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[jarrod]

Right.
So my argument is that Nintendo has done nothing more than any other given videogame company to wedge themselves into such an enviable position, due to the fact that all non-Nintendo companies have their own rabid fan base.

I think it's the scale of said fanbase that gives Nintendo that enviable position. Many companies have their own diehards (SNK, Sony, Blizzard, etc), but I'm not sure any have as large or as dedicated a fanbase as Nintendo.

 

[border]

I donno about you, but I'd be all shades of excited if Sony would announce another Otostaz or Fantavision. Not you, eh? Well, there you go.

That's because you liked the predecessors to those games. It's got little to do with the Sony name. And I thought you said you didn't care about the companies, so why are you using yourself as an example in the first place? Your personal take on this should be irrelevant, unless you want to contradict yourself and say that you are a "lovemarked" Sony fan.

New Nintendo projects garner interest almost purely because they are Nintendo related. A generic-looking Nintendo game still gets noticed, a generic Sony/MS game quickly falls by the wayside. You can point out similar pockets of loyalty in other fanbases, but you are really kidding yourself if you think that every other software house drums up loyalty of the same type or scale as Nintendo does. Nobody says "Oh boy, I can't wait to see what the next game Microsoft/Eidos/Acclaim game is going to be!" OTOH, everybody's always a little bit curious about what's going on at Nintendo.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

i suppose you could make the case that this loyalty is purely or primarily based on the quality of nintendo's games. and there's some truth to that. but there are aspects of this loyalty that the games don't explain. for example, the way that fans extend their attachment to games like eternal darkness or viewtiful joe, that -- whatever their merits -- do not exhibit any of the traditional qualities of nintendo games.

*shrug* I enjoy Viewtiful Joe for similar reasons as other Nintendo games. It's got a unique look, can be pretty bizarre, simple and fun to play, and there isn't much else like it out there.

did Nintendo have this 'lovemark' thing back in the NES days or is it just since they handed the market to Sony on a silver platter?

Probably not (to any notable degree) during the NES days, because A) They were basically new to us and B) THey were the standard console with 90+% of market share. It wasn't until SNES/Genesis that preferring the Nintendo console and games over a competitor became a real choice. I'm ignoring you computer guys in all this, I'm afraid.

There are people who look forward to games just because it has the Nintendo label on it......but nobody is really that excited when Sony or MS is doing the publishing.

It's a matter of trust. If I pull out a random game with "the Nintendo label" on it, there's a quite high percentage chance it's not ass. If I trust this percentage to continue into the future, there's a better chance a game with the Nintendo label will be not ass than one without.

 

[ironichaos]

Just look at the REGGIELUTION. Only Nintendo fans could create that.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Hmm. I do think that Nintendo's marketing of their image is a lot more cutting-edge and ahead of the curve than many might have realized. The "Who Are You" series and their surrealistic (and really, rather artistic IMHO) Gameboy Advance commercials which overlay game elements onto normal real life environments are a hell of a lot more subtle and thought-provoking than is typical for video game marketing. If you think about it, it seems much game marketing is still rather crude in nature no matter how expensive the production values of the ad campaign or commercial art. Often a Rambo-esque appeal to hot-blooded American violence and thinly veiled sex - or "x-treme" dude-I-am-as-cool-as-MTV-roxx0r panoramas.

An interesting thing to consider is that I believe while their advertising has had ups and downs over the years, this particular theme for Nintendo is consistent. Thinking back to the early, cheesy NES commercials, I remember the ones with a guy totally fipping out for Legend of Zelda and taking his obbession into real life, running around screaming Zelda's name. Or the commercial with a bunch of people exploring a kind of game vault and discovering Nintendo's games in complete awe, and being enraptured by them. I also think about Myamoto's many comments over the years, some of which have made it into marketing - like his quote on the back of the Gamecube package, something to the effect of: "what if ordinary things around you were more than they seemed, and that door was actually a door to another world, and the person standing next to you was actually a warrior?"

The idea of getting people to identify themselves very literally with game characters or worlds might seem strange or silly to some, but is in itself an echo of a rather sophisticated postmodern idea about the malleabilty of identity and how we are all really fictions of our own and our environment's creations - there's a great quote I see around sometimes online. "Participate in your own manipulation" - or, if your personality and identity are being manipulated by the fictions around you, why not go for broke and make it fictions of your choosing, and yourself a character of your own design, so to speak?

 

[radioheadrule83]

GREAT thread. Some very intelligent posts going on in here...

I don't really have anything to add. But while I consider this "lovemark" idea perfectly valid and see how it can be applied to Nintendo, I am also wondering why it's being applied to Nintendo? It's not after all inconceivable that brand loyalty is merely generated by two decades of quality gaming products -- some of the best in the business. How many 'best game evers' have they had in their lifetime for those posting here today? Even the gamer considering themselves levelheaded in his/her affection for Nintendo, will probably acknowledge they've had several great games. In my opinion, Nintendo fans also seem to be the most critical of gamers too. Some of them are really quite hardcore about gameplay in particular. Even if they're still having that gaming critereon satisfied and are otherwise very happy Nintendo consumers, they'll still be bitching throughout the course of time immemorial thanks to the lack of progressive scan ports on new-machines that they don't even have to buy, or an online plan that never surfaced. What? The new Mario game isn't better than the game we recently considered best game ever?! Shenanigans! And as we all know, Nintendo themselves have to be involved in some way, word of mouth has to be strong, or the Nintendo related press has to be heavily touting a third party game to make it sell. They just cast that kind of watchful eye. Of course, there are blind fanboys as there are with any system - I'm just arguing that whether this Nintendo lovemark exists or not -- it's not black and white, and that isn't the only reason for their success. Their gaming heritage, and entire back catalogue has a lot to do with it IMO.

Thom

 

[Bizarro Sun Yat-sen]

The idea of getting people to identify themselves very literally with game characters or worlds might seem strange or silly to some, but is in itself an echo of a rather sophisticated postmodern idea about the malleabilty of identity

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO save me I'm drowning

Anyway if Nintendo were to go bankrupt I'm sure most of the talented game developers there would be picked up by other companies in no time flat.

 

[radioheadrule83]

I hope nobody is entertaining the idea of Nintendo bankrupcy as a possibility btw. $6 bil and rising when the exchange is right.. and they're the worlds second biggest publisher probably.

SEGA had four consecutive years of heavy losses before they even contemplated third party status. And they were a much lesser beast.

 

[AniHawk]

I hope nobody is entertaining the idea of Nintendo bankrupcy as a possibility btw. $6 bil and rising when the exchange is right.. and they're the worlds second biggest publisher probably.

SEGA had four consecutive years of heavy losses before they even contemplated third party status. And they were a much lesser beast.

Sega was in debt since the early 90s when they were making $200 million a year (think this was 1992 or 1993).

 

[Mejilan]

Very interesting and unusually intelligent thread. I too don't have a heckuva lot to add. I suppose I'm a "victim" of this lovemark thing, as I certainly recognize it, though I never knew of a decent enough buzzword for it. Still, I am and always was a multiconsole gamer (except briefly when I was living overseas, but I've made up for that this gen, in more ways than one), but I've always preferred Nintendo as well. Indeed, you could say I even started with them. I owned a Commodore in my youth, dabbled with arcades, and Ataris, and Intellivisions, but it was my NES that really began my passion.

That said, I do NOT think that this "lovemark" thing Nintendo has going is a sign of a very sophisticated and cutting edge marketing philosophy. I think it much more likely that it is more of an accidental result of the timing and positioning of the NES and SNES, than anything else. Though, of course, their unusually brilliant track record over the past 20 years has much to do with it as well.

I think dog$ is way off base trying to compare the kind of interest and loyalty that Nintendo can promote (even through nonsense announcements) with much tinier cult followings of select games, franchises, or companies.

 

[junkwaffle]

I think we can agree that whatever 'lovemark' means exactly, Nintendo has it. It's fun to try to speculate on why that is. As a gamer, I think there is just something genuinely intriguing about the machinations of the only major hardware and software company that is soley dedicated to videogaming - and nothing else. The fact that they do it exceedingly well just adds to their mystique, to say nothing of how long they've been doing it and how successfully, by almost any measure. They stand alone as a company whose only concern is the next console, the next game, a new way to play, a new design, a new piece of hardware. You may not always like what they come up with, but really, as a gamer, how can you not be interested?

Sega had that effect on many gamers, no?

(...and please, let's not have the customary remark but-they-only-do-it-for-the-cashish prattle....)

 

[Alcibiades]

Hmm. I do think that Nintendo's marketing of their image is a lot more cutting-edge and ahead of the curve than many might have realized. The "Who Are You" series and their surrealistic (and really, rather artistic IMHO) Gameboy Advance commercials which overlay game elements onto normal real life environments are a hell of a lot more subtle and thought-provoking than is typical for video game marketing. If you think about it, it seems much game marketing is still rather crude in nature no matter how expensive the production values of the ad campaign or commercial art. Often a Rambo-esque appeal to hot-blooded American violence and thinly veiled sex - or "x-treme" dude-I-am-as-cool-as-MTV-roxx0r panoramas.

An interesting thing to consider is that I believe while their advertising has had ups and downs over the years, this particular theme for Nintendo is consistent. Thinking back to the early, cheesy NES commercials, I remember the ones with a guy totally fipping out for Legend of Zelda and taking his obbession into real life, running around screaming Zelda's name. Or the commercial with a bunch of people exploring a kind of game vault and discovering Nintendo's games in complete awe, and being enraptured by them. I also think about Myamoto's many comments over the years, some of which have made it into marketing - like his quote on the back of the Gamecube package, something to the effect of: "what if ordinary things around you were more than they seemed, and that door was actually a door to another world, and the person standing next to you was actually a warrior?"

The idea of getting people to identify themselves very literally with game characters or worlds might seem strange or silly to some, but is in itself an echo of a rather sophisticated postmodern idea about the malleabilty of identity and how we are all really fictions of our own and our environment's creations - there's a great quote I see around sometimes online. "Participate in your own manipulation" - or, if your personality and identity are being manipulated by the fictions around you, why not go for broke and make it fictions of your choosing, and yourself a character of your own design, so to speak?

wow, those idea rule...

 

[etiolate]

Nintendo knows how to get your loyalty, the "lovemark" or whatever it is they do have. They just don't know how to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

 

[dog$]

They did when I was a kid. Moreso than now, at least.