Nintendo wasn’t always the biggest advocate for indie developers. In fact, if you look at certain key eras, their “indie pickings” were a bit small, if not lackluster. Then, over time, things slowly started to change, and with the success of the Nintendo Switch (and now Switch 2), they eventually became the go-to destination for many indie games, with loads praising the publisher for helping elevate their sales more than all the other consoles and Steam combined! That eventually led to the term “Nindies,” which highlighted the collaboration between the groups. Yet, we don’t hear that term anymore, now do we?
Now, if you want to see The Big N talk about indie titles, you hear about them in the “Indie World Showcase,” as well as in certain Nintendo Directs. So, what happened? Like many insightful answers about the company, the truth can be found with former Nintendo Minute hosts Kit & Krysta, who revealed that it all came down to how the legal team told them to stop using the term:
Why not, you ask? It has to do with bringing “brand names” together in a way that could set you up later for legal woes, and they used...
