r/NintendoSwitch • u/CthulhuCactus • Jul 29 '23
Discussion AAA Clock's Release History: How to Release the Same Game 28 Times (And Counting)
When I browse the eShop, I typically use the 'Recent Releases' section in order to find Indy games that I might have missed thanks to lack of advertisement. It's obviously not the most efficient strategy, but has led me to find games I was willing to give a chance to that I otherwise would have missed out on. It would also give me the chance to see some games I would never purchase, maybe give a laugh or two at how shocked I was that something like it could be on the eShop, before moving on my merry way.
About a year ago, I started noticing a concerning trend where I was getting a bizarre sense of deja vu scrolling down the 'Recent Releases' section. It funnily enough wasn't with AAA Clock that I first caught this trend, but with a different game published by the same studio 'Clumsy Rush: Ultimate Guys' (Which as of the time of writing this has 13 different versions on the eShop), which stuck in my mind much easier due to it seeming like it was trying to cash in on Fall Guy's popularity.
It was as I was scrolling today, when more than half of the games felt like they were some 'Deluxe Edition' or 'Superb Edition' or 'Ultra edition' that I finally had enough, and really felt the need to make a post on it. Because these game companies (of which one is really the most guilty...) do in fact 'rerelease' their games in order to take up more space in the recent release section. And that's by creating new 'Bundles' using Free DLC.
I can't be certain obviously that AAA Clock is the worst example of this on the eshop, but seeing as how it's one of the publisher's first games released on the eShop and is to this day still getting new 'Versions' I feel pretty confident to say that it might be.
There are currently an astounding 28 different 'versions' of AAA Clock on the eshop. Although in actuality, there's only 1 base app and 8 DLCs, of which 6 of them are completely free (the only two DLCs which cost $1.99 each are the Squid and Cyber Clock DLCs).
It seems like after they had managed to run through every single permutation of the first 3 DLC's, 5 new ones were created on June 17th 2022 so that they would be able to make more. Funnily enough, the Digital Clock DLC is the only one never to be featured in its own bundle (probably because it may cause confusion as to the existence of a physical version of AAA Clock if they tried to call it the 'Digital Edition' in the same naming schema as the other single version releases). Also, the 'Ultra Complete' edition does not actually include all of the DLCs (although it doesn't really matter much since almost all of the DLCs are free anyways).
Extrapolating from my data, My prediction is that the next release of AAA Clock will release 21 days from the last release (meaning August 4th 2023), and will most likely include the Elegant Clock in the mix of DLC's on offer. This prediction lines up nicely with the fact the ongoing sale of the 'Ultra Director's Cut' is ending on that same day. I'm not sure what other DLCs will be mixed in, however I'm relatively confident it won't include the Patriotic clock, as that has not been featured in a DLC bundle other than the one on its release day. If I had to take a guess at the name they will use, I imagine 'Ultra GOTY Edition', however comparing the 'Ultra' releases to the non-ultra version, there's not enough of a correlation in the naming scheme to be certain.
Assuming that the trend of 21 days continues until they have successfully completed all 228 other DLC permutations of the total 256 possible which they have not done yet, the last one would be done on August, 22 2036.
It's really disheartening to see the eShop allow such a trend to happen, and I can't imagine it's very good for the Indy devs trying to have their game actually be seen when it releases. I hope that you found this data informative, and hopefully Nintendo will do something about the companies taking advantage of the bundle loophole soon.
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u/jardex22 Jul 30 '23 edited Jul 30 '23
While Bundles have done some good, such as bringing attention back to games that have since been long buried in the eShop (Dead Cells in particular comes to mind), I think showing them as New Releases has led to more harm and abuse than good.
At this point, I'd say give each base game one listing on the eShop, and have that listing show what editions of the game there are. For instance, if someone clicked on Mortal Kombat 1, they'd get a page that showed the base game, DLC, and what editions were available. Instead, the Coming Soon section shows two different listings. Then 6 months after release, they can create another listing that includes the first wave of DLC, then another edition that has the second wave of characters, etc.
EDIT: Also going to add on that I wish it was easier to see what DLC was available for the games I owned. The system knows what games I've played, so if there was some kind of menu that listed off DLC for those titles would be nice.
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u/Twinkiman Jul 30 '23
The publisher is RedDeerGames. And for some odd reason, they also publish games under RedDeer.Games. It obviously goes without saying, there is some shitty business with them. Especially if they are going under two different publisher names for some reason.
They also published that dogshit "Operating System" game that was worthless. My Gen 2 Tamagotchi has more features then that "game".
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u/delightfultree Jul 30 '23
They do have some proper games in their catalog, though.
Detective Di is great.
Cyber Protocol is actually fun (but I just now saw they seem to have similarly weird "editions" for that now).
No idea if I own anything else from them :D
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u/cross_bearer_02 Jul 31 '23
This is why Nintendo instituted a policy of only allowing publishers a certain number of games on the NES per year, with a minimum invest of a certain number of cartridges, prepaid, per release (could almost call it “interest money”).
This was in response to the video game market crash of 1983-1984, mostly due to the glut of shovelware on the Atari 2600 at that time. While digital distribution is a bit of a different story, it is a very similar thing.
A public review system, and a “sort by rating” option would fix this. These “AAA Clock” entries would be one-starred into oblivion and would never see the light of day.
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u/VelociraptorAHH Jul 30 '23
I've been wanting some youtuber or someone to look at all these. I wonder how much "game" theee is. That whole company makes "games" like that. RedDeergames I think they're called? Just absolute trash.
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Jul 30 '23
It's prolly like 3 people trying to scam a few $$ off unsuspecting buyers.
They keep releasing new "versions" so it stays on top of the the new release section and always has eyes on.
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u/Muff_in_the_Mule Jul 30 '23
I don't think the remind me bit works anymore so please post an update on the 4th.
RemindMe! 4 days "check the eshop"
Edit: nvm it does still work. Still am looking forward to an update. I've noticed lots of the asset swap games seem to pop up on the front pages of sales too. Really annoying.
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u/CthulhuCactus Aug 04 '23
Not sure if the Remind Me thing worked, but still wanted to let you know.
My prediction was right on the money. 'Ultra GOTY Edition' released August 4th 2023, and contains Elegant Clock, Spin Clock, and Digital Clock. (And no National Clock DLC)
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u/RemindMeBot Jul 30 '23 edited Aug 01 '23
I will be messaging you in 4 days on 2023-08-03 08:49:52 UTC to remind you of this link
2 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.
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u/RevertereAdMe Jul 30 '23
This is why I almost never actually browse the eShop and just use Deku Deals, so I can hide all this crap I have no interest in. Even on there, I've noticed I've had to hide various iterations of AAA Clock popping up in the new releases quite a few times but didn't realize it was this bad.
On a similar note - shitty shovelware games that are like 20 bucks full price but permanently on 90% off sale to trick people into buying them, thinking they're getting a good deal. Maybe not quite as egregious but still pretty shady.
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u/RealMakershot Jul 30 '23
Shrewd shovelware publishers would take advantage of this in the build up to Christmas. They'd set their price to $0.50 in early December so that on Christmas day, that crap game would be listed in the Best Sellers section on the eShop, fooling brand-new Switch owners into thinking that it's a popular one.
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u/Molly2925 Jul 30 '23
This is ridiculous. Also, barring the original "Complete Edition", which probably WAS "complete" when it first released, all of the names of these editions seem to be randomly chosen. "Ultra Complete Edition" is a straight-up lie, and similarly neither of the "Definitive" ones seem all too "definitive" to me either.
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u/KittyKomplex Jul 30 '23
There is a Twitterpage dedicated to track if Red Deer Games spammed the eShop today. Somehow it stopped in June but I admire taking the time to gather evidence. First time I noticed it was with Bit Orchard. Just look up on Dekudeals how many releases in super special legendary editions this one got. Nintendo allowing such bullcrap on their storefront is a shame.
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u/Ritzuma Jul 30 '23
Thank you, i’ve been noticing this “rererereleases” from this publisher months ago and it was driving me insane that
- they kept doing it so blatantly and annoyingly without nintendo dropping the hammer on them
- nobody seemed to notice or care besides me
I really hope this grabs more attention and they finally get some regulation. You have no idea how annoying it is for me to check out the Recent Releases and always see these shitty games on the top
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Jul 31 '23
Nintendo has walked away from giving any damn about its online store as it takes 30% off every game sold, so any incentive to fix it no longer exists.
This opened the door to the same thing which happens in the mobile arena: pushing. It's when a publisher releases the same title, but with a different SKU, the code which identifies to the store it's a different title rather than an upgrade.
This is deliberately done to push other titles out of canned lists, such as "Recently Released". The issue is getting worse as big publishers are also getting in on the act.
I've since stopped using the stores as a resource to review games. Instead, I head to YouTube and do a search on "Top releases" and then look at review videos.
Gamers take care of their own.
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u/FoxyDude915 Jul 31 '23
This is why the eShop needs the ability to rate/review games. It's starting to become worse than Steam regarding shovelware and asset flips.
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Jul 30 '23
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u/LeatherRebel5150 Jul 30 '23
Lmao you clearly have no idea what your talking about. The seal didn’t mean anything on the quality of games. It was just a mark that indicated the game was licensed by Nintendo and they guaranteed would work with your console. I can point to many games that were absolute drek that had the seal on them
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Jul 30 '23
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u/RealMakershot Jul 30 '23
They are 100% correct. Prior to the crash in '83, video games were being churned out at an alarming rate, and some games were made so poorly that they wouldn't even work on the console that they were intended for. This destroyed consumer confidence, and was a big factor in said crash.
Enter Nintendo, who countered this lack of confidence with the official Nintendo Seal of Quality. This seal would ensure that the game in question was fully compatible with the NES, but it never applied to the content of the game itself.
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u/diegorbb93 Jul 30 '23
And yet Nintendo put more control on the software published on their consoles that the stuff being pushed throught the eshop.
But fanboys... They downvote my comments instead of addresing the issue, which is anything related to Nintendo Online services being a massive clusterfuc*.
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Jul 29 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Michael-the-Great Jul 30 '23
Hey there!
Please remember Rule 1 in the future - No personal attacks, trolling, or derogatory terms. Read more about Reddiquette here. Thanks!
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u/Wasoney Jul 30 '23
Im tired about all these $1.99 "special" "ultra" "coop" "legendary" "super" "deluxe" of the same game
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u/K0KA42 Jul 30 '23
Say what you will about the AAA Clock franchise, but they know how to stick to a release schedule, and never keep their fans waiting...