Marcus Lindblom, one of the people that worked on the EarthBound translation in late 1994, has told Polygon that the book he put together detailing EarthBound localisation and development was shut down by Nintendo. Lindblom said it was never his intention to earn money from the book, but it was just something to say thanks to all the dedicated EarthBound fans out there.
“When I did the localization I went in and gave it some American flavor and humor because that is what the developers wanted. They didn’t just want a straight translation. There were a lot of things that were not easy to translate and so I had freedom to put in weird American humor to flavor things and it worked out pretty well. All these years later people still find it charming which is nice.”
“I realized there was a large and vocal fan community. About a year and a half ago I went to PAX and I kind of walked up to the Fangamer booth and said that I had worked on the game. They were really surprised. They wanted to hear about my work on the game.”
“I was never going to make money from the book. I just wanted to pay for the cost of publication. It was just something for the fan community. They seemed so dedicated after all these years. I thought that, in a way, I owed them something.”
“There were a lot of little things I thought they might appreciate hearing about like why a certain character might say something in the game or why something was named the way it was or whatever. That was my original intention. Just to give the fans some insight into the way the game was localized.”
“I owe a lot to Nintendo. They gave me my start in the game business. I don’t want to do anything that makes them seem bad. I wanted to just write about the fun bits in the game that I think the fans would enjoy. But I have no desire to rock the boat with Nintendo at all.”
“…It isn’t anything that I can speculate on. All I will say is I was the one who went and talked to Nintendo because I thought I might as well see if I can get their blessing. I asked them and they came back and said we’d rather you didn’t.”
“My goal was always to honor the game and the fans and Itoi’s writing. I am going to honor Nintendo’s wishes that I don’t put something down into a book, but I know that the fan community is owed some tidbits of information and I will continue to do that and to talk about it.”
Thanks, Barry Bee Benson
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Thanks a lot reggie -.-
Reggie has nothing to do with Nintendo’s decision. It’s Nintendo as a whole. Not all decisions are done by one man.
either way nintendo is bunch of fags, wii u is a failure, so all “U” nintendo fagboys better get ready to play your kiddie games on PS4. A real console
That’s something completely unrelated of the topic. Stupid hater. Anyway, I think it’s kind of lame that we EB fans don’t get this book….
Nintendo isn’t going anywhere and is valued more as a company than Sony
Fuck your Ps4. Go play that system by yourself and let people who like WiiU to enjoy WiiU, you fuckin piece of shit.
while I agree it’s a good console, it has not reached my interest on buying it
Even the ps3 reached my interest a year ago, and some of the games like Knack on the Ps4 seem weird to me
Killzone was a flop and there goes my interest of exclusives
Other games are either on Ps3 or PC
Our empire is “gay” and yet you all want our “gay” games for your insignificant PS4?…
How much more of a hypocrite can you be?…
You Sonyans have the mental capacity of a baboon and the memory of a goldfish…
I guess that’s why the only intelligent things in your Dominion is your machines because they seem to do all the thinking for you…
Yesterday I finally got the oportunity to play Wii U with my friends… It was just amazing!! Lots of laughter and fun!! So… Thanks, I am getting my own Wii U soon.
Says the guy trolling on a Nintendo website.
I thought real consoles had games, considering the PS4 certainly doesn’t have any good ones.
I still fail to see what makes EB so great, i mean its good game, but i feel like its becamed little bit overrated during the years, not hating just sayin.
It may be overrated, but I personally think it’s a freaking masterpiece, just like Chrono Trigger or other great JRPGS of that era….
Overrated? Not even close. There is a concentrated population of very vocal fans and that’s about it. Most people have not played Earthbound at all.
Chrono Trigger is the overrated one. Earthbound is far from being overrated. Unless of course you have no idea what the word “overrated” even means.
Agreed…
overated game
I played Earthbound a while ago for the first time, it was out of curiosity of course, hearing so much praise about it made me want to experience it first hand, so I downloaded an emulator and I must say… I did not enjoy it, I thought it was too “random”, too unrealistic and strange for my taste, most of the time I was thinking to myself “I have no idea what the F*&k is going on and where am i supposed to go?” I can’t see why people thought so highly of it, but to each his own I suppose…
It took me a few attempts at playing it to really get into it. But once I finished it (epic final boss fight too) I loved it and played through the entire series.
Whatever, this is not anything new. Nintendo is very protective of their properties, yadda yadda yadda… move on please.
Oh, just food for thought. If Nintendo won’t even allow a non-profit book about one of Nintendo’s DEAD franchises be published, then how the HELL does anyone believe Nintendo will ever go third party… just saying.
“I owe a lot to Nintendo. They gave me my start in the game business. I don’t want to do anything that makes them seem bad. I wanted to just write about the fun bits in the game that I think the fans would enjoy. But I have no desire to rock the boat with Nintendo at all.”
The obvious butthurt and hypocrisy in this guy sure smells a lot…
Oh fuck off.
He’s the guy who did the english translation for the game, he probably knows the script like the back of his hand, and it’s probably the thing he’s most proud of in his work. He just wanted to write a book about how it was, and share it with the fans of the game.
My point is if he didn’t want to put the holy N in a bad way, why did he say all these things then?…
Just keep it to yourself…
Because it would look like he was trying to publish a scandalous book? He didn’t say anything “butthurt” or “hypocritical.”
Because it’s a fan made book…
What’s the big deal? Not like the IP is going anywhere, or that Nintendo are even making a profit of Earthbound anymore, there’s no reason to not publish a book about fucking translation of a game.
Maximum fucking damage control.
So Nintendo can protective of their IP’s, we all know that but why is Earthbound just a weird case with them, where they get super defensive and try to avoid it all together?
I think it steams at the core from much of the music being american music…
Copyrights issue and such things is my guess…
Nintendo is stupid
He should’ve asked permission in the first place to do this.
He doesn’t own the translation. Nintendo does.
It’s not impossible to get permission to release such a book. After all, the Hyrule Hysteria, a development book like this one, obviously had Nintendo’s permission if it managed to get published in the first place.
fuck “U” nintendo. please understand.
I might be in the minority on this, but I’ve always had the impression that Nintendo want as little to do with the Mother series as possible.
I’m pretty sure that you’re right. For some reason, they have definitely made sure that the franchise is at a complete stop. If Ness and Lucas “mysteriously” vanish from the new Smash Bros game…then it’ll have been confirmed. It’s taking a while for them to be confirmed after all
Just for once, I wish I would see some Earthbound news relating to a NEW game coming to North America.
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