Everyone, thank you for the wonderful fanthoughts! Also, thanks to all the people who accepted being bullied into sending me fanthoughts. What are my thoughts on this? Well, I feel that it should give a whole lot more into marketing; I hadn't even heard of the game! Also, I think they should have a better slogan than "This Game Stinks"...

~Skulryk

I have 2 ideas.

1) have better TV commercials and make the game look as good as possible forcing people to buy.
2) Taco Bell Dog

Carpainter

Hmm? Any and all marketing is not within my understanding.. but I'll try, kay-o?

Earthbound was not advertised on TV. This is probably a good thing, as commercials are annoying as-... er... yeah. Annoying. Still, this detracted from the total number of potential customers. Which is what the big N wants. And it wouldn't be worth it, with the huge advertisement prices..

There wasn't a single catchphrase for the game unless you played it. Bad move, bad thing; even just "Zoom!" in Mr. Saturn would have been an improvement.

The uber-huge box was sweet. Included player's guide was the real reason, but the size was also a good helper (As proved by how many people first took notice of the game..). A smart move, maybe except for the player's guide, as it made the game a bit too easy if you bought the real thing.. oh well.

The way it was so utterly and completely different from all the other popular games (and particularly RPGs at that time) was a plus; a keeper if Mother 3 ever makes it out :\

Um.. yeah. what

~E-mouse

If Mother 3 ever calls for advertisement, I would like to see it advertised as for what it is, or what i hope it would be: a humor-filled game. With such characters as Dr. Andonuts and Mr. Saturn obviously still meant to be in the game, there is obviously meant to be some ties to Mother 2. For that reason, I think Mother 3 should be advertised the same way. Earthbound's sales pitch, though not overly successful, did make me laugh (for instance, every time i look at the smell-cards in the back of the guide, which is still have -- unscratched). I also liked the M2 addition of the player's guide in the package, and i think that the large box was one thing that drew people to it. I'm not old enough to remember Earthbound's advertisement too well, but from what i have seen, i hope the trend would/does continue.

-Neopaula

Since the world has changed since SNES days..I'd have to say Nintendo would do a good job on marketing Eb64... maybe because of sm.net?? But I'd love the merchandise it would spawn too... but nowadays n64 is kid oriented, and SNES definately wasn't, so I'm not sure which would be better. And the chars in Eb64 didn't look too clay modelish to make... hmm.

Saturnman

I thought EarthBound's marketing was faily great, why else would I have bought it the first week it came out. The ads specifically in Nintendo Power is what persuaded me to buy the game. For example all the ads located at this page - http://www.starmen.net/merchandise/misc/ebad.php - with catchy phrases like "It's like living inside your gym shoes" and on the $10 dollar off coupon "Cut this coupon not the cheese."

Definetly if Mother 3's marketing was so humerous and eye-catching I would be pleased and purchase the game immediatly. But after EarthBound's release (and 6 years), it would be cool if Nintendo/Hal produced an EarthBound 64 commercial. Heck maybe that was EarthBound's marketing downside, no commercial. I remember Final Fantasy 3 and Super Metroid got commercials, and those were hit-selling games! It was most likely the risk of releasing the start of the Mother series in the United States that stopped Nintendo/Hal from creating a commercial.

And after Starmen.Net... Mother 3 would for SURE be successful. See, for instance, Chrono Trigger, a very popular Super Nintendo game doesn't have a website and community so great as the Mother series has, Starmen.Net. Correct me if you do know a very large Chrono Trigger website/community. That concludes it. I shouldn't jump to so many conclusions after all, there is VERY small chance Mother 3/EarthBound 64 will ever be produced.

-Aquas

I would prefer anything other than the marketing they used for EarthBound. The sole souvenir I have of that time was the ad showing Belch. Ick. No wonder it sold so horribly; the ads did it no justice.

-Anthadd

TV ads would be nice because they would get a lot of people who didn't know about the Mother/EB series to find out about it. It would be nice to have it hyped for at least a while in gaming magazines too.

Orbfighter

I think (and I KNOW other people agree with me) that Mother 2's marketing was a HORRIBLE failure! Not only did they use the slogan, "This Game Stinks", but they marketed with scratch 'n sniff cards; how pathetic.

Mother 3 marketing should steer players TOWARDS the game, not away from it. Maybe something like, "Mother 3 - the Mother of the 64-bit World". It'd have a double meaning; slogans like that ALWAYS work; they make the reader think about it, and once they figure it out, they feel proud of themselves, and wanna' check out the product. It's pretty funny. ^_^

Yeah, but, I just think EB's marketing was terrible, and if Nintendo did something like THAT again, I'd probably write a couple of really nasty letters. ^_^ Not to mention, the Mother games would ONCE AGAIN lose a lot of attention that they so greatly deserve.

~Shmuely

NINTENDO SHOULD MARKET IT IF IT WERE TO EVER COME OUT. They should make cool commercials and merchandise, like t-shirts and stuff. I'd like an EB3 mug.....

Skuly made me write this fan thought, he r meanie.

HappyMrSaturn

For the marketing of everyone's favorite game (and if it isnt, well it should be) I suppose I would want to see a lot of commercials, online advertising *on their official website of course* and magizine adds, since thats usually what Nintendo does for games it has a lot of confidence in and we would hope they would have a lot of confidence in Mother3 (which apparently they didnt :(, but lets not get into that).

Maybe they would make the commercials and such actually look good. And not be so flashy. Am I the only person that goes with the whole 'less is more' theory? Apparently! Being the Nintendo people that they are, they would try to make it look like something it wasnt, which really doesnt do any justice to the actual game. Im sure Earthbound64 could hold its own, not having to really prove itself to anyone that wouldnt want to buy it in the first place.

But then again, we would need any advertising, would we? They wouldnt have to pay huge ammounts of money for a page in a magizine to get ME to buy EB64, advertising is just for the dolts who would have never known because they dont pay attention or wouldnt give the first Earthbound the time of day. Yay now I'm just rambling.

-Traceh

Knowing Nintendo, if Mother 3 is ever released, they'd have some really stupid ad campaign like that of Conker's Bad Fur Day, and the game would have similar selling numbers. I personally would like to see very little advertising - only the good reviews that the game would no doubt garner from prestigious review sites and magazines.

Foppy

I really don't have any preferences as to marketing; if it works, then use it. I just want Mother 3 to be a successful game. Maybe Nintendo could try the smelly cards thing again. Just as long as they don't somehow make Earthbound into another Pokemon.*shudders*

Pineapple Kid

I loved the phrase: "This game stinks."

I crack up every time I read it. and then they had that scratch-and smell, it was great. and the big box.

I don't want to see generic game ads (see crash bandicoot). I love originality in advertising. Also, I think that a lot of it would be word-of-mouth, and people seeing how kooky it is. That's how I found out about EB. A friend of mine had it. I HAD to get it, and I love it to this day.

-Cliff Spradlin

"This Game Stinks" might have discouraged some people from buying EarthBound. If Mother 3 were to be released in the US, I don't really think Nintendo should use that marketing slogan or anything like it. Um... yeah.

GauntletWizard

Nintendo's current advertising strategy appears to work in two ways.

1) "Cute" marketing aimed at younger ages, for example the ads for Pokemon Stadium or Super Smash Brothers.

2) "Dark" marketing aimed at slightly older ages, such as Perfect Dark and, to some extent, Majora's Mask.

Speaking of Majora's Mask, that was a huge campaign. Remember "Radio Zelda?" For those who didn't know, that was a website where you could get information about the end of the world. The moon was supposed to hit the Earth on the release date of Majora's Mask unless some idiot kid (who coincidentally looked good in advertisements) beat the game in time.

If Nintendo were to use one of these strategies for M3/EB2, they'd probably go with cute ads unless the game style underwent a huge overhaul. If they put as much thought and money into advertising EB as they did with Majora's Mask, or even Paper Mario, they'd probably sell a lot of copies.

SimonBob

I really don't know how they first messed up advertising, but if the can produce a good marketing plan, and sells millions, people would finally see the true greatness of earthbound. Everybody would want the prequels and mayby Gameboy Advance could make a remake of Mother 2.

Matt

I think nintendo would spend 5 million dollars.They'll spend 2 million by adveritising on coca cola or pepsi bottles with flint drinling a soda in the background. Also 2 more on the back of milk cartons saying "wanted, have you seen this game" The rest on regular and original advertising.

James StarmenDX

I liked the "This Game Stinks" campaign, but M3 looks so different that the same campaign probably wouldn't work well. Maybe if they made the game sound good, it'd get a better reaction.

LousySpy

Action figures!!! THEY'D BE AWESOME!!!

Also, I didn't like the way Nintendo marketed EB cuz it said "this game stinks" and turned off a lot of players. They need to come up with a better marketing plan for Mother 3.

Chrispy

I think that, if the release Mother 3, it'll be something completey differnt to the EarthBound advertising...Except in Japan. They could just do like they did with Mother 2 and have the people chant the name and stuff. ;)

In the US, they'll just do like any other game and show some cool shots and stuff...

EB64