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I
said that there was a definite purposeful reason as
to why I made the character a regular Joe that worked
as a game technician at Nintendo. Here’s the reason:
While
working in the Correspondence Department and reading
letters from consumers (the majority of which were from
kids and young teens, and mostly male, though there
was a fair percentage of Power Players over the age
of 24), I learned an awful lot about our market. In
fact, I realized that many of the letters asked the
same questions or gave identical suggestions for games
or proposed similar ideas for products or the magazine,
etc. (which is why we had the 450 standard reply paragraphs).
But, one day, while talking some of the letters with
the other CSRs from the Correspondence Department, we
got into a lively discussion about which was the most
frequent game suggestion. And like a sledge hammer,
it hit me. We’re getting consumer responses from 8,000
letters per week. This would really be valuable information
to know. And no one was writing it down. And then the
hammer it a second time. My God, there are around 120,000
phone calls into this place from consumer every week
in addition to the 8,000 letters. AND NO ONE WAS WRITING
IT DOWN!!
There
wasn’t another business organization on the planet that
wouldn’t kill for this kind of free consumer feedback
and we were just casually letting it go down the toilet.
So, fairly early in my time at the Big N, I realized
there was a massive amount of consumer information coming
in that wasn’t being recorded. And I set about the task
of trying to record it. I started with my own stack
of mail. I got a piece of paper and recorded the complaint
or suggestion or praise and repeated the process for
each letter. Categories began to define themselves and
soon I was just putting a tic mark under the categories.
Some categories began to devide themselves into sub-categories,
e.g. Suggestions for New Games became Suggestions for
a WWF Wrestling Game and Suggestions for a Super Mario
Sequel and Suggestions for a Zelda Sequel, etc.
I
then created blank forms with these same categories
and handed them about 8 or 10 of my colleagues in the
Correspondence Department with a blank column for miscellaneous
items and asked them to put a tic mark under the appropriate
category and to write a short explanation for each of
the miscellaneous items. I then interviewed about a
half dozen of the Game Counselors and the same amount
of CSRs and determined additional categories for them.
I added their additional categories to the current form.
I collected the used form from my Correspondence colleagues
and was satisfied that it was working successfully.
With a final version of the form in place, I printed
up enough copies for every Correspondence person, every
CSR, and every Game Counselor and, without word one
to my supervisors or upper management or, God forbid,
the marketing department, I handed them out quietly
to each customer service person with a short instructional
paragraph at the top. I explained that I would be back
on each Friday to gather them up, so it was important
to keep them accurate and accounted for.
Now,
I was in no position of authority to insist that anyone
do anything. And I didn’t. If people got the impression
that this was a new task issued by management, I wasn’t
real forthcoming with any news that the impression was
incorrect. I did give the impression that this information
was critical to management. That wasn’t a lie. Just
because management wasn’t bright enough to realize it
at the time didn’t make it any less important. The good-natured
customer service people accepted their new assignments
with quiet resignation.
As
promised I gathered them at the close of business on
Friday and passed out fresh ones for the next week.
I then tallied the tic marks and quickly created a spreadsheet.
I repeated this process for 4 weeks. The hardworking
individuals of the CSR masses performed their tasks
perfectly. Trends rapidly began to form. The spreadsheet
grew and became more defined.
I
took a sample of it to the upper management in the Marketing
department. As my dad used to say, “They ‘bout swallered
their gum.” They were in shock. Almost speechless, which
is saying something for marketing people. They couldn’t
believe they’d been letting this vast amount of information
slip through their fingers. They asked me for the file
that contained the “Feedback Tally Form” as I called
it, and I emailed it to them. Immediately, the order
came down that “every CSR, Game Counselor, and Correspondence
CSR was to use the Feedback Tally Form and to turn it
in weekly.” The customer service were a little understandably
confused since they’d already been doing it for the
past four weeks already. Knowing how Nintendo worked,
they just figured that the original order was just now
being delivered. They shrugged and continued to do what
they’d done for the past month.
The
impact was incalculable. Decisions regarding sequels
and new games to decisions about where and when to place
television and print advertising were impacted by this
enormous feedback. And especially what was to go into
that advertising was impacted by the Feedback Tally
Form. Though it has admittedly been a few years, the
last I heard the customer service personnel are still
using the Feedback Tally Form. I can only assume that
it has evolved somewhat, but the basic premise is intact:
Record customer feedback.
Gathering
the forms and tabulating the results, I personally charted
about 5.5 million consumer responses while at Nintendo.
At the point when I left the company, there were probably
less than three people in the country that knew what
I knew about what consumers wanted to see in video games.
And exactly who those consumers were. Age, gender, household
income level, number of games owned, etc.
Now,
I told you all that to explain to you about my original
statement: why I made the Captain a regular Joe who
worked as a game technician at Nintendo. Ha! See, you
thought I’d gotten off track and forgotten about that,
didn’t you? No chance. It all comes full circle eventually.
One
of the things that stood out among the many trends found
in all that customer feedback was that everyone had
a fascination with Nintendo. The company. How it worked.
Where it came from. How can I someday come to work there?
What was in store next? And they had a temendous fascination
with how the games were created.
Since
Captain Nintendo had to be a reflection of the product
and the company image, why not make him an employee
and give him the only job possibly cooler than that
of Game Counselor: Game Maker (Okay Game Technician,
but “technician” covers a lot of mysterious area: designer,
programmer, manufacturer, producer, etc.). I wrote the
origin story and gave him a history, a personality,
powers, even a girlfriend (who also worked at the company,
as I recall), and I set up the initial premise. He had
an enemy that he virtually had no choice, but to fight
and he had the means to do that, which would allow us
to introduce an endless supply of new characters, situations,
and game tips into the stories and, ultimately, to the
consumer. If you can find better marketing than that,
show it to me.
The
first story included an appearance by some of Nintendo’s
most popular characters and offered an important game
tip in the context of the story. I gave the story to
the toughest audience I knew: several of the Game Counselors
(They can be brutally honest—which was what I wanted.)
The GCs were overwhelmingly positive. So, I turned the
story into my boss, whom we’ve affectionately made fleeting
reference to as the dragon.
She
was not as positive as the GCs. While she admitted she
could see a certain value to running the story and “limited”
potential to the idea, there needed to be many, many
changes. First, the girlfiend: she needed to be stronger
and smarter; an equal to the Captain, without the powers,
of course. “Hey,” she said, “maybe we could give her
some powers, too!” I put my foot down. “Okay,” she said,
“But she needed to be someone who didn’t need to be
saved.” Uh, excuse me?! Saving fair damsels, is what
heroes do. Especially saving the girlfriend!! But, no.
Let’s just put this premise on the respirator in the
ICU before it’s born…
There
were other ridiculous changes, too. “Make him a janitor
instead of a game technician.” ??? Make him ugly. Make
him an unpopular computer geek (I won’t tell you her
reasoning behind this as it is likely to offend, but
I explained that there was already a Peter Parker.).
Goofy stuff like that, but mostly her pet contention
was making the girlfriend stronger. So I did. Hey, I’m
not above a little compromise. I can do that. We (the
editors who toiled under her reign) used to joke that
she didn’t edit an article. She castrated it. With a
chainsaw. With “The Electifying Adventures of Captain
Nintendo,” she was in all her editing glory. At this
point, I have to remark what a Godsend the Senior Editor,
my mentor, was. She tirelessly acted as a buffer between,
well, anyone—everyone—else, and the dragon, but especially
between the dragon and me. This was her finest hour.
My mentor managed to save most of the integrity of my
original piece. Note: I did make the girlfriend stronger
and smarter, but, in the end, she, like everyone else
that Gannon threatened, had to be saved. I also changed
her name. To Tara Bates. Tara was the home of Scarlett
O’Hara (whom I consider the bitchiest character of all
time) and Bates was the last name of Norman Bates of
ran the Bates Motel in “Psycho” and he was, well, psycho.
Waay psycho. It was my own little act of defiance. Where
did the inspiration for this name change come from?
Hmmm. Now, let me think.
And
we ran the story. In two parts in two consecutive issues.
Response was very positive. Some of the smaller kids
were writing directly to Captain Nintendo as though
he really worked there. Somewhat disturbingly, a few
of the older kids, too. But, what the heck. They were
just getting into the spirit of it all. I hope. I anticipated
many more stories and began to think about the next
one. This time, I would go outside the Nintendo universe
and team the Captain with a major character from one
of the licensee games. (I had a fleeting thought about
Mario and Donkey Kong, but it always ended with Kong
grabbing Tara and climbing to the top of the MicroSoft
building which was about a block away. But the MicroSoft
building was only a few stories tall and I did NOT want
to go through the “Tara can take care of herself” thing
all over again, so I tossed the idea.)
Then,
my mentor told me we wouldn’t be doing anymore Captain
Nintendo stories. Obviously, I asked why. She told me
that the dragon (She never called her that, though she
was not a fan of the dragon by any stretch of the imagination
either.) didn’t want to “devote the space to stories”
and that she thought that “our readers preferred game
tips to these stories.” She said that her [the dragon’s]
take was that “the magazine was to be used to advertise
games, not to entertain consumers.” Okay, for all you
marketing majors out there: That is NOT the way to cement
a spokescharacter mascot for your company. You really
want to try for MORE exposure, not LESS. Naturally,
this infuriated me and further defined the relationship
between Mother Bra-..uh, the dragon, and me. But, the
character was too good to let die there. Moreover, the
concept was far too good to let die there.
So
I took my story and my nine-page marketing campaign
proposal to the Marketing management of the company.
Not the Vice-President of Marketing. But to one of his
underlings because I believed in the chain of command.
Some insidious little cockroach whose name I honestly
cannot now remember. I really wish I could. Now, part
of what happened next was my own fault. But, I was naïve
and trusting, and I believed if you worked hard and
contributed greatly, you would be justly rewarded. Another
life lesson here people: HAAA!!!!! HA HA! HA! HA HA
HA Ha Ha ha ha ha….Nope!”
As
I sat at the desk of this insect, he read my proposal
and intermittently commented how great it was. That
should have been my first red flag. Now, this proposal
laid out the concept of how we would introduce the consumer
to new video games through the stories in the magazine
and the proposed Saturday morning cartoon and how the
consumer would return to the stories for the game tips
interwoven into the story (You see, if the consumer,
returns to the show, he will be viewing the commercials
as well. Like I said, layers and dimensions to this
marketing.). I even had painted an oil painting of the
character on black velvet (He looked like the personification
of an Advantage controller.), but it was mysteriously
stolen from my desk under the auspicous watch of my
supervisor. So, I went in with just the proposal. I
thought it would be strong enough on its own. Apparently,
it was.
This
parasite looked up from my proposal and said, “Well,
this is VERY impressive. This is great! Did you come
up with this all on your own?” I replied in the affirmative
and explained that we had already run a two-part origin
story in the magazine. I was always amazed that the
upper eschelon of marketing never bothered to read the
single most important marketing tool we had: Nintendo
Power. It was the Marketing department that had told
us that their research showed that 80% of sales could
be directly traced back to the magazine.
“Fantastic!”
he said. (Marketing people talk that way.) Then he asked
the question that will forever burn in my brain:
“Listen,”
he continued, “would you mind if your ideas went somewhere
and you didn’t get reimbursed for them?”
I
will pause here for a moment….to give you a second to
take that in. And all that it implies. I know. My jaw
still drops at it, too.
People,
if you’re in… ANY kind of business and someone asks
you this, do not reply! Don’t sign anything! Don’t move!
Just start screaming “RAPE!!!!!” at the top of your
lungs until some honest body comes to witness it and
save you.
While
I was naïve, I wasn’t completely stupid. A red
flag was now draped over me. I said, and I quote, “Would
you?! I expect that whatever I do here for Nintendo
will be reflected back in my career here.” And I meant
it.
He
looked puzzled for a few seconds and then apparently
decided that that meant he was free to do whatever he
wanted, and beamed the broadest of smiles.
Within
a week, my mentor told that a new cartoon based on my
Captain Nintendo character was going to be on the fall
schedule for one of the major networks. You know, as
bad as the dragon was, and she was, I will say this
for her: she never once tried to pass my work off as
her own. Not directly, anyway. But then, she wasn’t
really what I considered a marketing person. There is
nothing more despicable than taking credit for someone
else’s work. It is the lowest of the lows. You’d have
to be a…a…cockroach.
In
my naivete, however, I thought this was wonderful news.
“Should I start writing more stories now?” I asked.
“Oh,
no,” she said. “It’s all been handed over to a production
company. DIC. I believe they are the same folks who
did ‘Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.”
And
that was the last truly creative input I would have
with the character. Happily, you cannot blame me for
him being turned into a teenager and being sucked into
his television. Or for him being given a dog. Or for
him not working at Nintendo. Those decisions all happened
after he left my hands. I don’t know if this was input
from the people at DIC or not. It smacks of television
execs though. The kids, barely out of Pampers, who think
they know television, and are running the networks,
will tell you that “making him a teenager or adding
a teenager sidekick will add 8 tenths of a point. Giving
him a pet will add an extra quarter point. If the pet
is a dog, it goes up to 35 hundredths of a point. Suh-weet,
Baby!” (A point in televisionspeak is 1 million viewers.
Now, these stats are decades old and were only somewhat
true for one demographic for a short time in the late
seventies, but you’ll hear these pinheads recite this
crap like it’s scripture and verse. Okay, class, those
of you old enough to remember, did you ever wonder why
Fonzie was given a dog (Mr. Cool, I believe his name
was and I’m ashamed I know that) on the cartoon that
was spun off of Happy Days a couple of decades ago?
They were going after that extra 35 hundredth of a point
that they believed it would get them. Do you remember
that? Anybody? Exactly. Now think, how many other “comedy/drama/adventure”
based cartoons gave the lead character a pet? Can you
say “Johnny Quest?” That was just the first one that
came off the top of my head instantly. There are a ton
of them. My Lord, even Space Ghost had a space monkey
and twins that he schlepped everywhere.
Similarly,
the whole reason Robin was given to Batman was because
it was thought that kids could more easily relate to
the character of Batman. They didn’t think kids could
make the leap to imagine themselves as the Batman himself
because he was too old (Good Heavens, he was 30, after
all!). So, originally, they made Robin an 8-year-old.
I swear to God. Eight years old. The first thing I thought
of when I imagined myself as the Batman was to think,
“Oh crap. Bad enough I’ve got to dodge bullets and fight
overwheming odds against the most psychotic villains;
Now, I’ve got this 8-year-old brat that I have to watch
out for—and he’s not even wearing long pants! Yeah,
that will makes things easier.” I promise you: The idea
for Robin never originally sprang from the head of a
real writer. It came from someone who thought they knew
marketing. And so, Captain Nintendo was turned into
a kid.
And
they changed his name. I guess they were going for a
cool factor? I dunno. All I know is that, with regard
to Nintendo the company, N isn’t a fraction of the product
recognition that Nintendo is. See, in a thirty minute
period, you could have your name mentioned, oh 40 or
50 times, but, no. Much better that your name is NEVER
mentioned. Oh yeah, that kind of marketing worked really
well for…uh…hmmm. Jesus! This kind of stuff is Marketing
101. Hell, it’s in the Marketing prep class.
Still,
I answered all the letters we got addressed to Captain
Nintendo (or Captain N) as the Captain himself, but
I would never have creative input again upon the character.
However, I got the nickname Captain from several of
the customer service personnel in each of the departments.
And even outside the company, in my own circles, I’d
get called Captain Nintendo more and more frequently.
It was okay. Kind of fun in a way. So I just kind of
accepted it. For the most part, however, I really thought
I was done with him. I was to find out: He wasn’t done
with me.
Next chapter: The Captain Goes Hollywood
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