Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, the just-launched port of the 2010 Wii game, doesn’t include individual members of the original Retro Studios development team in the credits, as reported by GameSpot. Since the discovery, however, Nintendo has commented on the omission, giving a statement to Eurogamer.
“We believe in giving proper credit for anyone involved in making or contributing to a game’s creation, and value the contributions that all staff make during the development process,” the statement reads, which is sourced only to Nintendo and not to a specific individual. The game’s credits reveal that the port was done by Forever Entertainment.
Crediting is an industry-wide issue, and this isn’t the first time Nintendo has come under scrutiny for its crediting decisions. Some developers who worked on the original Metroid Prime — another Retro Studios game — were unhappy that Metroid Prime Remastered’s credits didn’t include the full original credits. And external translators have expressed frustrations with being left out of credits for some major Nintendo games, Game Developer reported last year.
As of late, Nintendo has also been somewhat cagey about things like voice actors and the specific studios developing its games.