Nintendo of America indie liaison Dan Adelman leaves company and goes indie

After a nine-year stint that included making indie games prominent on Nintendo platforms, Dan Adelman is leaving Nintendo of America to go indie himself.

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Nintendo of America's indie liaison Dan Adelman has left the company after nine years. Adelman was primarily known for helping recruit dozens of indie developers on Nintendo platforms and is one of the men behind bringing games like World of Goo, Cave Story, Little Inferno, and Shovel Knight onto Wii U and 3DS. Adelman will now set his sights to the indie gaming scene and will begin work on his first project soon.

The departure was confirmed by Adelman himself earlier today on Twitter. Though the tweet references a Twitter ban imposed by Nintendo after Adelman complained about 3DS region locking, Adelman insists that he and the company have parted amicably.

"Nintendo has been really supportive of this move," Adelman told Kotaku. "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."

Adelman spent the better part of his time with the company making sure indie games had a huge presence on Nintendo platforms. The initiative hit its apex in 2013 when Nintendo became one of the official sponsors for IndieCade and brought a dedicated booth to the event, the first ever such booth that did not feature a Nintendo first-party title. Unfortunately, not all of his efforts were successful, as he inevitably clashed with higher-ups on such issues as the aforementioned region locking and the "religious content" that prevented Binding of Isaac from coming to 3DS.

No word on who will replace Adelman at this time.

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Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

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