Talking Point: Why Isn't Nintendo Revealing Its Partner Devs Before Launch?

Really well written article, got plenty of smiles from me! I think Nintendo just tries to make the game NINTENDO and not get it confused with other partners.

It makes sense to me. If the developer has some bad publicity around them Nintendo wouldn't want that to affect "their" game. Also, they don't want the game to seem "lesser" because it's made by a third party. Selling it as just another Nintendo game is the safest thing they can do to avoid any controversy and to keep consistent branding.

It did drive me a little crazy when I couldn't find out who developed the Mario RPG remake in the lead up to launch. Luckily it turned out to be exactly what I wanted in a remake of that game, but I was worried and wanted to know how involved Square were.

Seems like a culture thing. If you do work for nintendo, all your work is NINTENDO'S.

@Fizza everyone gets harassed

i cant simply understand why Nintendo is holding a such essential information as, who developed Princess Peach Showtime, who developed Luigi Mansion 2HD.

we, the hungry customers, may be somewhat to blame. We struggle to remember the last big game that was released without some kind of leak or slip-up to sully its otherwise watertight launch.
I will never not get annoyed at statements like this.
1. Are we, the customers, the ones hacking into developers' servers? No. Those are attention-seeking hackers.
2. Are we, the customers, demanding to know every minute detail of the development process, spurring on the hackers and scaring the publishers? No. It is the people and organisations who write gaming news who decide what to write about in an endless bid for audience attention. We're not screaming at journos to tell us what colour socks Miyamoto is wearing, we're just opening up NintendoLife or Twitter or whatever and seeing what you've got for us today.
Regardless of the topic of the actual article, I just really wish journos would stop trying to tell us that consumers are responsible for the ills of the world. We're the last link in the chain.

As long as the game is good, I honestly couldn't care less.

It's probably a privacy thing. Nintendo's always been a private company, and they are just ensuring it even more. Sadly there are bad eggs who would steal company private info and employee personal info if given the right chances and information.

@Nontendo_4DS I disagree. If I see a headline about Miyamoto and click on it, that doesn't mean that I have an insatiable appetite for Miyamoto articles and that paparazzi should follow him home and try to dig up a scandal. I read Switch firmware patch note articles for goodness sake; anything vaguely in my area of interest will do. As a reader I'm not telling people what to write.

Is this an issue? Most companies don't reveal outsourcing upfront. The point is that they are whitelabled as Ninendo making it. The team is in the credits if a person needs to point validate their resume. Honestly the obsession people have with knowing the lives/having access to the people that make the products we consume is a little creepy. While I understand some industry veterans are going to inevitably be known/become mouthpieces, I in general don't care who makes the game...I merely hope they like their job, are treated well, and collectively thank them for their work. People want to have way too much visibility on others.

Just give me a fun game and I am good to go.

@Nontendo_4DS I will say though that I like your username. I always dreamed of calling myself N65-Rox.

@Semudara sounds like it has a good sense of humour at least!

@Bobb yeah, I think this is the reason. Nintendo has been the target of a lot of threats lately, which is also why they cancelled Nintendo Live. Secrecy probably protects best.

Sadly….

I think it's a bit of both sides. If the developer was revealed and it got a negative response, those Devs are probably going to get harangued over it from the more 'passionate' fan. Not great for the developer morale. If it gets a more positive response, chances are they may get haragued in other ways like looking for hints, telling Devs what they should be doing or trying to get extra info.
It would also explain why Nintendo announces games a few months before release (with some exceptions). It's probably to let devs to work on stuff without eyes of players looking over them.
Unfortunately, there are some people who will judge a game solely on the developer. I'm willing to guess some people didn't buy Sonic Superstars just because Arzest were involved. Sometimes there maybe some logic but on the other hand, the developers of Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 also made Metroid Dread. Luigi's Mansion 3? From the same people who gave you Federation Force. I think some people look at certain devs and think 'Oh, they suck because...'. I bet there's people who look at ILCA and judge them solely on BDSP and nothing else.

Long story short, I think Nintendo prefers to let the games speak for themselves rather than people obsess who's making it

@Solomon_Rambling Don't tell 'em. People will get upset if it's a Western that's NOT made by Rockstar😛

Nintendo barley makes games themselves anymore they just get other companies to do their work for them

@Ryu_Niiyama I 100% agree

Nintendo has always done a good job of placing themselves up front. Took me way too long to learn Pokemon was made by GameFreak or Fire Emblem was done by Intelligent Systems. They want the brand to be what people buy and it’s worked so far.

No one is buying a Peach game because of who made it. They’re buying to play as Princess Peach. The IP is what sells and it’s what Nintendo wants you to focus on.

@Ryu_Niiyama Maybe it’s nice to have an idea of whether a game is going to be worth your time if you can see what else that studio has made (and not have to wait for the game to release to find out)? Maybe it’s nice for the team who made the game to have the pride of having their name visibly attached to it?

Jesus Christ, nobody’s asking for the names and addresses of everybody who worked on a game. It’s just beneficial for a variety of reasons and for both consumers and developers to have that information readily available. Do you react the same when someone hears a song and they say “hey who sings this?” “Who cares who sings it! Just enjoy the song!”

@KBuckley27

Nintendo barley makes games themselves anymore they just get other companies to do their work for them

Nintendo Barley is too busy working on a new range of craft beers for the discerning drinker. They don’t have time for games.

Pretty simple, they don't like leaving huge gaps for expectations to build. Nintendo keeps release dates close to the chest until they're near, loves the available today announcement, and is now tamping down people building expectations based on a studio name while making it easy to avoid causing ripples if they change studios midstream. Metroid Prime 4 is probably why this started.

Long as the studio is getting credit at launch I don't care if they do this. Less noise and pointless chatter.

I've seen a couple outlets bring this up. Is it actually anything new? I feel like Nintendo's always had a habit of releasing exactly the information they feel like releasing and nothing else.

@larryisaman Their name (both company and individually usually) is visually attached to the game... in the credits. The article is about announcing devs beforehand or making a lot of fanfare about who devs the game as opposed to white-labeling. It is literally in the title of the article. So your comment isn't a very coherent response because you responded as if I said no one should know the names of devs at all. Because you can just look at the credits and do all the things you mentioned. I even mentioned credits in my comment. You seem really agitated for some reason. But please actually read the comment, and the article for that matter before tagging someone. Thank you!

Also a more accurate music analogy to what I was saying is if I hear a song and love the lyrics but I don’t expect every song to list the writers next to the artist. I do expect to find that information in the book that comes with the CD though. But many people aren’t gonna care who wrote the lyrics, just that the song is good and they want more from that artist (meaning the entire collective team that makes the music possible and not just whose name is on the CD cover).

@Waluigi451 Thank you! And if a person is really interested they can look at credits and honestly after a point you can tell veteran teams like you can tell writing styles. I have certainly looked at a game and went "oh such and such made it" because I recognize the style and that is usually with a new IP (such as Unicorn Overlord...I instantly knew it was vanillaware from the first image I saw) but for like an existing franchise? Yeah I don't really pay attention unless I read the credits.

Without exact knowledge of Nintendo’s pipeline, how the workload is handled, you can’t say that, for example, naming ‘Good Feel’ as the single developer is accurately crediting the scope of the development of a game they had involvement with. It can’t be assumed that Nintendo properties are cleanly developed by one office and that office didn’t get a shout out. You have to know a lot more about how Nintendo resources work before saying they are failing at handing out this name or that name.

@NinChocolate Very true, and why the end credits in games are important.

@Waluigi451 Couldn't have said it better myself.

I think as long as Nintendo isn't excluding the development team out of the end credits, why does it matter if we know up front?

Other than Pokemon Games making it out the door in bad states, I'd say that Nintendo's QA of most of its IP is extremely tough.

Nintendo has a certain level of quality that it demands with regards to its IP that no matter what developer handles the game, it is about as equivalent to in-house development as anyone can get.

I just don't understand why it even matters ?

While for publicity to me the company isn't at fault always. Certain staff can be and I do get disappointed but more so with competition, them not going for their DNA. If it's a game they haven't work on before then sure. I give them the benefit of the doubt they can try something new.

I don't like how Dread does things. But many people like it so what do I know. I just found some parts being restrictive that's what annoyed me the most. Getting lost is fine but restricting them not because of upgrades I didn't have yet but on purpose with certain areas and I can't do anything about them that's when I got annoyed.

It's like theme park open worlds, they are boring. When it's a flexible open world then I go ok that's more fair. It depends how flexible or how theme park they are though. Same with racing. Is the progression of the singleplayer too linear or does the variety of event types make it fun not just 1 mode for 10 hours and the changes of AI or tracks doesn't cut it. For sims that is arcade/sci-fi/kart racers it varies there because more goes on of course. So to me sim racing linear is pretty eh if too gated/too linear then more variety in the linear.

I blame (internally in my mind) some staff for going odd directions. For themselves, for trends or for audiences. I do get annoyed but I just won't buy their games. I don't give the companies threats I just get disappointed. I won't attack them on Twitter or anything I don't even have a Twitter nor would I waste my time with that. I have better things to do like think up ideas for games. The AI adapts to you, themselves, their other enemies or explore other games ideas then go well no point caring about Biomutant/Foamstars ideas I had they don't care, they won't take them onboard why bother I still have them but not going to doing anything about it. They have decided to do that.

That's on them. Many other studios do things I don't like I can't do anything about it. Many shooters I've bought have 1 key mechanic, the rest is trending trash. Who cares about the story/world if the gameplay is covered based to a tee the same way. Like come on. But there is other eras/genres with better spins or unique takes on games that don't start trends while others do. Those I seek out because they are more exciting then the oh it sold well oh it's dumbed down enough for people thanks developers I really wanted that. NOT and bridges of ideas get cut off and it's sad but I just have to deal with it in frustration on my own. XD Just buy old games or Indies/AA that don't annoy me and in the case of retro well there is no one to complain about it's too late or no updates back then. I get by.

So to me if it's gameplay changes for trends I kind of get ticked off. Heck even TOTK I was like so why do they tell you the same thing and not have all 4 of them update the story or say only from their perspective. They had the safe only their perspective option or the update per each no matter what order you visit and they picked the lets repeat it 4 times option. Laziness Nintendo. Sky islands being barren a bit or debris makes sense the world is what it is already and pushes the Switch but even still.

But I mean it's not like oh from Wooly World to Crafted World it was going to be the same. Sometimes it's touches, it's world, it's core can change. Sometimes the gimmicks or marketing made it seems a certain way. And sometimes cough Rift Apart they lie to you and you know full well how they could achieve it but were too lazy to achieve it with the tech you annoying devs so you made it even worse for your reputation. We understand tech and behind the scenes or some devs not related to the projects can tell that's nonsense too.

I can have disappointment in a trend, their direction then their original DNA (cough Insomniac with Resistance 2 to 3 dumbed down to oh weapon leveling and other games they made before crossover mechanics or other touches, why didn't you do that in the first place you idiots then dumb it down for journalists and make a more themetic maybe but gameplay boring game, Sunset Overdrive to Spiderman onwards tower defence versus generic outposts, Rift Apart in general)

But with Another Code Recollection to me I was just more disappointed not at Arc System Works even if I think some textures blurry ones need to be hidden more those rocks in the intro to the game shouldn't be visible move the less detailed parts of the rock or tweak the engine more to account for that, move the lesser detailed side to the other side of the rock out of view please. Or just make the rendering work better. Anything more appealing.

But just design. Making it a walk around adventure game does suit the game, some puzzles I think aren't there but it's a remake so sure I shouldn't expect a 1 to 1 and I didn't. No clock puzzle for example. But the thing is while some changes make sense I just found the walking around to be not boring just so been there done that. Like did we need the upgrade from menus of a point n click to walking to be 'higher budget' for casuals. Sigh.

It's like with Pikmin 4. I found the changes to the series ok in trailers, I liked at first, then the character creator trailer oh no I didn't like that, the upgrades in game oh I didn't like that, the 5 day Oatchi growing up waiting of days to swim that's what annoyed me the most. Then the bad gyro that's when I really hated the game. Like that's not fun. I did 98% it and well the last treasures I didn't want to look up how to do and leaving them. I dealt with the bosses after frustration with them but still I beat it and did enough besides what 1 night level. I'm good at double the howlongtobeat time for 100%. At 68 hours I think. The gyro sucks for it's lock on rather then 1-3 Wii/Wii U/Deluxe on Switch flexiblity. It's horrible in 4.

So to me a game I was as excited for was just well good Ice Pikmin and Oatchi carries a lot/isn't very Captain like but has a fair blend. That's less than I wanted to praise it for besides the well fair Pikmin formula and changes (I hate the oh you don't have those Pikmin yet lets make the population growth and other tweaks of flowers and things different than 1-3. I had to put 3 in my Wii U to compare I was so confused playing 4. I got used to it, still annoyed me).

But areas where it's cough modern when the series worked without those elements anyway. It's like we need a skill tree. But do you? You don't but add it anyways for mainstream appeal or because everyone else did. No thanks. I was happy with the series not doing that.

Give me more exploration to find things not a menu to jump through.

While sure in PGR2 it's dealership to walk around is cool the menu is still there. It is optional. You can't make that fit every situation when it's well a walk around selection same way you have a stage hopping level select or a exploration one (thinking Ratchet Crack in Time). Say the map in Splatoon games HUBs as an example to just going to each point to reach the jump pad and go to the next hub area.

@Ryu_Niiyama Another thing oddly not discussed is security. Are there any modern security risks/concerns that come with the location of digital assets before release? In this day of increasing compromise of server and database security, I would guess so. But until we know the details of Nintendo’s continual efforts to bolster security, we can’t say there’s no precaution there either

«Why Isn't Nintendo Revealing Its Partner Devs Before Launch?»
NDA, I guess?...

Devs reveal would also do a ops and show Switch 2 hardware itself as well. Why else would Nintendo not let them showcase their games as that would tell us alot of the Switch 2 hardware itself and it's performance.

I think it's more a simple matter of legal fees and royalties. TOSE used to go completely uncredtited or mentioned in any game they made except for Starfy, who they owned, because it got them a bigger residual paycheck. That's from a third person source though, so it may be completley off base, but it makes as much sense as anything else.

Don’t we know that Intelligent Systems is handling the Paper Mario TTYD remake internally?

I could see this still being a case-by-case basis for marketing reasons. MercurySteam was known for the pretty well-received Return of Samus on 3DS, so Dread seemed like a natural continuation of that work. Meanwhile ArtePiazza is an unknown, and Good-Feel is mostly known for mediocre Yoshi games.

IDK if this is related, but according to TV Tropes, under "Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things", as of the early 2020s, Nintendo no longer reveals the developers of their games until their release, in which fans will need to get the games and reach the credits to find out who produced them. This is likely to deter complaining about or harassment towards developers on social media. The same applies for voice actors, for safety reasons.

For me, some of these 3rd party developers are basically exclusive to Nintendo. They have the option to do other stuff, but most of the output is for Nintendo. So, for the long standing ones, to me it is still basically Nintendo.

Do they still have 2nd Partys? I know that used to be a thing a while ago and they had Rare/Silicon Knights. Not sure if anyone still falls under that for them.

Also, there CAN be negative associations before hand. We knew very early that Arzest were co-developing Sonic Superstars, and many went straight to pointing to Balan Wonderland, which blunted some people's hopes and interest.

I am completely fine with this.

Honestly, I think it's because of people like us.

Like the article says, to the average person it's Nintendo regardless of if it's actually HAL or Grezzo or Retro etc. The average person doesn't know or care really.

But the people who do can be funny about it. Remember how the hype for Sonic Superstars died when people found it was Arzest developing? Even before Metroid Dread came out people were worried about it being Mercury Steam. But if they don't say then they can better control the hype. And they can't brag about a good track record studio like Good Feel, because that just makes it suspicious when they don't brag. All or nothing.

Kinda sucks.

@Ryu_Niiyama Article isn’t about making a big song and dance about who developed a game at all, all the author is saying is that devs should have their name more visibly attached to their projects- that doesn’t mean just at the end of the credits which is as far away from visible as you can get. Just something to more publicly acknowledge the teams behind a project rather than a nebulous corporate umbrella being the only associated entity until someone data mines or plays through the entire game just to put some faces to the art. A logo in a trailer, a mention in a press release. Not much.

I'm not a fan of this "issue" but I can't say I'm not used to it. Most VG companies (especially high-profile ones like Nintendo) have been doing this for decades now.

@Ryu_Niiyama The issue more comes from the fact that "Nintendo" the developer and "Nintendo" the publisher frankly are not the same thing. If someone told me a game was made by Nintendo, then I would be expecting the kind of games that Nintendo themselves actually make. The Marios, the Zeldas, Splatoon, e.t.c. - they make the flagship titles of their brand with their own dev teams.
Similarly, all of their subsidiaries and third party partners have their own distinct ways of making games that different people are bound to gravitate to. I myself am partial to almost anything Intelligent Systems and ol' Sakurai's mom and pop development company make, and would like to know when their working on a new project, preferably long BEFORE I see their names in the credits.
And I honestly can't think of a reason in favor of Nintendo withholding their partners other than they just want to confuse everyone into thinking that they make ALL their games.

I'd have been even more compelled to pick up Mario RPG if I knew ArtePiazza was working on it, and if I knew Good Feel was making that Peach game I wouldn't have needed to play that soul sucking slog of a demo to know it wasn't for me. This information matters.

@larryisaman I read the article. And made my initial comment. Which at risk of repeating myself I point back to my initial comment. A whitelabled game still has the devs name in the credits. So as I said before I am not understanding what announcements of the dev prior to release does that reading the credits does not. Should every trailer now say Developed By Dev A, Published by Company B here is a game about Company B’s IP? What does that do? Is it more than dev A? Do we need to make sure certain individuals still work for dev a when announcing a game? Should publishers stop outsourcing work to devs? Since whitelabeling is an issue? That will only slow down development. Companies outsource to ease production burdens.

What positive impact does that dev announcement have that credits don’t? And what about the negative impact? What happens when a game is announced early or delayed or sales poorly or people don’t like the artstyle? People already stalk, harass and complain about devs as is, this would only kick off those behaviors sooner. Either way knowing the dev company or individuals sooner nets no benefit that the credits themselves don’t provide but it does increase the probability of negative outcomes. So again is this an actual issue? Still sounds like an obsession to have access to people beyond the product they produce.

@Kingy If Nintendo whitelabels a game then that is the “kind of game that they make” because the game is made using their IP and their guidelines. They approve the product in the end after all.

The people in a company change, so if your focus is on what dev team or producer or whatever makes the game vs the actual game, a person may cut off their nose to spite their face based on bias. Are you only gonna buy games made by a certain dev? What about devs that split the load with an outsourced team? (Smash and recent FE games are prime examples of this) Are you then going to look at the dev team composition as well?

For instance Rareware still exists but most of the people that makes the games in Rareware’s heyday are gone. You gonna still buy a rareware game just because the dev company made the game? What happens when longstanding devs retire? Even their successors don’t make games the exact same way. You done when they are done? Fire emblem’s original creator left the series early on (his last game was Theracia 776 I believe ) does that mean that people should stop playing FE games? Does his loss negate the work of everyone else at IS (or K-T who was hired to help with recent games)? Should capcom have not been allowed to make the oracle games for zelda?

Purist culture doesn’t work with items that are not solely owned (and produced) by a single owner. Because there are always hands in the kitchen that we don’t know about. That also means that fresh ideas aren’t given a chance because the devs aren’t known entities. Splatoon came about because Nintendo let their younger devs do their own thing.

Do you only play established franchises as well? What happens when the dev doesn't change but the direction of the franchise does? The Zelda Cycle is rife with that.

I don’t understand the concept of going “oh hey this dev made this game so I will write it off because it isn’t the dev I want to work on this”. I mean, you do you, but I play way too many games and genres to take that approach. Either way it is rather incomprehensible to me.

@Ryu_Niiyama Your examples are just more reasons why transparency is important. Say I don't like the way Rareware makes their games now when I previously did, or maybe someone finds the Kaga era of FE superior and doesn't like the direction the series went in after he left. If a dev team falls out of favor with you, the consumer, would it not be entirely beneficial to you to have this kind of information as early as possible, if only to temper expectations or perhaps even garner interest?

Just because teams inevitably change, merge, or work together over time doesn't make their names meaningless, there is typically a design philosophy the team follows and passes to their young blood and when changes to that philosophy do happen it is the name that ultimately carries on that pedigree. The huge fall from grace Rareware took is a perfect example of this, but as a anecdote of my own:
For Intelligent Systems I quite enjoy the new Fire Emblem games and I like how uniquely they play from each other. But the last three Paper Mario games make me gag, I think they're awful. Now Intelligent Systems has made ALL the Paper Mario games but they've clearly changed direction on how they make them, be it Miyamoto or whoever the hell.
By your logic, I should be expecting each new Paper Mario to be something new and different because there could be any x amount of changes to the dev team between the last game and this one. And to be fair, that is what I thought at a time, Paper Mario had me in Stockholm syndrome lol. But no, every game since sticker star has presented the same half baked ideas in slightly different codes of paint and while some people may disagree with me there and enjoy them, I want nothing to do with future Paper Marios until if and when they change. Therefore, Intelligent Systems reflects positively for me in one light, and poorly for me in another.

The fact that we can even have a discussion about the minutia of these teams and the people who work in them is an argument in favor of not just painting every game with an amorphous "NINTENDO" label until someone has the decency to leak the credits, because eventually that's just not going to mean anything.

And I get it, sometimes it is better to disregard a name and just assess your interest in a game based off whatever scraps they give you in trailer footage or demos, we all do that all the time for indies and studios we're not familiar with.
So if you're ambivalent to that side of the argument then fine, but imagine this, what if it came to light that a subsidiary of Nintendo was under fire for extreme misconduct, and I'm talking Blizzard "I'm gonna steal your breast milk" Entertainment type *****. Would you not be miffed if you bought their game and supported their company all because Nintendo didn't disclose who was making the game beforehand?

@Kingy you can’t get more transparent than the name of the company and the dev team’s first and last names which are all in the credits. And those can’t be released early because staffing may change.

If a dev team falls out of favor that is why I read reviews and watch let’s plays. I don’t understand how knowing a dev made a game ahead of actual gameplay is gonna tell me if the game is good. I don’t like most bioware sequels but I am still gonna read reviews about the new dragon age game incase I like this entry. I don’t like every assassin’s creed game but I assess them individually because they are different. And that’s considering that I hate that the series immediately lost the plot. After the first game and got worse as the series continued. If I was biased against the devs I would have missed out on the games I do enjoy. And knowing who developed the game ahead of the game would not have helped me assess the game. Again there are way too many hands involved with development and too many directions games can take for me personally to make a knee jerk assessment. The only thing I can do that with is themes and genre. And even that has exceptions but knowing the dev upfront has no bearing on why I don’t like a genre.

I never said names don’t matter. I don’t see where whitelabeling is bad or where knowing the names of devs early nets a logical advantage to the consumer. So far you haven’t argued anything that current access doesn’t already yield. You don’t have to buy a game to look up the credits so even with your wanting to shop based on whose name is on the game you can do that with the same level of transparency that is available now. We have product reviews that asses the product to allow for informed decisions. This is why we have trailers and demos. It isn’t like the game just gets a logo announcement and the day 1 release and that’s how you find out everything.

This isn’t the 80’s where developers had to make up names and whatnot. Anyway at this point it doesn’t seem that you have argued as to why a dev needs to be announced early so I will agree to disagree and move on.

It's very simple, Nintendo doesn't really want you to associate their games with anyone or anything other than "Nintendo" (barring a few exceptions such as their most notable directors)

Because the vast majority of their customers do not care or even understand... it's a "Nintendo game".

“Should every trailer now say Developed By Dev A, Published by Company B here is a game about Company B’s IP?”

You mean like most trailers? I Literally just had an ad for Apex Legends which ended with both Respawn and EA’s logos. It’s not a difficult thing to do.

“What positive impact does that dev announcement have that credits don’t?“

Beyond the team themselves being associated with the project, indicating whether a game is worth getting excited for or not? Knowing who’s behind a game is why Kickstarters like Yooka Laylee or Bloodstained were so successful, or why people get excited about anything Kojima is making because of the pedigree of those developers. It’s not just the end product that people buy into but support for the artists they love too.

Personally I’ve never been a big fan of Prince of Persia but just knowing the new one was developed by the same team behind two of my favourite platformers ever (Rayman Origins/Legends) made me pre-order it. Knowing Daedalic were making the Gollum game made me save my money until the reviews came along. Not knowing exactly who’s making what can be enough to cast uncertainty over what might be worth your time and what may not be. Maybe that’s why Nintendo are doing this, in which case maybe they should have some confidence in the teams they’re employing.

And as for avoiding harassment (which is out of developer’s/publisher’s control anyway)- low lifes will just send their abuse after the game launches and they discover who made the game anyway. What’s the difference?

@Ryu_Niiyama Fair enough, you're not really addressing anything I've said anyways. You keep appealing to resources only available post launch or just before launch, which is not what I'm arguing.
I don't think there's a soul alive who doesn't have pre-conceived impressions of a product based on their opinions of the producers making it (which they are obviously welcome to change).
But if you are that one soul then this is just something we won't see eye to eye on. At the heart of this topic I just find marketing every Nintendo produced game as only -NINTENDO- to be highly inaccurate and a little sleazy considering they don't develop the majority of their games.

@Kingy Exactly this

Maybe there's a variety of reasons, but really, every big corporation does this for one reason in particular: If corporations train their monkey customers to see products as being made by corporations and not by people, they don't need to treat the people behind their games very well, do they?

Considering the huge number of layoffs over the last couple years combined with fans ignoring those layoffs in favor of whatever exciting new thing the corporations are doing, dehumanizing their workforce is a strategy that works depressingly well.

I guarantee that at least one person in this comment section is guilty of this. I've certainly seen enough people leaping to the defense of corporations, not so much individual creators.