentinel interview that "you can't get access to [the SDK] unless you've published a game before". Pelloni had received responses from some video game publishers but did not start talks with any of them as he wanted to retain creative rights over the game. As a replacement for the standard credits roll at the end of most video games, Pelloni described it as a summary making of the game, he would have said, "You just played it, now this is how it was made."

Rejection and protest

According to an article from The Escapist, Pelloni was directed by Nintendo to talk to the WarioWorld division, where they directed him to marketing; marketing directed him back to the WarioWorld division. Nintendo told him that they would inform him of their decision to grant him an SDK for the game between six and eight weeks. No response came from Nintendo. After 17 weeks of trying and failing to get Nintendo to provide Pelloni with the SDK, on December 11, 2008, he decided to publicly protest to Nintendo by locking himself in his room for 100 days or until they provided him with the SDK, whichever came first. According to Owen Good from Kotaku, he staged the protest in an effort to gain publicity by making Nintendo look like a corporate bully beating down on an indie game developer. His room had no Internet (save for broadcasting a live feed of him in his room via a webcam) or television and had only a mobile phone in which he could make calls and send emails and the materials he needed to work on the game. Pelloni made the following comment when he decided to protest:

"I cannot leave this viridian room. The door is locked and barricaded from the outside. I am sleeping behind the camera, and yes- I've got a shower. Food is delivered once a week by a friend...This is my 100 day protest to Nintendo!"

—Robert Pelloni

His protest garnered popularity on various Internet forums and websites. On the 21st day of his protest on December 31, 2008, Pelloni started to release addresses of Nintendo executives and to send Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime holiday greetings. He also threatened Nintendo by bundling the game as a killer app using a Nintendo DSi homebrew device. He also said that he was currently translating the game into several languages, planning to release the game worldwide as part of an effort to "significantly cut into Nintendo's bottom line". According to Chris Greenhough from Joystiq, he had contacted a Chinese firm for release of Bob's Game on a flash cartridge and that he was negotiating with Wal-Mart to distribute his game. He also threatened to get the game released on other distribution platforms including Xbox Live Arcade, Steam, the iPhone, and the PlayStation Network. On January 6, he sent another message, declaring that he was better than Shigeru Miyamoto, Hiroyuki Ito, Hideo Kojima, Adrian Carmack, and Will Wright combined, slamming all of them and saying that he "bested them all by far". Though he apologized for his comment two days later, he made another threat, which, according to Andy Chalk in an Escapist article, he would "exact a horrific vengeance if the company continued to deny him the SDK". At this point, he started to complain about paranoia and having persistent headaches.

See also

• Derek Smart

External links

• Official website of Bob's Game