Nintendo eShop scammers helped this indie game reach number one

Date:
Fri, 14 Oct 2022 11:33:38 +0000

Description:
Lets Build a Zoo is a little indie game that didnt expect much. That was
until region-swapping players got their hands on it.

FULL STORY ======================================================================

Lets Build a Zoos story is one of confusion, surprise, and scammers.
Something that reflects what its like to develop smaller games in this industry.

When the developers at Springloaded went to bed the night after pre-orders went live, I doubt they could imagine what they would wake up to in the morning. Come the next day, their pre-order sale has skyrocketed, a momentous occasion for any indie game developer. But there was just one catch, 85% of Nintendo Switch pre-order sales were from Argentina. Sounds slightly suspicious.

It was then that the developers realized they were in trouble. It turns out that people were going to sites like eShop Prices and were checking out where to get the cheapest deals for Nintendo games and Lets Build a Zoo featured heavily on all of them.

Mike Rose, the director at No More Robots who published Lets Build a Zoo, tweeted, just 1000s of people buying the game, and us earning less than $1
for each sale. This could have been the end to quite an upsetting story for everyone behind Lets Build a Zoo, but as fate would have it, they were in for a win.

Despite losing out on a stack of money due to these scammers, these super cheap sales in Argentina were putting us in more US player eyeballs, Rose tweeted, explaining that the Lets Build a Zoo pre-orders were seen as US
sales and so it pushed the game up the US best-sellers charts. The US eShop
is *not* the US eShop.It's the "Americas" eShop. Any sales anywhere in the Americas, were treated as sales across the whole of the region.By getting shitloads of sales in Argentina, we were being boosted up the charts for people in the US! October 13, 2022 See more

After the US eShop store was conquered, Lets build a Zoo went on to get onto the charts of the EU and Australian eShop boards as well. Luckily this exposure saved Lets Build a Zoo from a big financial loss. But this kind of success cant be guaranteed for everyone. eShopping

Region swapping is surprisingly easy to do if you want to see what prices are available in other regions. All you have to do is go to the official Nintendo website, log in and change your region in the settings menu. Its that easy.
As it stands, Nintendo doesnt seem to have any barriers or penalties for
doing this either.

This means its incredibly simple for users to bypass their countries' pricing in favor of cheaper options elsewhere. In this case, Argentia seems to have many of the best deals. Helpful scams

Region swapping not only got users a steep discount, it also helped Lets
Build a Zoo on its road to success. But you shouldnt see region-swapping as doing devs a favor.

It could well have led to Lets Build a Zoos developers suffering a massive financial loss without getting any promotion from it. If Nintendo didnt have such a broad definition for the US market, Lets Build a Zoo may not have gotten wider recognition from Argentinian sales.

In the case of indie developers, they need all the support they can get. So while this is a helpful hack to do once and a while to get more expensive games for cheaper. I wouldnt suggest this as an option to do all the time.
Not if you want to support developers that are making fantastic games that
you want to play. Best indie games: the greatest hidden gems on PC and console



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/nintendo-eshop-scammers-helped-this-indie-game- reach-number-one/


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