Episode 9 – Mascots, A Story In Three Parts

A long long time ago, I can still remember, how the mascots used to make me smile…

Mascots. Brightly colored, energetic, and fun. Reserved for college sports teams mostly. You can’t possibly have a decent team if your mascot sucks. Also there is a select few professional sports teams that have mascots also, and I guess those guys do ok. Mascots are used to put a friendly face and a constant on an ever changing team.

In the Pre NES years of videogames there really were no mascots for gaming. There were so many different games for the Atari, Intelevision and so forth that no one game helped define the system and stuck out. Nintendo changed that. It started with Donkey Kong. Everybody played it when it hit the arcades back in that year before I was born. Each of the three characters were memorable. DK, Pauline, and Jump Man, the brave hero who… jumped. When the NES hit it was decided that the little Jump Man who could, should star in his own video game… and get a name change, because Jump Man isn’t all that flattering. Mario was born and immediately there was brand recognition. I can play as the same character at the arcade, in my own home. That’s a winning strategy.

When Sega, who had been making arcade games for a while, decided to hit the console market they followed suit and created Sonic to represent their console. Later Sony tried to do the same with Crash Bandicoot.

Each of the mascots really does a good job of visually representing the company’s strategy and goals for their console. Mario is a happy little Italian who, even in facing Koopa in the darkest castles, smiles and jumps to his little hearts content. Nintendo’s strategy has always been fun first. How could you not love this overall wearing guy with his cute little mustache? Even now, 5 consoles later Mario still represents the same ideas he always did, and while he got a slight 3D makeover, he’s still the same old plumber.

Sega tried to market their Genesis towards a slightly older crowed. (I say tried because I don’t really think it worked, but it got kids who were trying to be older to buy the thing.) From the color of the console (it was black) and that “it does what Nintendon’t” slogan, which may be the first video game smear campaign, the Genesis screamed badass. Therefore their mascot needed to be a little more edgy. Sonic stepped up into the light and was seen as “cool” by all the kids. He was a little edgy, as much as a blue hedgehog with red Converse could be. But he used to shake that finger like whoa. I don’t exactly remember why he was always fighting Dr. Robotnik, but that didn’t matter. Today, even though Sega is no longer making consoles (R.I.P Dreamcast) Sonic is still their most recognizable character and has seen release on Xbox, PlayStation as well as for the Nintendo DS. He’s still a troublemaker, and I still think he’s pretty cool.

Sony had a unique advantage during its release of the PlayStation. They could look back at the history of what worked and what didn’t. They saw how well the mascot thing worked and went with it. Sony didn’t make arcade games like Nintendo and Sega before them, so they grabbed a character created by a third party developer… Crash Bandicoot. He, to me, is the closest thing the PlayStation brand ever got to a mascot. He dominated the television, featured in PlayStation commercials, and ad space in magazines and comic books. I believe there were three Crash games that made it onto the original PlayStation. Sony was trying to market their console the same way Sega was. Not so much for the kids, but for people slightly older, maybe college age (Sony’s other advantage was, at this point, the kids who grew up on Nintendo were in college and able to make that switch. It was an untapped market). Crash is very similar to Sonic. He’s kind of sarcastic, he’s an animal thing that wears pants and shoes, and he fights a doctor who is trying to destroy the world. That’s pretty much Sonic with out the spin dash.

Once Sega dropped out of the market leaving only Nintendo and Sony (and eventually Microsoft) the mascots kind of died. Nintendo is not about to leave Mario anytime soon, he still represents everything they want and he is the most recognizable character in all of video games. Sony ditched Crash after, in my opinion, he helped Sony install the PlayStation into many households in America. Partly because he was a third party character, but I think mostly because Sony wanted to change the image of video games to something that can be enjoyed by that golden 18-25 year old age bracket. The PlayStation 2 is pretty much devoid of mascots. The same can be said for Microsoft who rides along Sony’s marketing strategy. They have no mascot either.

Mario is a happy little Italian, Sonic is a bad boy, and Crash is sarcastic. Still upon seeing any one of those characters I immediately think of their parent systems. I will always think of the Sega Genesis when I play Sonic games. In my mind they go hand in hand, and belong to each other. That was Sega’s goal, and it worked. Mascots to me represent a happier time in video gaming. Before the advent of the first person shooter, before lens flair and grime took over and everything was brightly colored. Video games have changed now and there is no place for mascots anymore.