Game Daily had the opportunity to ask NOA President Reggie Fils-Aime ten questions recently. Among the “Buy Our Games” shilling that comes standard with any industry bigwig interview, there are a few interesting nuggets of information. For example, his response when asked about the differences in marketing strategies for casual and hardcore games:
Marketing is shaped by what’s appropriate for a particular game. While it might seem to some that games that appeal to the expanded audience get more attention, that’s probably because the expanded audience has a steeper learning curve. Core gamers and their friends are tuned into the gaming news and blog sites, so they already know a lot of what’s going on. This new audience is just getting started, so our initial outreach might be more focused on education – in fun and unique ways – then we can begin to communicate the availability of titles they might find appealing.
And as I said, we take a different approach with every game. Just look at Super Smash Bros. Brawl, for example. Mr. Sakurai posted something new on the Dojo site every single day leading up to launch. That probably represents one of our most aggressive flows of information, and that’s a game that definitely resonates with our loyalists.
Game Daily also asked whether or not Nintendo is listening to fan complaints about things like Nintendo’s online service and Wii storage space problem:
We listen to our fans all the time. Nintendo fans are some of the most passionate in the world, and believe me, they make their opinions heard. We’re not claiming our way of doing things is better or worse than anyone else – it’s just different. We’re on record for each of the items you cite, so I won’t rehash all that here. But I will say that we listen very closely to what people have to say, both pro and con, and keep those feelings in mind as we plan ahead.
For example, as you know, we recently launched Club Nintendo here in North America to reward our fans for their loyalty. I know everyone here always envied Japan and Europe fans for the cool Nintendo items they had, and now we’re getting some of our own.
I don’t know if a lot of people envied Europe’s Club Nintendo prizes, considering they were mostly things like cell phone wallpapers or the occasional gold Link statue. (Alright, so the statue was pretty awesome.) You can read the rest of the interview on the other end of the Game Daily link below.
