David Jaffe Doesn’t Take Nintendo’s “Geeks and Otaku” Comment Kindly

Laurent Fischer may have already issued an apology of sorts for his comments about how only “geeks and otaku” want the Wii’s storage problems to be addressed, but I feel David Jaffe’s blog on the subject still warrants coverage because he’s simultaneously very true and hilarious.

(For those of you who still don’t see what the big deal is, it’s the way in which Fischer meant what he said. It seemed pretty clear that he meant “geeks and otaku” in a condescending way; it’s got nothing to do with “geeks and otaku” being offensive. It’s the manner in which those words were delivered that has pissed people off.)

In the colorfully titled blog post “YOU **** ON MY HOUSE!!!,” Jaffe draws a comparison between Fischer’s comments and the movie Can’t Buy Me Love. (If you’re critical of Jaffe for having seen the movie, he says, “**** you, it’s a good movie.”) While he lays out the fact that he is a fan of Nintendo, he also believes that Nintendo should be very ashamed of comments like Fischer’s.

I like Nintendo. And I LOVE old Nintendo. And both old and new Nintendo have brought SO MUCH to this industry that they SHOULD be proud and excited and even a little cocky when it comes to their amazing accomplishments. Anyone in our business should envy their ability to read, direct, and redirect the market. And to also- when they want to- make some world class, ground breaking games.

But this statement, especially coming from a marketing person, reeks of one of two things:

a- arrogance at a level that should make Nintendo- if this statement reflects the core of the company- very ashamed.
b- a marketing person who has no real clue about games and thinks she’s being cute and coy by dissing the ‘geeks’ cause she thinks the mainstream loves them now….if this is the case, she really needs someone to sit her down and explain to her which side her ****ing toast has been buttered on for years and will eventually get back to being buttered on….

Even if you disagree with his choice of language, the man raises a point, even if he unintentionally(?) and erroneously labeled Laurent as a “she.”