A few decades ago the masses believed video games were a waste of time for lackadaisical youths to pacify themselves while ignoring their responsibilities as both kids and young adults. As more and more people started understanding the benefits of gaming so too did the perception of what a video game is and, most importantly, the benefits gaming can bestow on a person’s life changed.
Hi, my name is James Bullock and I am a gamer who has spent the better part of his existence testing the laws of physics, exploring the vastness of a world ruined, and been a champion inside various arenas courtesy of digitized worlds both driven by reality and created through pure unbelievable ingenuity unlike anything seen by human eyes. And as a gamer I’ve discovered something else video games provide: life lessons. Today I examine how Sega used brand loyalty to make a generation Nintendo haters in the best way possible.
Brand Loyalty is a Powerful Thing
By 1992, the Nintendo Entertainment System was practically dead in the water thanks to the company moving onto its next venture, the “Super Nintendo Entertainment System”. New games were released rarely; and most of those games were terrible at best. Thankfully for the uninformed gamer in me, a weekend at my aunt Cicero’s house would open my eyes to the “future”. I sat with Cicero’s future stepson, Reginald (Reggie or “Boo” as we all affectionately called him) and watched as a hedgehog wearing red shoes and rocking a Japanese anime style hairdo sped through this digital, colorful world before me.
Over a year would pass until Christmas 1993 and the day I became the owner of a Sega Genesis. But the Genesis package I received for Christmas didn’t come with “Sonic The Hedgehog”, but its sequel – “Sonic The Hedgehog 2”. I was in for a brand new experience that would eventually go beyond just “Sonic” games and reinforced my passion for this electronic wonder. But being a Genesis owner during the early to mid 1990s meant more than just enjoying a 16-bit console; it was a declaration of loyalty as you had chosen your side in the war to win gaming’s fourth generation.
Unlike the generations that followed (especially compared to gaming’s seventh & eighth eras), being an owner of a Genesis or Super Nintendo game of the same name usually didn’t mean everyone was getting the same game. Licensed products featuring Beavis & Butt-Head, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the X-Men were usually done by different developers and producing totally different experiences. And even the ones that weren’t developed differently had to abide by certain rules such as the SNES version of “Mortal Kombat” didn’t have blood depictions.
It was moments like the controversial decision to censor “Mortal Kombat” that had gamers arguing over console superiority when it came to certain games & franchises. Sega smartly used this budding divide between gamers as a way to market the Genesis as the must-own 16-bit console. The head-on challenge organized by then-CEO Michael Katz didn’t necessarily pan out in the sales department as ads popped up that “Genesis Does What Nintendon’t”, but after a while with an influx of more must-play games like the original “Sonic” the slogan became nothing short of a battle cry.
“Genesis Does What Nintendon’t” turned into the mantra of universal loyalty amongst Genesis owners who would defend their console choice to the death … in some type of fighting game like the Sega exclusive “Eternal Champions”. Brand loyalty is a powerful, though exploitable thing that can bring the most unlikely people together in an effort to enforce your beliefs on someone else (well, only if that someone wasn’t that kid who had both consoles because their parents would never say, “No.”).
Have you learned any major life lessons from owning a console like the Sega Genesis or any video game for that matter? Leave them in the comments below and, as always, thanks for reading.
