Reggie: What fans want and say doesn't affect what we do

Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-Aime has spoken frankly about the publisher's attitude towards fan petitions and campaigns, telling an interviewer that they have a a negligible effect on policy at best.

During an interview with Silicon Era Fils-Aime was asked about Operation Moonfall and Rainfall: two fan-run campaigns which hoped to persuade Nintendo to re-release both Zelda Majora's Mask for 3DS and Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower for the Wii. In response, Reggie answered that although the company was very much aware of the campaigns, they had little to no effect on its decisions.

"I have to tell you-it doesn't affect what we do," Reggie began, bluntly enough. "We certainly look at it, and we're certainly aware of it, but it doesn't necessarily affect what we do. I'll give you an example. I mentioned earlier that our head of product development had a bet on X versus Y-we also had a bet around localizing Xenoblade.

"I wanted to bring Xenoblade here. The deal was, how much of a localization effort is it? How many units are we going to sell, are we going to make money? We were literally having this debate while Operation Rainfall was happening, and we were aware that there was interest for the game, but we had to make sure that it was a strong financial proposition.

"I'm paid to make sure that we're driving the business forward-so we're aware of what's happening, but in the end we've got to do what's best for the company. The thing we know [about petitions] is that 100,000 signatures doesn't mean 100,000 sales."

Gaming petitions have become increasingly commonplace over recent years, utilising the power of social media to raise awareness and gather signatures for petitions for game releases, localisations and extras. Sadly it seems that, in Nintendo's case at least, these cries fall on very deaf ears indeed.

Nonetheless, a defiant post on Operation Moonfall's Facebook page shows that the campaign's organisers aren't giving up that easily, exhorting campaigners to redouble their efforts in the face of Reggie's indifference.