Sure, some might stare a bit cockeyed at the EarthBound fan community, but you can't say they're not resourceful, dedicated, and above all, tenacious. Proof positive: over 250 pages of devotion bound in one book, the EarthBound Anthology.
When the news dropped of the Mother3.org/Starmen.net collaboration, I mentioned something of the Starmen EB Siege project, an endeavor for which the EarthBound fan community was raising a pretty substantial sum of money (now over $7,500). FedEx dropped the fruits of their labor into my lap this morning: a metric ton compilation of artwork, music, and media by members of the EarthBound fan community.
The EarthBound Anthology chronicles the saga of Shigesato Itoi's Mother series and its commercial flop in North America, background information on the franchise, sales data and the myriad campaigns waged by Starmen.net and the fan community to bring EarthBound back to North America. The weighty text portion of the anthology ends with a proposal: the time is ripe for a revival, and there's a mighty audience waiting for Nintendo to capitalize on the opportunity. Driving the point home are 200+ pages of fan art and four DVDs loaded with fan games, music, videos, performances -- it's an absolute avalanche of content.
The goal of EB Siege is to extend the reach of the community out towards would-be allies to the cause, media, developers, and Nintendo itself and communicate their message: that this is a series, beyond all others in Nintendo's catalog, that should not be swept aside. Even if EarthBound ain't really your thing, you have to recognize Starmen.net's gesture as one that goes beyond the standard-issue objections by most of the internet ("biological web shooters!? Quick, to petitiononline.org!"). More than a simple fan DVD or 'zine or somesuch, the EarthBound Anthology is an extremely well-designed, terribly comprehensive love-letter to the fan community and a clear message to Nintendo that they won't soon forget.
Check out the pictures in the gallery. Big thanks to Starmen's Reid for the hook-up.
07/06/2007 16:21
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07/06/2007 16:44
Keep pushin'!
07/06/2007 17:10
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07/06/2007 17:21
P.S. Hey Linde, can I have that anthology after you're done looking through it, and coercing Nintendo to make another Mother installment? :D
07/06/2007 17:25
It's a shame that Nintendo can't make a deal with them to take a percent of the profits or something, because I would pay a lot of money for it.
If you have a wii, add starmen.net as your friend. wii@starmen.net
07/06/2007 17:26
Earthbound Anthology, not Mother
07/06/2007 17:29
07/06/2007 17:49
Linde, I am now more jealous of you than any other man. I had been dying to get my hands on one of the old ones and now you sit before me with this masterpiece.
07/06/2007 18:46
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07/06/2007 21:48
...although I'd prefer some more Mother.
07/06/2007 22:24
Nintendo needs to know that people beyond starmen.net also like this game. These weirdos aren't crazy bcause they're crazy... they're crazy because they have every right to be, because EARTHBOUND IS JUST SO DAMNED GOOD.
And yes, I am one of those weirdos. Long live starmen.net and long live anyone else who loves earthbound as much as they do.
07/07/2007 15:59
Here is my EarthBound story.
Back when I was 10-12 years old or so, I used to write letters to Nintendo all the time. Yes, I mean I would actually take out some notebook paper and a pencil and write physical letters to Nintendo. (As an aside, Redmond Washington seemed so far away back then that it might as well have been Japan or another planet. I never would have dreamed back then that I'd actually be living there some day, as I am now.) Most of these letters were about whatever game I was playing at the time. I actually remember writing them an excessively detailed letter about how I was stuck in Turtle Rock, the final dungeon of Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and then writing them another letter a few days later saying, basically, to never mind and that I had figured it out on my own. Give me a break, I was like 12 or something, okay?
Anyway, it was in one of their responses to these letters (yes, they actually responded to them, and it wasn't just a crappy form letter either, as astonishing as that is to look back on today) that they made mention of an upcoming game that they thought I would be interested in. Pure marketing on Nintendo's part, of course, but back then I only had the vaguest of impressions of what "marketing" meant, and to me it consisted only of commercials on TV or advertisements in magazines or newspapers. To me, back in the day, this was about the same as if one of my friends had said, "Hey, there's this cool game coming out that you might want to check out." All I can remember now of their description of the game in the letter was that it was a RPG set in modern times and that it let you actually use modern things like baseball bats and ATM cards and such. I didn't know what a RPG was at the time, but I was still totally amazed and couldn't wait for the game to be released.
Well, on the day of its release I got someone to take me to a little mom and pop video game shop/rental place that I used to frequent (yes, those did used to exist at one point in the ancient past), and they'd never even heard of the game, and obviously didn't have it for sale. I was shocked and dismayed. But then, my chauffeur for the time being (aka one of my sisters) took me to the mall, where they had an EB Games (it was still just called Electronics Boutique back in those days).
And there it was, in that ridiculously huge box that it came in with its strategy guide. Using money that I'd carefully saved up from an allowance, supplemented by money meant for school lunches that I sometimes surreptitiously skipped just for this purpose, I bought the game and then we went home.
To make a long story slightly less long, EarthBound was the first RPG I had ever played, and I have forever afterward judged every RPG that I have since played by the bar set by this game. Only a few of those later RPGs, in my opinion, have managed to scrape the bottom of that bar.
To conclude: Hot damn. Is this book, in any possible way, going to be available for public consumption, and if so how does one go about acquiring it? In any case, if nothing else will crack the stone that is around the heart of Nintendo when it comes to releasing new (and, for that matter, old) Mother games in countries that are not Japan, this will be the thing to do it. And if it fails, that will be a crying, stomping, hair-pulling, shrieking-with-rage shame.
I think I may just have to break out a pencil and some notebook paper and start writing letters to Nintendo again.
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