Praises the "active and aggressive" fan community
- by Damien McFerran
Undertale creator Toby Fox has made no secret of the fact that he was heavily inspired by EarthBound when crafting his legendary post-modern take on the humble RPG, and he's one of many people who has spoken to Lost in Cult for the next issue of its boutique video game publication, Lock-On.
Lock-On is gearing up for its fourth issue, which you can pre-order now. In this new issue, there will be a piece focused on the incredible impact of EarthBound and the Mother series in general, with contributions from Fox, musician Austin Jorgensen (Lisa: The Painful), Kody NOKOLO (founder of the fan site Mother Forever), Ryan Vandendyck (Citizens of Earth), and Daniel Airey (Reverie). In fact, issue 4 is shaping up to be the biggest issue yet, with almost 50 articles by 45 authors and art from more than 30 artists and developers.
In the EarthBound piece – entitled 'ReBound' – Fox (who recently revealed that he offered to help make Mother 4) talks about how the fan base was instrumental in ensuring that EarthBound (which, lest we forget, was a commercial bomb upon its North American release) remained in the public eye:
[Mother gained relevance thanks to] the fan community staying active and aggressive for over fifteen years. From the time Smash Bros. 64 came around to the Brawl era, the Mother community was constantly doing campaigns and activities to try to keep the love of the game alive. So the people who were interested in Ness could search online and instantly not only find answers, but people espousing that the game he was from was great, and not just some Charlie Brown freak show that looks like crap compared to Mortal Kombat. That's how people thought in 1995.
Indeed, Fox feels that EarthBound's fans made sure that the game was "receiving probably of hundred times more attention and praise than it received on release," and a lot of that was thanks to fans like Kody NOKOLO digging into the game's history, development and lore. Kody frequented the Mother fansite Starmen.net alongside Fox, eventually founding Mother Forever with the aim of expanding the fan community's knowledge of the unreleased Mother 64:
I actually ordered things through the interlibrary loan of Japan, their library has documented video game magazines all the way back to 1970. I don’t know if a lot of people know that. But I figured that out while I was in college, trying to find places to send me research about game design through interlibrary loans. And I was like, ‘oh, Japan has all of that.’ Japan has all these magazines documented. So I was able to get all that old EarthBound 64 information scanned and sent over here. And then I scanned it into a computer and posted it on the website. So that’s how it all began.
You can read the full feature in the next issue of Lock-On – so if you're interested, make sure you order your copy as soon as possible.
If you're looking for more Mother / EarthBound love, then check out our own video tribute to the game, featuring Toby Fox:
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About Damien McFerran
Damien has been writing professionally about tech and video games since 2007 and oversees all of Hookshot Media's sites from an editorial perspective. He's also the editor of Time Extension, the network's newest site, which – paradoxically – is all about gaming's past glories.
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Comments 15
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- CANOEberry
My, my. But so many people around here have been saying that this or that group of fans are whiners, that gamers in general are toxic, and that fan communities can't make a difference.
... and I suppose, if you actually believe any of that... it might actually be true. For you.
[Mother gained relevance thanks to] the fan community staying active and aggressive for over fifteen years.
There's a lesson in there about patience.
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- HotGoomba
Active and aggressive is a really funny way to say hungry, angry, and h*rny.
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- Severian
@CANOEberry Weren’t there also Project Rainfall who got several JRPGs localized that would have otherwise been ignored were it not for their campaign?
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- WaffleBoat
All the negative comments here make me a little sad. Earthbound/mother's community is honestly one of the most dedicated and creative fanbases out there, That I personally am very proud to be a part of. All of the fangames that make it far enough to be indie games and the level of effort of said fangames is monumental (take Oddity for example). Heck NLife reported about a really well made mother 3 trailer just a little while ago. So I hope people think twice about bashing Fanbases (not just MOTHER) before looking into them and their community.
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- Violator
Take a drink every time a video game article (or any article, for that matter) written post-2008 uses terms like 'the community,' 'the fandom.' This issue goes well beyond this particular topic, and I do admire the passion of individual fans for taking hobbies like these to the next level, but these really are just products at the end of the day. This concept of basing one's personality almost exclusively around the products they purchase is a bit gross.
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- CANOEberry
@Severian I wonder if NCL in Kyoto honestly would have elevated Xenoblade to the status of Official First-party RPG without that whole campaign by non-Japanese fans. Somehow, I don't think that would be consciously acknowledged by Nintendo's people in Seattle or Frankfurt, though...
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- Gorlokk
@Flint
Oh for goodness... Would you listen to yourself?
Earthbound fans: exist
You: this whole basing your whole personality around one game needs to stop.
If you think that being a fan, or even a big fan of a game equates to basing your life around that one thing, that sounds like you have some wild misunderstandings, or just assume crap because you feel like it. I consider myself a huge fan of earthbound among many other franchises and none of them are the basis of how I live my life.
Close-minded ass. I suppose you must live your life around Golden Sun having a djinn icon?
Every time there's an earthbound/mother article, I read more comments complaining about the series' fans than I do people sharing in the excitement.
"Oh but there's too many articles about an old game!" Get over it! It's a good game that to this day influences game after game, including one of the most successful indies of all time, Undertale. And this is a Nintendo fansite for goodness sakes. Complain more. I'll read almost any EB article because there's still neat and new things to hear about almost daily. That'll happen when you have a really passionate fanbase.
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- BirdBoy16
Did some of the comments get deleted? I don’t see that many negative comment’s
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- Violator
@Gorlokk The internet certainly has a way of producing people who disagree with you with extreme conviction, which is saying something considering I also enjoy Earthbound. Much of the vitriol in your comment appears to be directed at something beyond the scope of what I've written. I am sorry you feel that way, it may be helpful to take a break once in a while.
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- NEStalgia
If all the world is a stage, then the internet must be a video game, and it's population mere characters from Mother 3.
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- OnlyItsMeReid
I think this shows that if Nintendo did something again there would be way more fans now than ever before due to things like undertale
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- Coalescence
It's exhausting how this game or Toby Fox can't come up without a stream of comments saying how it's the best fanbase and worst fanbase ever. Can we just talk about games? Do we all have to agree about the completely subjective status of an amorphous group of Internet randoms?
Anyway, Earthbound is amazing despite being gently dated and Undertale is perfectly middle of the road okay, though always struck me as more Moon based than Earthbound, especially with the latter being an exercise in brevity with dialog which is absolutely not Undertale. Toby seems like a cool guy.
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- MidySeaCloud
I don't need Toby fox to tell me Esrthbound/Mother fans are GOATED WITH THE SAUCE we know we are we love this game series like its our child
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- Dizavid
I love how in that photo everyone is carrying a weapon except Poo, suggesting that party also said, "***** this Starman Super nonsense. It's super *****."
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- swoose
@Flint Maybe you should elaborate on how people in fandoms are "basing one's personality almost exclusively around the products they purchase" and how it relates to this article. Because otherwise I agree with Gorlokk that it sounds like you're making baseless assumptions. How the hell do you know the breadth of someone's personality outside of their visible fan engagement?
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