Jon gives us five ways that Nintendo can improve its online relationship with its fans.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/editorial/27194
Regardless of the North American fate of Xenoblade, Pandora's Tower, and The Last Story, the furor surrounding Operation Rainfall has exposed what is perhaps Nintendo's greatest weakness: its lack of meaningful online interaction and communication with its consumers. In this era of social media, viral videos, and up-to-the-minute news, Nintendo's approach to its web presence is conservative to say the least. Here's what I feel the company must change in order to make their fans feel closer to their favorite game company.
Launch a company blog with an honest-to-goodness Community Manager. However you feel about Microsoft and Sony, you can't say that they're out of touch with their audience. Microsoft's Major Nelson (Larry Hyrb) is well-known around the web, and his blog has become a high-profile source for Xbox 360 news. Sony's PlayStation blog takes more of a content-by-committee approach, but it still features daily news updates by various folks up and down the company food chain. These blogs provide a valued sounding board for fans, while also giving moderators the opportunity to wade into the frightening waters of user comments if they so desire.
Nintendo has neither a company blog nor a Community Manager of any sort; the closest thing they have to behind-the-scenes commentary is their Iwata Asks website, which features developer interviews with company president Satoru Iwata. These interviews provide great information to readers, but in the end they represent a highly-controlled one-way exchange of information with about as much personality as a dictionary. They're also incredibly long, verbose, intimidating walls of text that most readers would rather have summarized for them on other websites. Nintendo is a dynamic company doing noteworthy things that people want to hear about, and having a public face – or at least a blog written in a casual, conversational tone – would help greatly. Fans prefer to get their news from real people, as opposed to a heavily-sanitized PR machine.
Put some effort into Twitter. Love it or hate it, Twitter has become a major communication tool. Sony has a Twitter feed featuring the witty observations and boasting of fictional company executive Kevin Butler, as well as PlayStation feeds for their North American, European, and Netherlands branches. Major Nelson has a personal feed that discusses more than just games, and Microsoft has an Xbox feed as well as feeds for technical support and community development.
Unfortunately, Nintendo of America's official feed is about as dry as it comes (and it's doubtful that their Japanese feed is any better). I was excited to start following it when it first appeared, but I dropped it a few days later after realizing that it was nothing more than marketing fluff, hokey user polls, and press release-style news stories. Of course, its overall effectiveness is hampered by the lack of an official blog for it to link to, since most fans use Twitter to keep up with news posts on their favorite corporate sites. Blogs and Twitter work hand-in-hand very nicely, and this marketing dovetail is a huge miss on Nintendo's part.
Streamline and improve their Facebook pages. Facebook is hands-down the de facto social media platform on the planet, with some 750 million users. Sony's PlayStation page has over 16 million likes, while Microsoft's Xbox page has over 10 million. They both prominently feature company news and videos, online store marketing, as well as user posts and conversations. They're slick, polished one-stop Facebook shops for PlayStation and Xbox fans.
Nintendo's Facebook presence is considerably more scattered. There is an official Nintendo page, but since it was created relatively recently (which is strange in itself), it only has 254,000 likes. Their Wii page has less than 2 million likes, and the official Mario page has 3 million; there's also a slew of other franchise pages. All of this shows that Nintendo has a lot of franchises, but really, why fracture your Facebook audience in this manner? What's worse is that searching on "Nintendo" doesn't even take users to their main page like it does for "PlayStation" or "Xbox"; instead, they're taken to Nintendo's Facebook Places check-in entry. Hopefully the creation of a main Nintendo page is a foreshadowing of a streamlining process that's already underway. Unfortunately, Nintendo's pages tend to have content that's just as anemic as their Twitter feeds, so more dynamic content would be helpful as well.
Bring back the official Nintendo forums. Nintendo's official NSider forums were closed "indefinitely" on September 17, 2007, with fans being told the move was part of a website overhaul to support Wii and Nintendo DS. Nintendo of Europe's forums also turned off the lights the following week. That "indefinitely" soon became "permanently", as the message currently displayed at the old Nintendo forum website confirmed a little over a year later. The Nintendo Tech Support forums are all that remain.
Nintendo's suggestion at the time was to "invite [their] fans to build on the spirit of that community by starting their own Nintendo discussion sites". By effectively offloading community-building to their fans, Nintendo splintered their online fanbase and made goodwill-generating events like Camp Hyrule a thing of the past. The importance of these events cannot be understated; several NWR staffers met each other during Camp Hyrule, and every year Nintendo fans looked forward to getting together to celebrate their love of the brand (even if it was only online). In retrospect, the closing of the official Nintendo forums marked the beginning of Nintendo's curious shift away from community cultivation, to its current policy of keepings its fans at arm's length and mostly in the dark.
Be honest with your fans and share news with them, even if it's bad. These days, fans like to be kept up-to-date on what a company is doing and why they're doing it. Nintendo's policy of providing fans with news on a seemingly need-to-know basis causes them to come across as unconcerned and out of touch with their player base. They have always been secretive, and in the fast-moving video game industry that's perfectly understandable (especially with the press, which has often been hostile to Nintendo and its sometimes contrarian business strategies). However, video game fans are an especially enthusiastic and passionate bunch, and sometimes packaging bad news with an explanation can save a company from an internet backlash thanks to rampant speculation.
A perfect example of this approach is Capcom's handling of its decision not to localize Japanese title Ace Attorney Investigations 2. When Capcom fans complained on the company's forums, Senior Vice-President Christian Svensson personally responded in a language that every gamer can understand: sales numbers. When a forum user suggested that Investigations 2 would sell more than Okamiden, he frankly stated:
The costs of localization are higher than the forecasted return. And no, it wouldn't sell more than Okamiden (which has already sold more than the first Investigations).
As far as the internet was concerned, that was that. Nobody could argue with Capcom's logic in this case, and while there has certainly been some grumbling, there was no letter-writing campaign, no Operation Anything, and really no hard feelings. Capcom let their fans know exactly where they stood on the matter and the logic behind their decision, their fans agreed to disagree, and everybody moved on. Nintendo could stand to learn from Capcom's handling of a potentially prickly situation.
There's no reason why Nintendo can't harness the power of its online community for its own good, while also offering its supporters a sense of inclusion in what they do. Few brands are fortunate enough to have such a passionate, knowledgeable, and long-lived fanbase that literally spans generations. However, in order to make this happen they must expend more effort on their social media than they have in many years, and must infuse their web presence with a personality that is sorely lacking. They must attack on all fronts, hitting their web-savvy fanbase where they live – on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and forums – and offer a reasonable measure of transparency across the board.
Ultimately, Nintendo must reach out. The game industry currently exists in North America mostly thanks to their efforts, and along the way they've made many fans because of it. But the most effective methods of interacting with these fans have changed, and Nintendo must change along with them. A renewed dedication to a hands-on approach is the best way to ensure that the storm clouds of Operation Rainfall are nothing more than distant thunder for Nintendo fans everywhere.
Social networks are for people too stupid to set up basic blogs.
QuoteSocial networks are for people too stupid to set up basic blogs.
That gives me an idea. How awesome if Miyamoto had a blog or even a twitter feed that was updated regularly and at least somewhat uncensored? Not in Nintendo best interests, maybe, but still....I'd read it everyday, especially if it went something like this:
If Miyamoto tweeted....
"Met with Zelda team today. Upended tea table. Made someone cry. LOL."
"Organized CD collection today. Been cleaning alot lately. If this was a game.."
"Mario 3DS done. Don't like color of hat. Time to upend tea table!"
QuoteSocial networks are for people too stupid to set up basic blogs.
That gives me an idea. How awesome if Miyamoto had a blog or even a twitter feed that was updated regularly and at least somewhat uncensored? Not in Nintendo best interests, maybe, but still....I'd read it everyday, especially if it went something like this:
If Miyamoto tweeted....
"Met with Zelda team today. Upended tea table. Made someone cry. LOL."
"Organized CD collection today. Been cleaning alot lately. If this was a game.."
"Mario 3DS done. Don't like color of hat. Time to upend tea table!"
Launch a company blog with an honest-to-goodness Community Manager
Put some effort into Twitter
Streamline and improve their Facebook pages
Bring back the official Nintendo forums
Be honest with your fans and share news with them, even if it's bad
Nintendo could stand to learn from Capcom's handling of a potentially prickly situation.
'In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, all mission progress is saved directly to the Nintendo 3DS cartridge, where it cannot be reset. The nature of the game invites high levels of replayability, encouraging fans to improve mission scores. The save mechanic ensures that both original and unlocked game content will be available to all users. Secondhand game sales were not a factor in this development decision, and we hope that all our consumers will be able to enjoy the entirety of the survival-action experiences that the game does offer. '
Second, here's the gist:
There was no intention of lessening the experience of the game. Essentially, RE Mercs was treated like an arcade fighting game. You unlock characters, levels, etc and they just stay unlocked as they would in an arcade machine. There was no hidden motive to prevent buying used copies. It's not some secret form of DRM. It's simply the way we designed the save system to work with the arcade type of gameplay.
Nintendo is just as responsible for the lousy third party support the Wii got as those developers, if not more so.
@ CericI had a longer one but I honestly think you didn't actually read my post. Just skimmed it.
I'm sorry, sir, that doesn't make sense.
1. You don't think Nintendo has/has tried to/will continue to expand its audience?!
2. There are NFL simulators and WWII shooters on the Wii - who was in charge of making them look as good as first party games do? Hint: not Nintendo
Nintendo is just as responsible for the lousy third party support the Wii got as those developers, if not more so.
NO
http://pietriots.com/2010/12/17/the-3rd-party-wall-of-shame/ (http://pietriots.com/2010/12/17/the-3rd-party-wall-of-shame/)
@ CericThe point I was trying to make is that Nintendo is a beast with two masters. Their is Nintendo the Platform and Nintendo the Software developer.
Nope. Read every word. Though I must say some of the phrasing was a little confusing. What point do you feel my previous response did not address?
@ Urkel
That Pietriots article is amazing. That really spells it all out.
Granted, I'd like to see a similar Wall for PS3/60. You see, what people forget is that a lot of the same shovelware appears on those consoles... but it is completely ignored when they also get the high-profile titles.
@ CericRight, not Super out of their way but make a point to get them into the general PR stream from them. Enough to make people not forget they are there. Of course Nintendo will want to choose the ones they believe are of quality.
Thanks for the explanation. I do believe I understand your point now.
So what you're saying is, if Nintendo isn't going to make certain genres themselves (Football sims, WW2 shooters), then they should go out of their way to promote those games when third parties make them. Is that it?
The Wii handled the realistic style for three years. I honestly have no idea where you're getting your information. Also: http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/23651XCWarrior is the only comment on that story that wasn't someone in some position on this site now. Thats sort of funny.
You say that it doesn't bother you on one hand, but then its giving your hemorrhoids on the other.
And as for your question, just ask the Madden players who downloaded Madden NFL Arcade, which featured that art style.
Humorously enough, this year's Wii Madden is dialing back the cartoony style a bit (players are less exaggerated).
There was a telling quote about the Wii U. Can't remember which third party dev said it but it was to the effect of Nintendo providing a lot of options to developers instead of having a very rigid setup where Nintendo tells you how to do it. The Wii was Nintendo's self-serving "do it our way or **** off" design taken to such an extreme that even selling more consoles than everyone else could not prevent third parties from wanting absolutely nothing to do with it. I would argue that even the N64 was more inviting. You can talk about third parties making the effort all you want but when one guy demands that you put in extra effort when no one else does, who would you bother?I think I may have heard some Hope in there.
Though this argument is nothing new and at this point everyone seems to have gone into one of three conclusions regarding third party support typically based on how much slack they cut Nintendo:
1. Nintendo scared off third parties with restrictive hardware.
2. Third parties are lazy dipshits and never gave the Wii a chance.
3. The third party support was never bad and the Wii is super awesome and perfect in every way.
We know the Wii U is trying a different approach and it seems to be a reaction to conclusion 1.
First, I think the Wii U is an attempt to build a bridge to Isle de Nintendo. It's really silly to think Nintendo doesn't care about third parties.I think part of it is indifference to third party support, in that as long as Nintendo stays profitable it doesn't really matter if the system has good third party support or not. The other part I think is obliviousness in that Nintendo wants third parties to make games for their systems but does not know what specifically attracts or repels them. Hell, I would consider a lot of Nintendo's questionable decisions to come out of obliviousness. I don't think they have the slightest clue why the N64 or Gamecube were not very popular and they come across as quite shocked that the Wii got branded as a casual console that core gamers were not interested in. Nintendo is like an autistic savant whose brilliance changes the world and yet can't have a conversation with someone without offending or scaring them.
The cartoony style is fine...
You know in the more realistic one he looks scared.You've seen the size of some of those football players, haven't you? I'd be pretty scared too if I saw several huge guys running at me with full force.
"Realistic" graphics on the Wii would look bad compared to 360/PS3. I don't think it'd be doing the system any favors.
At this point who is really buying the PS2 version of a sports game?
Anyways, yeah, how about those Facebooks?
