Nowadays, Nintendo is a global gaming giant, but who would have thought that when it launched “Nintendo Entertainment System” in the US market, it was so poor that it could not even spend advertising money. A former Nintendo of America employee recently disclosed his early memories, revealing that the company not only relied on “exchanging games for TV commercials” at the time, but the office environment was even so bad that employees had to worry about encountering rats and snakes when going to the bathroom.
Today’s gaming empire almost didn’t even have a chance to be exposed back then?
In the early 1980s, Nintendo of America was preparing to transform the Famicom into the NES and bring it to the U.S. market. However, at that time, the U.S. game industry had just experienced the collapse of Atari, and market confidence was low. Nintendo simply did not have the capital to “spend money to buy exposure” like it does now.
Former advertising executive Gail Tilden and vice president of sales Bruce Lowry recalled that the company’s advertising budget at that time was very limited, and it could only obtain television time through exchange, that is, using game cartridges or consoles as bargaining chips in exchange for the opportunity to broadcast advertisements on television stations. As a result, the initial NES commercials could only be scheduled to air at 2 a.m., which was basically a publicity to the air.
The commercial aired at 2 a.m., and Nintendo employees took the game directly to negotiate
In order to prevent the NES from continuing to “talk to itself” late at night, Bruce Lowry took the game cartridge directly to WABC TV station, hoping to persuade the management to adjust the broadcast time. He even used the method of giving away Nintendo game consoles to let TV executives go home to give their children a try, and finally succeeded in increasing the advertising period from 2 a.m. to 11 p.m.
While 11pm was still not a prime time for the children’s market, it was a small victory for Nintendo at the time. Later, an unexpected golden exposure allowed NES ads to appear during major sporting events, and it really began to open up the US market.
The Office is like a survival game, but in the end it creates a miracle in gaming history!
In addition to funding issues, the early working environment at Nintendo of America was also quite difficult. Some employees were working in a warehouse in Hackensack, New Jersey, and the environment was even described as being infested with rats and snakes, with employees jokingly saying it took courage to even use the toilet.
Looking back now, this experience is like a game industry version of a counterattack script. At that time, Nintendo did not have luxurious offices or a huge marketing budget. It could only rely on creativity and execution to break into the market, and finally created the NES, which saved the North American console game market. It can only be said that Nintendo’s greatest skill in the early days may not be making games, but forcing itself to become the final boss when resources are insufficient.