Star Wars. Star Trek. Marvel Comics. DC Comics. Disney. Pixar. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The list is seemingly endless.
What, you may ask?
Every one of these brands has turned away from what made them successful due to a lack of talent, changing things to chase a different audience, or probably both. The only company that treats its intellectual property with consistency and respect in these current times is Nintendo.
What? Really?
Yes. Really.
Nintendo consistently puts out a great product, while staying true to its characters and its audience. They have taken the place of Disney in using their characters in a meaningful and relevant way.
Let’s face it Disney hasn’t been Disney since Walt Disney died. It never had the juice after that, instead basically having talentless hacks running the show with an occasional creative success along the way. This once-storied brand is reduced to remaking live-action versions of their own cartoons. Even Pixar is a disgrace these days.
Marvel and DC actively despise their audience and characters. Garbage like I Am Not Starfire and Sins Past (where Gwen Stacy had sex with the Green Goblin and had his children). The artwork is also usually terrible. The fact that this trash costs more than 65 cents just makes it even worse. Hell, even the movies aren’t very good.
The less said about Star Trek and Star Wars the better.
The one thing all of this creative vomit has in common is that the mediocre talent behind it are all promoted as the end all be all and the reason their products are good (which they aren’t usually).
Compare this to Nintendo. I don’t know who works on their games and I don’t care. The people working on it have talent. They want to make a good game every time and they usually succeed. They are innovators in gameplay and storytelling in the videogame genre.
Something that struck me about Super Mario Odyssey and Luigi’s Mansion 3 is that they had pre-title sequences you played through like a 007 movie.
Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers are full of Easter Eggs and references to all of their franchises going back to Donkey Kong in 1981. The Legend of Zelda franchise consistently outdoes the previous installments with each subsequent game.
Why?
I think that Nintendo is based in Japan and not caring about Twitter and all of the other garbage the people ruining and running these American brands in New York and Los Angeles do is a big part of it.
Hiring actual people that like the product and have talent matters. Go figure.
