Mailbox: Nintendo Dinner Parties, Banger Years & Business Types

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You hear that? It’s coming. GOTY season is coming for us all…

[Wakes up, startled, a little bit of dry dribble] Wha—!? Oh, it’s you. Hello! Welcome to Round 17 of the Nintendo Life Mailbox.

Got something you want to get off your chest? We’re ready and waiting to read about your game-related ponderings.

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Let’s settle down with a cup of something spooky and open up this month’s mailbox…

Nintendo Life Mailbox – October 2024
It’s business, it’s business time — Image: fauxels / Pexels
“the business side” (***STAR LETTER***)

So hopefully this question does not come off as insulting to anyone reading, I just thought I’d ask a question that’s been burning in me and that I gotta ask- when I look at stories of video games ruined by, say, executives or management or “by committee” or stuff like that, I gotta ask “Why would anyone want to get a job in the business side of video games to begin with? Surely it can’t just be money and power? Yeah, I know it’s a business for a reason and someone’s gotta do it, but who’d do it willingly and/or without being asked?”

Willax

For some people, the business management side of the games industry just suits their skillset. Some people have zero ability with art or writing or the technical aspects of game creation, but they still want to be involved in something they love.

For others who started off in the game dev trenches, assuming managerial responsibilities over projects and people is often the only path forward if you’re looking to advance a career. Talented people can end up moving away from the thing that drew them to games in the first place.

It’s understandable, too, given how modestly paid the vast majority of positions in this industry are! There’s a real financial imperative to take the only promotions going as years pass and priorities change. A 20-year-old programmer likely has very different life responsibilities from a married-with-kids 40-year-old programmer. Jobs in gaming are scarce enough right now, and you can’t feed your kids Pot Noodles indefinitely.

It’s a similar story across many industries and organisations, unfortunately! If you want or have to climb the ladder, it’s budgets, spreadsheets, performance reviews, and wistful thoughts of the good ol’ days for you, chief. – Ed.

“banger year”

Is it weird that 2024 is Nintendo’s best year for me in a while? I know 2023 was a banger year, with new mainline Mario and Zelda entries, among other things. But 2024 has proven to be Nintendo’s year for quirkier, more experimental titles, and it seems like very few people are taking notice of them. For example, take the lack of appreciation for Endless Ocean: Luminous. I really enjoyed my 30 hours with the game. To me, it is so obviously trying to be something radically outside the bounds of what is considered a video game, even compared to its predecessors on Wii. Yet it was lambasted by critics for that, and a lot of the audience seems to have missed the point as well. Another Code: Recollection, too, was an experimental take on how to update a visual novel/adventure game to become something new, with top-notch production values. But almost no one outside a small niche seems to have tried playing it. Same goes for Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club, which at first appears to be a retro or throwback experience, like the 2021 entries, but shows classic Nintendo subversiveness and inventiveness as it goes on. Throw in a clever and puzzly Zelda, a flashy 2D platformer starring Princess Peach, a few lovely remasters (particularly Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year-Door and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD), and a forthcoming new entry in the Mario & Luigi series, and it’s an astonishingly great mix of games. It’s weird that the general zeitgeist seems to feel that Nintendo is just stalling out before the reveal of the next console, when in truth these smaller-scale titles all contain in spades the offbeat eccentricity that we love the developer for in the first place.

Jordan

I… agree with nearly all of that. And I’m glad you enjoyed Endless Ocean! Someone had to. (/jokes – I haven’t played it.) – Ed.