Robert Pelloni, the one-man development team behind Bob’s Game, is locking himself in his office for 100 days in protest of Nintendo’s apparent refusal to grant him a development kit.
“I cannot leave this viridian room,” Pelloni wrote. “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!”
Pelloni, who claims to have been working on this “retail length RPG type console game” for five years and 15,000 hours, met with Nintendo last February and then had problems even getting an application for a license to acquire a software development kit, which would let him put his game onto the Nintendo DS. “I asked the WarioWorld division, and they sent me to marketing,” he wrote. “I talked to marketing and they said apply with WarioWorld division! The agreement on the application states I will receive a decision within 6-8 weeks. It has been 17 weeks!”
As Pelloni sees it, Nintendo is refusing to grant him an SDK because it’s wary of the nature of the game as a one-man independent project. “Someone at Nintendo doesn’t like this project, because it blurs the line between homebrew and commercial,” Pelloni said. “It’s a special case – an industry first – and it’s going to take someone in the company taking extra initiative and making a move…can I fly there and negotiate? I asked that already. They don’t know.”
Whether this is a publicity stunt or, sadly, just a lost cause, you have to give Pelloni credit for his persistence, not just in developing a “retail length RPG” by his damn self over 5 years, but because he seems completely unflagged in spite of it all. Despite admitting to the failure of other fan endeavors like the Mother 3 campaign, he is wholly convinced that Nintendo is listening and will eventually come around. “The longer this goes on, the more interesting it becomes,” Pelloni said. “I’m not wrong, and it will work. I’ll see you there on day 100, REGGIE!”
