Bigger is better.
I won’t be the first to admit the merits of digital goods. I like a good case to put on my shelf, and I prefer the personal responsibility that comes with physical goods. Club Nintendo is a little different. While retail physical games maintain some parity alongside their digital counterparts in both price and quality (in North America, at least), Club Nintendo physical rewards seem to be getting worse each year while the digital rewards are only getting comparatively more appealing. I think Nintendo realizes this, and with Club Nintendo’s new initiative to offer better digital games for Platinum and Gold members, maybe the downward physical reward trend can finally, thankfully end forever.
In discussing this, the following is a refresher of what the big Platinum prizes were since the NA service’s beginning. Note that a calendar was offered every year to Gold and Platinum members through 2013, and select eShop games were offered to Gold and Platinum members in 2012 and 2013:
2009: Mario’s Hat OR Doc Louis's Punch-Out!!
2010: Super Mario Characters Figurine
2011: Mario and Friends badge (pin) set
2012: Platinum Mario Playing Cards OR Limited Edition Platinum Poster Set
2013: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Original Soundtrack OR Three-Poster Set
2014: Game & Wario OR Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D OR one of six other digital games (that are Platinum exclusive – there are eight more Virtual Console games for Gold)
We can’t know for certain because Nintendo would never tell us that they were cutting costs with each year, but I bet dollars to donuts it costs way more to make a plush Mario hat than an audio CD (remember this was 2013) or three large pieces of decorative paper. This wouldn’t be surprising thanks to its user base growing each year (which would result in more demanding costs), but year-over-year downgrading also creates a problem when Nintendo wants to fairly reward people for filling out surveys. A nice figure or a nice hat is reasonable. A CD or shiny plastic playing cards? Questionable at best.
That brings us to this year. Assuming Nintendo really is cutting prize cost year-over-year, we were never going to get a fun Luigi Amiibo reward (they wouldn’t even give us that Luigi figurine last year without forcing us to spend a small coin fortune). At best, we would have gotten a Super Mario 3D World CD. At worst, we would have gotten another poster set. With these digital rewards, which include the retail-level Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D and Game & Wario, Nintendo can offer more value while reducing their costs to almost nothing.
To those of you who don’t want anything digital or already own all of the games you want, remember that codes are versatile things that you could trade for something of equal value that you do want (something probably more useful to you than a collection of classic Mario pins with less effort required than scalping a reward on eBay). But for people like me who have kept Game & Wario on their Amazon Wish List waiting for that sweet $20 price drop, the new Club Nintendo rewards are a welcome surprise.
Of course it could be better. In a perfect world, we would get eight full retail games to choose from in Platinum and eight mixed Virtual Console/eShop games to choose from in Gold. As it stands, however, the current offering is a great start. Instead of continuing to cut costs resulting in worse rewards, Nintendo has found a way to offer significant value at an insignificant cost.
