Nintendo of America indie program head leaves, but will still be helping indies

Dan Adelman — the man responsible for bringing indie games to the Nintendo eShops — has left his position as the head of Nintendo of America's indie program after almost nine years with the company, according to a tweet from Adelman today.

Adelman led Nintendo's indie outreach program, working with developers to bring their games — like Cave Story and World of Goo — to Nintendo's platforms. Last fall, Adelman ran afoul of his employer for speaking out publicly against Nintendo's region locking practices with the 3DS and stating the company should be "a bit more flexible" with submissions after the rejection of a 3DS version of The Binding of Isaac. Earlier this year it was revealed that Nintendo had stonewalled him from speaking publicly and told him he was not allowed to use his Twitter account.

"Happy to announce I reached an arrangement w/ [Nintendo of America] whereby I can tweet again," Adelman posted this morning. "Arrangement includes my not working there anymore."

Speaking with Kotaku, Adelman said his former employer was supportive of his departure to go independent and offer marketing and business development assistance to indie games. He also expressed his frustration at some of the company's policies.

"I think people were kind of on pins and needles about anything untoward I might say," Adelman said. "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 people started complaining that I wasn't active on Twitter anymore, it was suggested that a PR person could just post in my name," he added. "I thought that was about the worst idea I'd ever heard, so I left it as is and let the silence speak for itself."

On Adelman's personal website, he notes that he is available for "marketing and biz dev for indies," and wants to help "steer the economics of the industry in a way that talented developers making an amazing game won't feel like the only two possible outcomes are becoming super rich or broke."