How Iconic Is Splatoon Becoming

[birdiebee]

Wow, this thread really took off. I have a lot of thoughts but I'm not sure how well I'll be able to organize them.

I would agree with @BlackZero that it is premature to call it an icon less than a year after its release. I would also say that it is not REALLY recognizable even, yet, outside of Japan. I lived in Missouri in the States, trends are late to reach us out there in the midwest. I had one friend who was hyped to play Splatoon with me before release. One. I had maybe three friends who owned a Wii U, but they mostly only played Smash. Granted, it's been some time since I've been to the motherland so things may be different now, but Splatoon was very obscure in Small Town USA. But I guess that isn't really indicative of much, because very little beyond the giants like Zelda, Pokemon and Mario get any recognition out there, and its unrealistic to expect them to.

However, there definitely wasn't ever a *boom* like with Pokemon when I was growing up. All non-gamers had at least heard of Pokemon within a year of its release. And they had a TV series and card game to accompany it. It was a different level. The first movie was a box office hit, I remember the lines for that. We had a Pokemon convention at my small town mall where people lined up for hours to get a Mew transferred to their RB cartridges. All before Gold and Silver were even announced. You can't compare Splatoon to that.

But I also believe that, like @Award said, nothing is going to reach those heights in today's gaming landscape. I think we are beyond the time where certain characters can define the very thing they represent. Inklings will never represent video games as much as Mario or Pikachu, but neither will anything else today. For example, I think Shovel Knight, had it seen its release 25 years ago, could have been as iconic as Sonic or Mega Man or Donkey Kong. It's a highly acclaimed and popular game, mostly because it evokes the nostalgia of the classics from which it draws its inspiration, but it unfortunately won't be anything more than that. It will always be compared to the classics, rather than become one itself.

Splatoon, unlike Shovel Knight, IS a lot more of its own thing, and where Shovel Knight intended to emulate the formula of successful 8-bit classics, Splatoon is more intent on carving out its own space on its own merits. And I believe it does a wonderful job of it. It just didn't take off with the momentum that anything iconic really has. I can't really think of anything *since* Pokemon that has had nearly the impact. Halo, maybe? Minecraft? I think Splatoon is still too niche for a lot of people to see the appeal, which doesn't mean its popularity won't increase anymore, it just may take more time for folks to understand what it is and why people like it.

Samus is not really known outside gaming circles. Samus is in smash because it generally reaches the same audience, and Nintendo likes to use Smash as marketing tie-ins to their other franchises. Nintendo players know the character (though many of them know here BECAUSE of smash.)

UUuuuugh, it was always irritating to me when people would say things like "Kirby/Samus/Fox/Captain Falcon is that Smash character!!!" Smash definitely is a marketing tie-in, and it works well, as evidenced by Fire Emblem--vastly unheard of in the west prior to Melee. I think there was a time when Metroid had a shot at cultural relevance. Metroid Prime had mainstream appeal back in the day. I felt that "Metroid or Halo" was the 00's version of the "Mario vs Sonic" rivalry. But they just didn't have the staying power, Nintendo failed to market it as well as Microsoft pushed Halo, and Halo got the jump on the multiplayer boom in that era. It's really sad to see it fizzle out again, but I don't think Nintendo is done with it. There was a 7-8 year gap in between Super Metroid and Fusion/Prime, and it's been 7 years since Other M, so maybe they'll give it another go sometime. But its ship has sailed as far as being iconic.

I hope at least some of that made sense. My brain is so scrambled. I love discussions like these though.

 

[Litagano Motscoud]

Tentacles, wet things, lolitas/chibis

These three things should never be in the same sentence.

 

[YesI'mTaco34]

These three things should never be in the same sentence.

Well it is a pretty good description of what Splatoon is.

 

[Award]

@birdiebee I think the thing with the old icons is partly that it can't be duplicated as they were the first and define the concept at large. But I think the other part is you can only have so many definitive icons of a given subject, and the old ones are so iconic they're STILL the icons. So there's little room for anything new to bump them out. When people hear video games, if they don't first think of blood soaked gray army games, the first thin they think is Mario. Non-gamers think mario. I was in a business meeting once and someone (totally a non-gamer) compared something to "Super Mario" it has THAT level of saturation, and still does. Pokemon just had a Super Bowl commercial for the 20th anniversary. A SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL. Like $5.4 million dollars per second type commercial. Everyone knows Pikachu. Not to mention the parade balloons. And Sonic decimating half of the NYC traffic control system for a decade every Thanksgiving :D The "old" icons are the "current" icons still. So nothing else can really replace that. But can Splatoon join in at the level of "oh yeah, ,that's from the place that does Mario and Pikachu, isn't it?" would be its equivalent.

Other modern stuff...Halo was short lived. And never iconic outside gaming. The "Cortana" reference is entirely missed on the business set. A reference to a Super Mushroom would not be (que 60's jokes that follow.) Shovel Knight works on gamers because he's a pastiche of Mega Man and Simon Belmont glued together. That's all he was meant to be. He's an in joke and the world is better for it. But he can't be an icon if his sole purpose is to tongue in cheek recall thoughts of the real icons.

Callie & Marie and "Inkling Girl" on the other hand.... That has some serious character power. Then again if Reggie's handling the marketing they'll probably miss it.

I don't think Metroid v Halo could have been Mario v Sonic. Neither were truly mascots. I think it WAS Nintendo's chance to be taken seriously by the American gaming market, but since it fails fairly badly in Japan they didn't put their full backing behind it and lacked confidence in it, and as a result it went under the radar to a degree. Which is odd since it's one of the few times Miyamoto went all out ahead of the curve and made it an FPS when the rest of Nintendo didn't want to. It's a shame that he didn't get a payoff for taking that risk that time....he was right, and it was the RIGHT risk. Miyamoto was, one of the very rare times, right in line with Western market trend and right on the cusp of the curve, and actually got his way, and marketing let it down.

But the deal clincher is that was the rise of console online multiplayer. Metroid never stood a chance.

 

[Ansible]

In my part of meatspace USA it still feels quite niche and obscure.

For many of the school aged kids I know, the only Nintendo console they own (if they own one at all) is a 3DS. Same for adults too, but in much smaller numbers. Unless I'm at some convention or meetup or what-have-you with a large contingent of players, some may have a Wii U and then some of them will likely have or know of Splatoon with any real understanding.

And since it's almost been a year since the game has launched, we'll soon find out what sort of lasting power the game and its community has.

 

[birdiebee]

I think the thing with the old icons is partly that it can't be duplicated as they were the first and define the concept at large. But I think the other part is you can only have so many definitive icons of a given subject, and the old ones are so iconic they're STILL the icons. So there's little room for anything new to bump them out. When people hear video games, if they don't first think of blood soaked gray army games, the first thin they think is Mario. Non-gamers think mario. I was in a business meeting once and someone (totally a non-gamer) compared something to "Super Mario" it has THAT level of saturation, and still does. Pokemon just had a Super Bowl commercial for the 20th anniversary. A SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL. Like $5.4 million dollars per second type commercial. Everyone knows Pikachu. Not to mention the parade balloons. And Sonic decimating half of the NYC traffic control system for a decade every Thanksgiving :D The "old" icons are the "current" icons still. So nothing else can really replace that. But can Splatoon join in at the level of "oh yeah, ,that's from the place that does Mario and Pikachu, isn't it?" would be its equivalent.

The other thing I thought of, was, I forget the guy's name, but I saw an interview with a dude who works on Call of Duty games. He made the assertion that if Mario were conceived in the present day, it would never be greenlit. An italian plumber who eats mushrooms and steps on turtles. While I call BS on that, I think the underlying point he was trying to make was that icons of early gaming were born out of a need or desire to stretch the limits of the imagination on primitive hardware that was more or less incapable of depicting intricate realism or telling compelling stories. They (Mario, Zelda, DK, Pac-Man..) were allowed to flourish because they encapsulated an experience totally unique to that platform of entertainment, and became icons as a result. Most games now are not necessarily experiences totally unique to gaming... things like Assassins Creed, CoD, Batman Arkham... etc are so cinematic in nature. It hardly symbolizes gaming anymore than a summer blockbuster movie. However, they sell. A lot. They are responsible for video games hitting the mainstream in a lot of ways, and the mainstream only wants to consume what they are familiar with. That brings us to Splatoon. Like the classics, Splatoon is an experience that is unique to gaming. It is imagination unhinged and pure fun. But in an era saturated with Destinys and Uncharteds and Assassins Creeds, a lot of people are skeptical of Splatoon's ability to offer them a worthwhile experience.

 

[Mendax]

I made a few Splatoon clothes IRL, including a White Tee (which, sadly, has since faded) and a Takoroka Mesh.
Sadly, no-one has recognized them yet.
(Will post images later.)

(EDIT: Well, managed to get a less-than-perfect image of the Mesh, but it seems the Tee has disappeared...)

 

[Nero86]

I'm so salty that they don't sell this stuff online.



You'd be surprised. https://reichanjapan.wordpress.com/2016/02/22/inkopolis-101-japanese-cultural-references-and-you/

Thanks for the link! Nice page with fantastic references, really!

 

[BlackZero]

I lived in Missouri in the States, trends are late to reach us out there in the midwest. I had one friend who was hyped to play Splatoon with me before release. One. I had maybe three friends who owned a Wii U, but they mostly only played Smash. Granted, it's been some time since I've been to the motherland so things may be different now, but Splatoon was very obscure in Small Town USA.

That's something that I think people don't realize. In places like New York, San Francisco, Boston, etc., the population is so huge that even niche interests have a large local communities. I think that people who live in that kind of environment where you can find literally anything if you go down the right block don't realize there's a whole other 80% of the US that doesn't have that kind of diversity on the local level. Hell, I live in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, one of the largest (if not the largest) metropolitan areas in Virginia proper and it doesn't have much for video game enthusiasts. Granted, it's better than where I grew up. Where I lived as a kid, they only had one legit arcade in a really rundown part of town that closed in 2006 IIRC. At least there's laser tag here in HR, and they still have Flipper McCoy's on the VB Oceanfront (though $1 a machine is a bit high imo)

 

[Award]

The other thing I thought of, was, I forget the guy's name, but I saw an interview with a dude who works on Call of Duty games. He made the assertion that if Mario were conceived in the present day, it would never be greenlit. An italian plumber who eats mushrooms and steps on turtles. While I call BS on that, I think the underlying point he was trying to make was that icons of early gaming were born out of a need or desire to stretch the limits of the imagination on primitive hardware that was more or less incapable of depicting intricate realism or telling compelling stories. They (Mario, Zelda, DK, Pac-Man..) were allowed to flourish because they encapsulated an experience totally unique to that platform of entertainment, and became icons as a result. Most games now are not necessarily experiences totally unique to gaming... things like Assassins Creed, CoD, Batman Arkham... etc are so cinematic in nature. It hardly symbolizes gaming anymore than a summer blockbuster movie. However, they sell. A lot. They are responsible for video games hitting the mainstream in a lot of ways, and the mainstream only wants to consume what they are familiar with. That brings us to Splatoon. Like the classics, Splatoon is an experience that is unique to gaming. It is imagination unhinged and pure fun. But in an era saturated with Destinys and Uncharteds and Assassins Creeds, a lot of people are skeptical of Splatoon's ability to offer them a worthwhile experience.

Yeah. One other thing is the "old icons" were aimed at kids in an era when cartoon mascots were everything. Kids latched onto them fast, and they became famous as a result. Modern games are aimed squarely at teens & tweens when latching onto anything like that is completely impossible and irrelevant.

I don't think a "video game icon" can ever exist again, if not because the era and the hardware and the imagination no longer exist, but largely we already have our icons. The same ones we had 30 years ago. Mario is STILL as synonymous with gaming today as he was in 1986, if not more so. Aladdin's Genie might be synonymous with Disney, but not moreso than Mickey, which is still right in the company logo. But an iconic BRAND, is very possible. That's the role Splatoon can fill. Which is still more than CoD has. There's nothing recognizable there, nothing unique.

You're right about cinematic games. There's certainly a schism in gaming which started with Playstation, and really comes down to the Miyamoto school of gaming versus the Squaresoft school. The cinematic versus the pure games. Which is why most of us are Nintendo fans, and why I love the 3DS. It's all pure gaming in the original sense. I can enjoy the other type too, but it's a treat, not meat & potatoes. Of all the "realistic" games though, interesting you'd mention Assassin's Creed because Ezio Auditore has absolutely reached icon status. He's the representation of modern gritty cinematic gaming. But also interestingly, every generic assassin after Ezio, is pretty much forgotten even while playing their own game. It's the unque characterization and imagery that creates the icon. Out of all the Assassin's they have, I have an affinity for Altaier, the first, in an interesting setting (Crusades), but he's largely forgotten. What's-his-face Kenway, or the other so-and-so Kenway, forgotten....and then there's whatshisface, and whatshisface, and whatsherface on Vita. But Ezio is an icon. Why that one? Because the imagery and characterization made him stand out in a field (even a series) where NOTHING stands out.

Enter squid-kids with squd-pop-idols with snarky personalities, in a 90's Nickelodeon setting with Super Soakers with an ammonite gun dealer and a jellyfish clothier that speaks in Engrish.

The potential is right there....but there's truth to having to see how it plays out. Make a Macy's balloon, a toy line, boom. Do the marketing trick where you pretend like everyone else has already been on the trend and you're the only one that doen't know, it's a done deal. Or be like Reggie and have a droll speech about how they don't need to advertise because they've communicated through social media to the fan base that will know anyway, and how they have different marketing needs for different titles and Splatoon has been doing fine. I like Reggie, more or less, but sometimes I wonder how a guy so overstuffed and dripping with marketing spin BS in every word he says could be so BAD at marketing?


One thing Splatoon has going against it is just how Japanese it is. Thankfully the Japanese-ness doesn't get in the way in a way that turns everyone else off, but a lot of the interesting references like the link above shows are so steeped in Japan knowledge, which most Americans East of the Rockies simply don't have. Even the Squid Sisters though "pop star" fits fine, are based on the Japanese Idol concept (not that our star concept is so different anymore....any time Ariana Grande pops up I keep thinking it's a J-Pop show.) The geography is good as generic but more meaningful in a Japanese context, and of course the Music is largely Eastern scale and very Japanese nationalistic (Shiokara-bushi? Really?) I happen to like that, but I realize that's just not going to click with Westerners over the age of 11 or so. But I don't want them to change it next time either since that's part of the charm.