MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
The boss of Nintendo of America’s indie program Dan Adelman has left the company after nine years.
Furthermore, in an interview with Kotaku Adelman admitted that Nintendo ordered he stop tweeting having previously strayed from the official line. Even more bafflingly, it was even at one stage suggested that a PR rep be allowed to post tweets on his behalf.
I remember when I did my first press interview, some people were really nervous about it. Could I toe the company line? What if it was for something that my personal view sharply differed from the company view? That kind of thing,” he said.
I think people were kind of on pins and needles about anything untoward I might say. And every once in a while, I’d give an answer that people didn’t like, and some people would freak out, so they tried to scale things back. First they had me do interviews with someone from PR or marketing. Later they just decided that I shouldn’t be in the press at all anymore.
Apparently two statements that caused particular problem were one that expressed sympathies about a fan’s frustration regarding 3DS region locking and another that admitted Nintendo needed to be a bit more flexible” about its content guidelines after a 3DS port of Binding of Isaac was blocked.
I had been strongly encouraged to stay off of Twitter – or at least say only things that were clearly safe – so after the region locking comment they just said I needed to stop completely,” he added.
When people started complaining that I wasn’t active on Twitter anymore, it was suggested that a PR person could just post in my name. I thought that was about the worst idea I’d ever heard, so I left it as is and let the silence speak for itself.”
Adelman also confirmed that he is setting up work as an independent developer, adding that Nintendo has been really supportive of this move”.
Happy to announce I reached an arrangement w/ @NintendoAmerica whereby I can tweet again. Arrangement includes my not working there anymore.
— Dan Adelman (@Dan_Adelman) August 4, 2014
