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Nintendo planned to spend $2 million marketing Earthbound photo

A group of marketing materials for Earthbound was recently picked up on eBay by a gamer known as "Jesse" and, like a good gamer, he shared his good fortune with the internet. Once of the more interesting pieces includes a retailer book with information about the upcoming game to encourage stores to carry it. 

As you can see above, one of the encouragements used was the promise of a $2 million marketing push aimed at a youth demographic. That's a lot of scratch for them to have spent on a game, particularly back in the carefree days of the mid-nineties. That's also a lot of money to get burned on if the product doesn't move. Earthbound didn't.

Of course, things might have changed where the actual campaign was concerned. It's entirely possible that Nintendo never spent near this amount when it came right down to it. But, if true, that would certainly explain all the reticence the company has shown towards localizing and releasing other titles in the series for a North American audience.

EarthBound’s Marketing $2 Million? [Earthbound Central via GoNintendo]








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25 comments | showing # 1 to 25
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Chronic Logic's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 02:11
Chronic Logic
And this is why advertiser make the beaucoup bucks.
garison's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 02:20
garison
I. Want. Earthbound. On. My. D. S.

Thanks, Nintendo! Now make it happen! :)
Perry Simm's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 02:21
Perry Simm
$2 Million for "This game stinks"?
Lakai's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 02:21
Lakai
I wish this game would come out on the fucking Virtual Console already! And please don't respond with all the 'legal reasons' crap. Yeah, I've heard it all. Just RELEASE THIS GAME ON THE VC PLEASE!!!
Monodi's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 02:25
Monodi
Just release this goddamn game on VC already.
Monodi's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 02:25
Monodi
or DS, yeah
KingSigy's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 02:33
KingSigy
That's pretty ridiculous for the 90's. $2 million in today's terms is kind of standard or marketing.
BadStar's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 02:40
BadStar
Apparently they spent all that money on those disgusting scratch and sniff ads.

Anybody else old enough to remember those? Worst marketing ever.
HEL105's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 02:50
HEL105
Playing through Earthbound was one of the absolute highlights of my younger days in gaming. It's sad that it seems I'll never be able to sit down with a new Earthbound title and have that experience again. Why does Nintendo hate us so?
Revariance's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 03:09
Revariance
Haha. Yeah, "This game stinks." And scratch and sniff ads that smelled like assholes. Had those and the strategy guide at one point. Earthbound is one of my favorite games everrr.
mr spooky's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 03:16
mr spooky
What about that Earthbound movie?
Kyle MacGregor's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 04:33
Kyle MacGregor
You can get Earthbound on Goozex for 1200 points and a long wait apparently.
Darren Nakamura's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 05:06
Darren Nakamura
I can't imagine Nintendo actually followed through with a $2 million marketing campaign for EarthBound. I never once heard anything about it, and the only reason I ever played it was because the gigantic box caught my eye next to the others at my local Blockbuster.
BluDesign's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 06:58
BluDesign
I bet a large portion of that 2 million went into putting out that strategy guide through Nintendo Power. That shit wasn't cheap, especially since Nintendo was doing it in house.

$2 mil is a pretty low advertising dollar amount these days compared to a lot of other similar level profile games.
Sherwood513's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 07:20
Sherwood513
I liked Earthbound....
UltorOscariot's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 09:36
UltorOscariot
A pity we'll never see a re-release. Too much of the game's music resembles other, still copy righted music(<a href="http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/02/earthbound-legal-issues/">and the Star Spangled Banner, strangely enough</a>).

No way Nintendo's lawyers will ever let this see the light of day again. Thats why used copies of the game, even just the cart, sell for more than it originally MSRP'd for.
UltorOscariot's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 09:36
UltorOscariot
Wow.. HTML fail.
True Axiom's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 09:54
True Axiom
Well, to be fair, there's about a dozen other "good" reasons Mother 3 won't be released in the U.S., completely unrelated to its quality. And it's not like we don't have a good solution to that problem or anything.

Something tells me they spent about 3$ on Earthbound's marketing. Considering how poorly it was marketed. I was really young and I remember being embarrassed by their advertisement work for it.
pneuma08's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 13:45
pneuma08
I wouldn't be surprised. I remember a lot of advertising for that game in my youth.
Gorescream's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 14:37
Gorescream
The return of Giygas!


YOU CANNOT GRASP THE TRUE FORM OF GIYGAS' ATTACK!

It h-h-h-h-h-h-h-urts.......

CypherVR's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 15:35
CypherVR
...fuzzy pickles
Mayiplay's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 18:36
Mayiplay
Seriously, how could they spend that much on such a campaign as the one they used? I think the term "stinks" was still used to describe how much something sucks at the time. Honestly though, even with the "gross-out" era at the time, they could've done WAY better with the advertising. What was so "stinky" about it, anyways?

And that's another reason why it didn't sell besides the fact RPGs were still coming on before FF7: there's like three things that are gross in the game. The advertising was a terrible idea--no excuse. Again, what were they thinking?
genericname's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/16/2010 21:28
genericname
What a crime. They spent a huge wad of cash on scrath-and-sniff magazine inserts, didn't show any screens in their in-store marketing, and didn't include a description of the game. Then they wonder why they didn't sell an $80 game that came in an unconventional box larger than the system it was to be played on. Bloody shame that the gamers are the ones that got punished for this.
seanileus's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/18/2010 19:51
seanileus
Imagine where the series would be if they did put that much out on marketing..
Katya's Avatar - Comment posted on 02/18/2011 04:05
Katya
Once of the more interesting pieces includes a retailer book with information about the upcoming game to encourage stores to carry it.
Best regards, Katya, CEO of xp burner, iscsi target software windows
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