Nintendo grows a brain ...

[razorjak]

Recently, Nintendo of America, Inc. sent a C&D to suicidegirls.com ... because some fan mentioned a nintendo game in their forums or some such nonsense.

Well after a bit of brainstorming ... it seems the company developed a brain and apologized.

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/28/nintendo_apologizes_.html

Comments

[jruske.livejournal.com]

Well that had to be the most amazing publicity stunt ever, or just the best example of corporate legal stupidity shy of RIAA.

If you had been threatened with a C&D would you give out someone's personal information?

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

Amazing isn't it?

Heh, maybe the game system the person in question will pick will be the DS ... and they can start talking about touching it "down there".

[flameswithin.livejournal.com]

heh. that's one hell of a gesture of good faith. glad to see they apologized.

[caspervonb.livejournal.com]

This has been doing the rounds in the industry for the last
few days. Penny-arcade even wrote a hilarious comic about it.

Personally, I think the issue is mostly one of nintendo's target
market.

In order to stay competitive in the videogame industry, the
big N has decided to go the way of niche markets.

The simple truth is that the best data available says that
the average age for people who play videogames is now 29
years old. Accordingly, people like Sony and Microsoft have
been targeting that marketshare more than any other with
games like GTA and advertising that relies on making their
consoles "hip".

Nintendo, on the other hand, has gone for the younger market.

Whereas PS2 games usually tend towards the "T for teen" rating,
Nintendo has gone for the C (early childhood) and E (everyone)
with their established trademarks (pokemon, super mario, kirby,
etc).

In the end, it means that Nintendo's customer base is mostly
children.

So they've taken the unprecedented step of proactively going
around the internet and trying to make sure that these trademarks
don't end up exposing children to material that is, let's say,
not proper for grade school.

What it has meant thus far is that they've been busting porn
and drug related pornsites so that a kid looking for pikachu
won't find blowjobs and reefer instead.

The Suicide Girls' thing was heavy-handed but understandable
and, in the end, pretty harmless. Consider that there are
at least hundreds of thousands of websites with content not
suitable for minors that use Nintendo trademarks. I'm not even
talking about possibly crude language because those usually get
left alone. I'm talking about hentai and pictures of mario smoking
drugs and people having cosplay fuck marathons.

Things that you really don't want your children exposed to. I'm
sure you can identify with that idea.

So Nintendo has people who's job it is to check up on that and
send threatening letters to avoid some very unhappy family moments.

Obviously, one of the things that must've come up at some point
is SG. Some person wrote down that a couple of their favorite games
were metroid and mario. Somebody at Nin saw it, checked it out and
found the pornography (which, I believe is the central them of SG).

Not suprising at all that a letter got sent.

I don't really see why people are making a big deal out of it.
I think Nintendo did the right thing considering the circumstances.
And when it was pointed out to them that this was on a part of the
site that didn't feature questionable material, they apologized,
withdrew the cease and desist *and* offered nintendo consoles to
everyone involved.

Fuck, I *wish* more companies behaved in such a manner.

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

Well said. I missed my mark when I said Nintendo grows a brain. I was referring to the fact they actually apologized when they found out they were being too heavy handed.

Yes I do wish more corporations behaved in that manner.

Still won't stop me from making jokes about the "Touch Me" routine :-)

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=116

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/extras/ds.php

My Colon Is A Never-ending Feeling Of Pain And Misery

[caspervonb.livejournal.com]

Ah, VG Cats.

What a wonderful comic strip!

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=118

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=59

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=29

But, yeah, didn't mean to get "all up in
yo face" about this nintendo thing, it's
just that I've been having this argument
over and over again for thelst few days...

You know how it is. :)

Re: My Colon Is A Never-ending Feeling Of Pain And Misery

[caspervonb.livejournal.com]

Also, I apparently can't spell
"the last few days..." correctly.

Maybe I should just go to bed.