Dan Adelman leaves Nintendo.

Dan Adelman has been the point of contact for indie developers for some time for Nintendo of America, but that all changes today. There has been rumors and speculation aboutAdelman not being happy inside the company, as the company keeps a tight leash on him. Today, Adelman confirmed these rumors as true, when he announced that he will be leaving the company. According to Adelman, he became highly frustrated that he wasn’t allowed to voice his own opinion with Nintendo policing his appearances at press events.

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.

When asked what he plans to do next, Adelman confirmed that he plans on going indie. What that means is he’ll be working with indie developers to further their relationship with publishers and other business types that may not realize what an indie studio needs to be successful.

I guess the short answer is that I’m going indie! As the indie games business matures, a real need for business expertise has started to develop. I’ve been working with the indie community for almost 9 years now, and one consistent theme I’ve noticed is this tension between developers following their passion to make the game they want to make and needing to be able to make a living doing it. Unfortunately, though, there are a lot of business types who at best just don’t get what indies are trying to do, or at worst are pretty much unethical.

When asked how Nintendo feels about the announcement, Adelman confirmed that the company has been nothing but supportive of his decision.

Nintendo has been really supportive of this move. I think everyone there has known for a while that my passion has always really been about helping the indie community develop and thrive, so even though everyone was really surprised when I gave my 2-week notice, they all understood and wished me the best. I couldn’t have asked for a better sendoff.

Source

Hope for the best.

Hope he's able to support and develop more games like Shovel Knight. That game was a gem and I'm really starting to get into the indie game scene. I'll take most Nintendo titles over an indie game any day of the week, but I still have a great respect for some of these indie devs. Hope Dan succeeds in his newish endeavor.

I can understand his frustration. Corporate red tape can be a pain in the ass. Best of luck to him.

Nintendo has got to stop being so uptight.

We all wish him well.

Well... not all of us. Chele is likely to be dancing as I type this. lol

Cool interview.

That's so readable. Thank you for this great post. -__-

I did a very good job. It's plenty readable. ¬_¬

It's readable. If you concentrate really hard. >_>

@ladyblue:

No, it isn't.

The pink aggravated my eyes so I stopped reading after the first sentence. Best of luck to the guy.

Never heard of the guy, but all the luck to him!

Damn, corporate politics sucks.

I'm glad he is going indie, I feel he has a chance to really make more of an impact on the indie scene being disassociated with Nintendo of America.

Your pink sucks, and hope for the best for the guy