A brief note on double standards

Observe the image below:

Let’s make some quick notes. Firstly, the characters displayed are from the Namco / Sony game Katamari Damacy. This game won a bunch of awards for its design and innovation. It has absolutely no affiliation or association with anything Nintendo. Now, note how Mario, Yoshi and Toad features (red cap, Yoshi’s head, Toad’s.. erm.. whatever) have been added ontop of the original Katamari characters and the iconic ‘Nintendo’ logo placed across the bottom of the image.

Got all that? Good.

So, what we’ve got is a deliberate rebranding of an innovative, original concept so that, to the casual observer it looks like a Nintendo product. Needless to say, this was not produced by Nintendo but by an individual.

Now, the thing that gets me is that typically I’ve seen this image get a big fat thumbs up from the type of people that I would describe as Nintendo fans. These same people think it’s an awfully clever idea to do this and give reasons like “Well, it’s the kind of idea that Nintendo would do, so it makes sense!”. Except they didn’t do it did they? So it doesn’t make sense, does it?

So, can someone tell me why these same folk are the ones that get so upset when they see something like Burnout or Timesplitters with an EA logo on it and say “Well, now that EA are publishing it, it’ll be rubbish”. Or when they cry when their exclusives like Resident Evil 4 get ported to other machines? That last one gets my goat the most. I mean, there they are, crowing about how you can ONLY do this on a Gamecube and that “Look at you sad PS2, Xbox owners without the amazing RE4!!!!” and then, OH NO, it gets ported to PS2 and the little kiddies get upset because they don’t want to share their toys. Ah diddums! You’ve still got your RE4, is it any worse now that it’s not an exclusive? Does it affect you? No. Well, yes – but only if you’re one of those fanboys that was winding everyone up in the first place, in which case, you deserve it (but not Burnout 3).

You’ll hear this more and more from me and others – gamers are responsible for the image of gaming. And it’s cases like the ones described above that will keep the culture in the dark ages and scoffed at by the non-gamers. Think before you open your mouths otherwise you’ll kill Nintendo faster than anyone else will.