The first political statement of Nintendo, good or not?
Although the influence of COVID 19 is not over, the United States is now experiencing another historic event that will be mentioned in the high school history class in the future. Begin with the tragic death of George Floyd, the protests of supporting BLM are gradually stopped this week. During the past 2 weeks, many companies stand up and showed their supportive attitude to the BLM movement. Here is the same in the gaming industry.
Nintendo — the first political statement
On June 3rd, Nintendo of America has posted a statement on its official website and Twitter said “…we stand with the Black Community and all those who recognize our shared humanity and a fundamental belief in equity and justice…”.
Besides this, Nintendo did not make any donation nor change the profile picture of its Twitter account as other game companies did. But there is leaked news (SCREEN RANT, June 10th) that the latest DLC character of Super Smash Bro Ultimate (famous Nintendo game) may be an African American from Arms (famous Nintendo game).
This statement raised a hot discussion among players since Nintendo announced a few years ago that they will not make any political statements in their games or other places since they only want to make people feel happy and smile by producing video games. Therefore, this statement may be Nintendo’s first political statement.
My opinions on Nintendo’s reaction
Firstly, I can understand the necessity of this statement for supporting the BLM (Black Lives Matter) movement but the timing of posting the statement is bad. On June 1st, it was reported (NintendoEverything, June 1st) that the front window of the Nintendo Store at Manhattan has been broken during the protest.
Then Nintendo has posted this statement on social media 1 day after this news. In this case, some people are doubting the true motivation of Nintendo because the timing is too close to the date of the news. People thought that Nintendo does not care about the BLM movement and Nintendo responds to the movement only because it does not want its stores and employees to get damaged. On the other hand, some competitors like Sony or Software spoke on May 31st or June 1st which was pretty fast. Nintendo was supposed to respond earlier if it was truly concerned about this issue. This is why I think Nintendo choose a terrible timing to post this statement.
Secondly, I believe Nintendo could perform better instead of just posting a statement. Nintendo has a wonderful performance of cultural diversity in its video games. You can find characters from different backgrounds in Nintendo’s games.
For example, Marina from Splatoon (Nintendo’s third-person shooting game) is a female character who has obvious designing elements from black females. On the other side, you can edit your character with different aspects including the color of skin in some of Nintendo’s video games. Therefore, Nintendo should utilize cultural diversity in its games to support the BLM movement instead of directly posting a statement. For example, Nintendo could post a video that presents the power and charm of characters from different backgrounds to suggest a supporting attitude. This can also be converted to a new campaign that encourages players to use their avatars or characters to show their attitudes. Since Nintendo has the announcement of not having a political statement, directly posting the statement of BLM looks unwise. You can see some teasing comments below this statement on Twitter by citing its announcement about the political statement. Nintendo should think carefully before takes action.
Overall, Nintendo’s reaction looks like it just follows the social trend and does as other companies do. The marketing department and PR department did not consider it carefully.
What is interesting?
Although Nintendo only posts this statement on its official website and Twitter, this statement still spared widely on the Internet. This is a funny result of Nintendo’s previous announcement of not having political statement. There is a conflict between the previous announcement of political statements and the statement of BLM, and this conflict makes Nintendo’s action a piece of news in the gaming industry. As a result, this statement was reported and reposted widely by the presses of the gaming industry which helps Nintendo spared its message accidentally.
Possible influence
In the short term, customers will have negative comments on Nintendo due to its careless reaction but these will not hurt the brand image. In the long run, the brand image will not be damaged as well. Nintendo only has problems with how it responds to the BLM movement but Nintendo does give a strong statement of supporting the BLM movement so it is unreasonable to blame Nintendo in this term. On the other hand, the more important work of a gaming company is to produce wonderful video games. The reason why Nintendo has such a high reputation among game players is that Nintendo produces lots of excellent video games.
