Nintendo Seal of Quality - Did it help?

[heavensblade23]

I got in on the tail end of the Atari 2600 craze, and most of my collection was from trades or store clearances, but I don't remember the library being particularly bad. No one seems to name particular games when talking about these horrible 2600 games, other than ET and the bad Pacman port.

There's a widespread perception Nintendo swooped in and saved the industry with their new 3rd-party rules and policy of dissociating themselves with the words 'video game'.

I'd contend that the worst games on the Atari are roughly equal to the worst games on any system since when you look at things relatively. It's not like the concept of shovelware went away with the 2600, it just has a seal of approval on it now, which is in some ways worse because it gives a false impression of quality/endorsement.

A lot of the 'bad' games I remember from both the NES and the Atari weren't so much bad as incomprehensible without reading the manual, and sometimes even after that. The games were fun at the time, and it's only in retrospect, having played so many good games, that I realize what was bad. Even ET was fun to my 5 year old self. To this day, I still have no idea how the heck Swordquest for the 2600 was supposed to be played, and I didn't learn until about 10 years later that the Indiana Jones game was supposed to use both controllers.

I'd say either of those have a leg up on Deadly Towers for the NES, which has invisible warps that throw you into a 256-room dungeon and still seems confusing even after watching a YouTube video of a complete playthrough. Almost randomly warping you into areas of the game that make take hours and an intricate map to escape is just BAD. I could probably name 10-20 other NES games that make little apparent sense based solely on the gameplay.

Ultimately, were retailers even fooled by the fact that 'video games' were now called 'game paks'? It was obvious to my kindergarten self that Super Mario Bros was just a video game with better graphics.

[Gavica]

the leap in gameplay/graphics/quality between the 2600 and NES was probably the biggest leap between any 2 console

[Zing]

The "seal of quality" was in reality just a mark put on Nintendo licensed games. The only attempt Nintendo made to limit a flood of crap was the licensee limit of two games per year. Of course, this was avoided by several developers who simply incorporated subsidiary companies, allowing them to go over the limit. For example: Konami and its Ultra Games.

So if the question is: did the seal of quality help Nintendo make money off of developers who were forced to pay $10 per cart production fee since Nintendo controlled the cartridge manufacturing? Then the answer is yes.

[Zing]

the leap in gameplay/graphics/quality between the 2600 and NES was probably the biggest leap between any 2 console

Sure, but this ignores the major intermediate consoles like the Intellivision and Coleco Vision.

[Gavica]

Sure, but this ignores the major intermediate consoles like the Intellivision and Coleco Vision.

yeah, but I am talking about the big ones that most people had.

[Rob2600]

If Nintendo's Seal of Quality actually meant something, then LJN, Acclaim, and Toy Headquarters wouldn't have been allowed anywhere near an NES development kit and Pit-Fighter wouldn't have existed on the SNES.

[The 1 2 P]

The Wii is in desperate need of a seal of quality.

[diskoboy]

It worked well up until the N64.

The irony is the seal of quality was supposed to prevent the console for being a dumping ground for less than stellar games. Now, Nintendo has been overwhelmed by crappy Nickelodeon or Disney titles.

But I guess thats expected when your main demographic is the 6-14 crowd. (That's not meant as an insult, BTW. Nintendo just has the brand recognition because most of the people that grew up with an NES or SNES are now buying Nintendo consoles for their kids.)

[Enigmus]

The Wii is in desperate need of a seal of quality.

This, right here.

Every time I walk past the Wal Mart case for Wii games, I grimace as I see that every NSMB Wii is followed by My Baby, Imagine X Stories, and another crappy clone of Wii Sports that looks and plays as good as a Yugo.

[Einzelherz]

This, right here.

Every time I walk past the Wal Mart case for Wii games, I grimace as I see that every NSMB Wii is followed by My Baby, Imagine X Stories, and another crappy clone of Wii Sports that looks and plays as good as a Yugo.

Pretty much. The current generation of what is considered shovelware is proof that the concept of a seal of quality is very important. This will only get worse and worse as the years roll on.

[jb143]

Does the seal of quality really even refer to the game itself or the cartridge manufacturing? Because some non licensed cartridges were too thick or what have you and could theoretically(probably "actually") mess up your NES.

[Hep038]

yeah, but I am talking about the big ones that most people had.


You are joking right?

[Jorpho]

If you consider how the majority of unlicensed NES games turned out, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all. Who knows what kind of crap could have turned up if the lockout chip didn't pose a barrier?

[Pezcore343]

The Seal of Quality only really refers to Nintendo licensing and not to actual quality of the gameplay or anything. I suspect this might have something to do with Nintendo eventually removing the word Quality, so that it now only reads Official Nintendo Seal. Nintendo is guaranteeing that they have licensed that game, but not that it will be good.

[tom]

The Seal of Quality only really refers to Nintendo licensing and not to actual quality of the gameplay or anything. I suspect this might have something to do with Nintendo eventually removing the word Quality, so that it now only reads Official Nintendo Seal. Nintendo is guaranteeing that they have licensed that game, but not that it will be good.

Exactly, how many quality games out of the 700 US NES games, and 1500 Famicom games, not many.

And anyway, quality is so personal, there must be someone who likes Godzilla, or Taboo, otherwise titles like that would not happen and the total NES/Famicom library would be approx 150 titles.

[megasdkirby]

And anyway, quality is so personal, there must be someone who likes Godzilla, or Taboo, otherwise titles like that would not happen and the total NES/Famicom library would be approx 150 titles.

Exactly.

I liked Godzilla for NES. But I despise Ghost and Goblins, and think it's trash. Many won't agree with me, which emphasizes your point.

Though I doubt anyone would find Rocky and Fuckwinkle (NES) a worthwhile game.

[Red Baron]

Exactly.

I liked Godzilla for NES. But I despise Ghost and Goblins, and think it's trash. Many won't agree with me, which emphasizes your point.

Though I doubt anyone would find Rocky and Fuckwinkle (NES) a worthwhile game.

I played a lot of Rocky and Bullwinkle, so it must have done _something_ right.

[Kiddo]

My guesstimated, non-scientific perspective here is that for every "Bad" NES game with the "Seal", there were 100 other "Bad" games that were blocked from seeing the light of day due to one, 10 "Bad" games that bypassed the seal-procedure, and 10 "Good" (or possibly good) games which never got released due to the same licensing issues.

Obviously that's a jab at air and more accurate (?) numbers might do well here, to study the impact of the NES "Seal of Quality" on games. One thing to remember is that eventually the strict requirements for the "seal" would come back to bite them when Sega got the "preferred" version of Mortal Kombat.

[Gameguy]

Does the seal of quality really even refer to the game itself or the cartridge manufacturing? Because some non licensed cartridges were too thick or what have you and could theoretically(probably "actually") mess up your NES.
I read somewhere that the seal just meant that the game was actually playable, and that it didn't contain extreme violence or offensive content. By playable I mean that the game won't just glitch out like some of the Action 52 games do. The game could still be terrible to play, though Nintendo really wanted developers to make quality games. That's why Nintendo limited the number of games that a company could produce each year, they hoped the companies would spend more time on each game to make sure they were good.

Here's some other site that basically says the same thing, though its still not the same site where I originally read that.
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Nintendo_Seal_of_Quality

[Push Upstairs]

Nintendo is guaranteeing that they have licensed that game, but not that it will be good.

This was a hard learned lesson back in the day. It probably didn't help matters that Nintendo Power never really said when a game was terrible either.

Nothing worse than blowing b-day/x-mas money on a game that plays like shit.

[Aussie2B]

This was a hard learned lesson back in the day. It probably didn't help matters that Nintendo Power never really said when a game was terrible either.

Nothing worse than blowing b-day/x-mas money on a game that plays like shit.

Eh, you could read between the lines when a game was getting 2-something scores when just about everything else was getting 3's and 4's, and the fact that they didn't have much of anything positive to say about those crappy titles. They definitely hyped up their own titles (although most gamers would probably agree that the first party games were good stuff), but I don't think they were really any less scathing on bad, third party games than the average independent magazine trying to not scare off advertisers. Most magazines don't have the balls to really tear into a game, especially when it's new (it's funny how, say, PSM would re-review games after some time and virtually always give a game a lower score than before, although part of that was bias against older games, I'm sure).

Anyway, the Nintendo Seal of Quality. I'd confidently say that the percentage of atrocious games among the unlicensed library is considerably higher than the percentage among the licensed library, so I suppose it helped. But like Gameguy said, I think it was more a matter of them guaranteeing that the game won't screw up itself through excessive glitches or the system from any physical incapability and a guarantee to parents that it won't contain anything objectionable. Although most gamers would argue that the latter was a bad thing. I can't fault Nintendo at all on that, though. Without any rating system, they could potentially get some serious heat for games that they had no part in creating since parent groups are too clueless to know where to point the blame.

[j_factor]

The Nintendo Seal of Quality never had anything to do with actual game quality. No doubt Nintendo was in no rush to clear up that misconception, though.

The Nintendo Seal did arguably "help" in different ways. For one, it prevented crap like Custer's Revenge. Second, every game with the Seal was fully compatible with every NES -- 2600 has some issues with certain games on certain versions of the system.

Third, limiting the number of games a third party could release arguably had an indirect positive effect on game quality (presuming that if they can only release X games, and they have X+1, they will choose to axe their worst one). You could even point to subversions of this rule (LJN, Ultra) as sort of proving it. However, you could also argue that what it really did was cause third parties to release more marketable, not necessarily better, games. Which is why the NES has such a deluge of licensed games, seemingly superfluous ports, purported conversions/sequels of well-known games that had little to do with the source material (but to be fair, many of these were good), and occasionally pure gimmickry in the case of games like Taboo. It was safer to release a game that had a familiar name, or had some kind of "hook", than a wholly original game that was nevertheless fantastic.

[tom]

But that's just it, it didn't prevent crap, licensed crap, and in a huge bundle.

I remember some US kid from way back mentioning that 'mom' always brought back numerous rental games from BB, only to be checked out for 5 min, figured it was rubbish, games went back on the kitchen table to be returned to BB, and back we went playing SMB or Metroid/Zelda/MM. That was the case with the majority of players.

As for some 2600 games had issues with some VCSs? Not really, only in very seldom cases. At least you could play a US VCS game in a Japanese 2800, try that with a US NES game into a Famicom without various adapters or a Euro NES game into a US console.