Nintendo parodies Kickstarter

http://gameandwario.nintendo.com/crowdfarter/

by erikj • 13 years ago

104 49 13 years ago

gameandwario.nintendo.com

minimaxir• 13 years ago

For those curious, yes, Nintendo did purchase http://crowdfarter.com

claudius• 13 years ago

Surprisingly accurate, unfortunately.

MichaelApproved2• 13 years ago

Using Firefox on Windows.

Hit the back button to try to get back to HN... No luck. Try again... still no luck. Try hitting it twice really fast... No luck. Try hitting it twice really fast again... Frustrated. Right click the back button. Click Hacker News.

I hate webpages that get you stuck on their site like that.

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

Same behavior with Firefox on Ubuntu.

The only other places I get this are nsfw sites and broken-as-hell asian pages.

Samuel_Michon3• 13 years ago

‘broken-as-hell asian pages’

It’s Nintendo, so that sounds about right.

Zarel• 13 years ago

This is because the website uses a badly-written redirect.

Chrome, Opera, and Safari have no problem with these redirects, though: their Back button doesn't become broken when they hit a redirect.

I think if every other modern browser has no problem with redirects, it's as much the fault of Firefox as the website...

MichaelApproved2• 13 years ago

"This is because the website uses a badly-written redirect."

Maybe I'm cynical but I don't think it's badly-written, I think it's deliberate. I agree that FF is at fault but I'm suspicious of these websites and believe they likely do it on purpose to improve their analytics for page retention. That probably also improves their SEO ranking since (as I understand it) Google will see the person is on their page for longer and will credit the page as having good content.

j_s• 13 years ago

Github does this when you sign in, it's really annoying.

huhwhat• 13 years ago

> Nintendo parodies the Kickstarter (nintendo.com)

Do you have a link to the specific Kickstarter they're mocking? Or is that an errant 'the' in the title?

Also, does anyone know the backstory?

Samuel_Michon3• 13 years ago

It makes sense if you read it with an Italian accent (Wario is supposed to be Italian).

As for background: Nintendo is crapping on crowdfunded games in general. Apparently, they feel threatened.

mehwoot• 13 years ago

Why does everyone assume they feel threatened? Crowd funded indie games are hardly destroying their business, or look like doing so anytime soon...

Just because someone makes fun of something, doesn't mean they are threatened by it.

flowsnake• 13 years ago

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/the#Article

4. Introducing a term to be taken generically; preceding a name of something standing for a whole class.

archgoon• 13 years ago

This is just marketing for this game

http://mynintendonews.com/2013/05/03/game-wario-hitting-aust...

Starting a bad Kickstarter campaign completely fits with the Wario character, whose basic modus operandi is running get-rich-quick-schemes. This is, of course, not saying that is what Kickstarter is good for (or that it's what Nintendo thinks its good for), but it _is_ what _Wario_ would think it would be good for.

bx_• 13 years ago

Wario really is the godfather of trolls.

seivan• 13 years ago

This is Nintendo... getting personality. At least in the Western world.

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

Nintendo has a thing for these sorts of cute mini sites and widgets.

I was referred to a random Pokemon flash game (I know right??) once and found that it was really good!! (tetris-like puzzle game). I wish they would make a smartphone app out of it; it is perfect for the touch interface.

edit: found it! http://www.pokemon.jp/#/contents/enjoy/play_pass/2.html (it has great music too)

tagabek• 13 years ago

Wow! I agree with you. This would be a perfect mobile game. Stuff like this could really help to save their business.

Drakim• 13 years ago

Save their business? I thought that Nintendo was doing quite well with the Wii, while also dominating the handheld market?

replax• 13 years ago

Thanks for sharing, would be a neat Smartphone game indeed!

TazeTSchnitzel2• 13 years ago

Nintendo has a history of making small casual games. Indeed, "Game and Wario" is named after one of their first systems, the Game and Watch, a series of small time-telling devices with a simple LCD game.

Zecc• 13 years ago

Wow, really nice game - and yes, wonderful music. I wish there was a version in a language I could understand though.

xanh• 13 years ago

This one perhaps? http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-fun-zone/pokemon-online-ga...

bjourne• 13 years ago

Funny thing is they are using their two decade old character Wario. About time they come up with something new after milking the overused Mario and Zelda franchises for so long.

thezoid• 13 years ago

Yes because the rest of the competition is completely coming up with new games and characters all the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(series)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Turismo_(series)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter

There's nothing wrong with using a franchise. The characters are memorable, and perhaps even people really like them. As long as they are putting the characters into new worlds/levels it's all that matters.

Yes, Nintendo is notorious for re-releasing their older games, but it's not like the other companies don't do the same thing either.

Just look at the re-release of Combat Evolved, or SquareEnixs constant re-release of their older Final Fantasy games (with cheesy 3D added to them)

Edit: Don't know how to use HN markdown or something.

TazeTSchnitzel2• 13 years ago

HN doesn't use markdown, it just has a very primitive system where italics can be created with asterisks.

Jach2• 13 years ago

Well they are. If you count non-first-party titles from independent studios, yeah, the competition is making a lot of new games and characters all the time. If you just want to limit it to new first-party IPs, just compare the number of new IPs that Sony has put onto the market over the last generation vs. Nintendo.

I agree there's nothing wrong with using a franchise, but there's definitely something wrong with not putting out a decent amount of new IP (or at least significantly different versions of a franchise, e.g. comparing Paper Mario with Super Mario 64). Can you think of any new first-party Wii IP besides the various Mii-based games like Wii Sports, Endless Ocean, and Xenoblade?

arb992• 13 years ago

As long as the game quality is still good, people prefer to keep playing a series. I'd pick a Mario game, or a Metal Gear Solid game over some generic first in series game. I don't see anything wrong with mario, wario etc. They produce familiar decent games.

jerf• 13 years ago

Alas, Warioware mini games have in fact been around on every major Nintendo console since the Gameboy Advance: http://www.mariowiki.com/WarioWare#Games

weisser• 13 years ago

And they have mostly been fantastic.

k__• 13 years ago

Seems like someone is butthurt...

qompiler• 13 years ago

Back in 2008 Nintendo also had an amusing Wario Youtube channel. I can't find the live version anymore but here is a video of how it went down: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSU-z-t9Ku4

orta• 13 years ago

Ugly flash URL: http://1q1gafmnta4fm0riakrenq213o0sa9p9.ig.gmodules.com/ig/i...

Stranger2013• 13 years ago

Pointless and unfunny. Nintendo doesn't even produce the kind of hardcore games, that are most popular on KS. And not a one mention of Ouya - too scared to draw in that comparison?

LucasKA• 13 years ago

Lol, yeah that tablet in a box with the crappy controller is a huge threat.

Maybe it's paving the way for the threat but that thing is craptacular.

arb992• 13 years ago

Thats a really well made ad. I'd never have normally sat through a game trailer and watched it all, but for that I did.

egypturnash• 13 years ago

Wow. This is really juvenile and unfunny.

jasonlotito• 13 years ago

You are ignoring the big context clue: Wario. In relation to that, the page is what it should be.

recycledair• 13 years ago

You've just precisely described Wario's character. Looks like they hit the nail on the head!

sgwil• 13 years ago

This shouldn't be taken too far out of context. It's clear Nintendo doesn't mean this as a cutting critique of crowdfuding, just more riffing on Wario's characterisation as an idiotic selfish asshole.

James_Duval• 13 years ago

Yeah, this is very much of the "Epic Movie" shallow parody school, i.e. it's not actually referencing anything or related to anything or meaningful, it's just saying "This exists! Eh? Eh? How about that? It exists!"

I'm glad the site exists, because I suspect kids will find it funny, I'm just a bit baffled as to why it's front page here.

skrebbel• 13 years ago

Wait, you didn't like "Epic Movie"?

nhangen• 13 years ago

I think this is a great and honest parody, regardless of whether or not Wario has anything to do with it.

jlas• 13 years ago

This is a very clever use of gamification, turning the kickstarter 'donation' into a seemingly harmless tweet or a like on FB.

It would be an interesting if they followed through with this model and started prioritizing game development based on this feedback.

Nintendo parodies Kickstarter

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