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EarthBound: Difference between revisions
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''Mother 2'' sold 518,000 units in Japan, being their tenth best-selling game of 1994. In contrast to Japan, the game had very poor initial sales in North America, being roughly 140,000 copies, deeming it a commercial failure. The cause was the combination of the game's poor marketing campaign, unimpressive visuals and the general unpopularity of the role-playing game genre in western countries. | ''Mother 2'' sold 518,000 units in Japan, being their tenth best-selling game of 1994. In contrast to Japan, the game had very poor initial sales in North America, being roughly 140,000 copies, deeming it a commercial failure. The cause was the combination of the game's poor marketing campaign, unimpressive visuals and the general unpopularity of the role-playing game genre in western countries. | ||
Despite Nintendo of America spending roughly $2,000,000 on marketing, ''EarthBound''{{'}}s advertizing was seen as one of the major detractors. Advertizing of the game was very scarce, only appearing in select Nintendo Power magazines and an in-store only | Despite Nintendo of America spending roughly $2,000,000 on marketing, ''EarthBound''{{'}}s advertizing was seen as one of the major detractors. Advertizing of the game was very scarce, only appearing in select Nintendo Power magazines and an in-store only commercial. Released as part of Nintendo of America's [[wikipedia:Nintendo marketing#Play It Loud!|Play It Loud!]] campaign, the marketing heavily focused on humor revolving around rude smells, most infamously with its tagline "This game stinks" and foul-smelling scratch and sniff cards, which was deemed by critics as bizzare and did bare minimum to describe the actual game. The graphics were heavily criticized, as during the time of when the game was released, a major selling point was impressive graphics akin to ''{{wp|Final Fantasy III}}'' and ''{{wp|Chrono Trigger}}''; by contrast, ''EarthBound''{{'}}s simplistic graphics was viewed as being dated and "too cartoonish" by many critics. The overall price of the packaged game is also precieved to have hindered its sales. The poor sales and reception resulted in the game being excluded in the European market. | ||
Despite its failure, ''EarthBound'' aquired a large following through the following years, further fueled by its representation in the ''Super Smash Bros'' series, which greatly changed the perception of the game by the time of the game's re-release. | Despite its failure, ''EarthBound'' aquired a large following through the following years, further fueled by its representation in the ''Super Smash Bros'' series, which greatly changed the perception of the game by the time of the game's re-release. | ||