Nintendo eShop scammers helped this indie game reach number one
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The story of Let’s Build a Zoo is one of confusion, surprise and scammers. Something that reflects what it’s like to develop smaller games in this industry.
When the developers of Springloaded went to bed the night after the pre-orders went live, I doubt they could imagine what they would wake up to in the morning. Come the next day, their pre-order sales have skyrocketed, a momentous occasion for any indie game developer. But there was only one catch, 85% of Nintendo Switch pre-order sales came from Argentina. Sounds a bit suspicious.
It was then that the developers realized they were in trouble. As it turns out, people were going to sites like ‘eShop prices’ and looking for the cheapest deals on Nintendo games and Let’s Build a Zoo was heavy on all of these games.
Mike Rose, the director of No More Robots who published Let’s Build a Zoo, tweeted: “only thousands of people buy the game and we make less than $1 for every sale”. This could have been the end of a pretty disturbing story for everyone behind Let’s Build a Zoo, but as fate willed, they were in for a win.
Despite the loss of a ton of money by these scammers, “these super cheap sales in Argentina put us in more American player eyeballs,” Rose tweeted, explaining that the Let’s Build a Zoo pre-orders were seen as American sales and so pushed it. the game up in the US bestseller lists.
The US eShop is *not* the US eShop. It’s the “America” eShop. All sales anywhere in the Americas were treated as sales throughout the region. Getting huge amounts of sales in Argentina gave us a chart boost for people in the US!October 13, 2022
After the US eShop store was conquered, Let’s build a Zoo also hit the charts of the EU and Australian eShop boards. Fortunately, this exposure saved Let’s Build a Zoo from a major financial loss. But this kind of success cannot be guaranteed for everyone.
Switching regions is surprisingly easy if you want to see what prices are available in other regions. All you have to do is go to the official Nintendo website, log in and change your region in the settings menu. It’s so easy. As it stands, Nintendo doesn’t seem to have any impediments or sanctions to doing so either.
This means it’s incredibly easy for users to bypass their country’s prices in favor of cheaper options elsewhere. In this case, Argentia seems to have many of the best deals.
Helpful Scams
By switching regions, not only did users get a big discount, it also helped Let’s Build a Zoo on its way to success. But you shouldn’t see region swapping as a developer favor.
It could very well have resulted in the developers of Let’s Build a Zoo suffering a huge financial loss without getting any promotion from it. If Nintendo didn’t have such a broad definition for the US market, maybe Let’s Build a Zoo wouldn’t have gained wider recognition from Argentine sales.
In the case of indie developers, they need all the support they can get. So while this is a handy hack to do once in a while to get more expensive games cheaper. I wouldn’t recommend this as an option to do all the time. Not if you want to support developers who make great games you want to play.