![\"\"](\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/inside-the-nintendo-power-hotline.jpg\")
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Hand-drawn map for Super Metroid that GPCs would use to help callers. Image: Stephan Reese\/Art of Nintendo Power <\/article>\nWhile Nintendo didn\u2019t require any of its counselors to actually enjoy games, once a person made it past the initial temp interview, it did require a weeks-long training process. New employees had to play through games, learn about their various chokepoints and secrets, and take a massive test before they could field calls.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of just answering one very simple question about Legend of Zelda, maybe you have to list all of the treasures in all of the dungeons in both quests,\u201d says former counselor Caesar Filori. \u201cHow do you get to the minus world in Mario? How many coins do you need for an extra life? They just wanted to make sure you actually knew the games inside and out, and the mechanics and how to beat the bosses.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019ll be honest with you. Myself, and a lot of people at that time, we cheated through the test,\u201d Hudson admits. \u201cBecause I was like, \u2018There\u2019s no way I\u2019m gonna remember all this s—.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
After a short shadow period, where new counselors would sit in while an experienced counselor took calls, they finally got on the phones. Calls were immediate and plentiful.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to nail down exactly how many calls a counselor would get on a given day, though most approximations land around 100 per shift. At its height, the call center had a couple hundred people taking calls for just under 24 hours a day. If each person is taking around 100 calls per day, in total, the call center was receiving thousands of calls every day it was in operation. Sam Hosier III, who worked there between \u201994 and \u201997, says at one point Nintendo gave out a shirt \u201cthat said we had done 28 million calls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, this number was exacerbated by the holiday season, when people across the country were getting new Nintendo games and consoles. The counselors dubbed this \u201cHell Week.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we had our full call center, they put up these telecaster boards that showed you how many calls were in-queue,\u201d former counselor Yvette Kirby Waters says about Hell Week. \u201cWe called it the \u2018Hellecaster\u2019 because you could feel the pressure when 100, 200 calls are in-queue \u2013 300, you know? And there were over 100 people in the call center taking calls one after another \u2013 boom, boom, boom. And yet, the queue list is still in the hundreds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though Nintendo required a certain level of memorization and expertise, it was understood gameplay counselors couldn\u2019t know everything every one of those millions of callers inquired about. To help with tough calls, each counselor had a large green binder full of notes, hand-drawn maps, and solutions. Get good enough at passive conversation, and a caller on the other end of the line would never know a counselor was quickly flipping through pages, trying to find an answer. To them, it might seem like this person is the all-knowing gamer Nintendo was pitching them as in its then-monthly magazine Nintendo Power<\/i>. In each issue, individual counselors were highlighted in the \u201cCounselors\u2019 Corner,\u201d featuring tidbits such as their highest game score and favorite Nintendo games, letting callers put faces to the voices on the Nintendo Power Hotline.<\/p>\n
Despite the sheer number of calls, as every counselor we talked to tells it, after long enough working the phones, you start to identify the most common questions across Nintendo\u2019s most popular games. They may have taken over a hundred calls a day, but most of those calls were about the same two or three games. Work there long enough, and you can spend a lot of your day on autopilot.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you heard the question, the response coming out of your mouth, you really didn\u2019t have to think about it,\u201d Hudson says.<\/p>\n
This left gameplay counselors a lot of time to play video games on the clock \u2013 somewhat making good on the dream kids had that these were people who got paid to play games all day. In the Nintendo office was an ever-growing library with every single game the company had released up to that point. \u201cThere were no gaps in the collection,\u201d Hosier says.<\/p>\n
Counselors could check out various titles, and their desks even had TVs and consoles where they could play games while taking calls.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the risks that you have doing that is if you\u2019re someone who emotes when you die when you play a game, that can become problematic,\u201d Filori says, adding employees got good at muting the call. \u201cI don\u2019t remember who it was, but I do know for fact a time where somebody got the mic button muting reversed, so all the person heard on the other end was profanity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gaming in the office led to many now-famous pictures. While, ostensibly, letting counselors play games on the clock was so they could stay up-to-date and familiar with all Nintendo\u2019s games, these photos worked double-duty as great recruitment tools. Kids could see counselors sitting in an office cubicle, making money and playing games. Who wouldn\u2019t think that was cool?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe concept of gameplay counselors back in the day for a kid obsessed with Nintendo games was kind of this dream job,\u201d Phil Theobald, who called the hotline as a kid, says. \u201cIn my head, I had this vision of gameplay counselors as, like, the best job in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were, however, the \u201cnightmare calls.\u201d For example, The Goonies, based on the movie of the same name, released by Konami in 1986. As Filori tells it, most of the areas in the game look identical; it was near-impossible to identify where a player was stuck. Same with Legacy of the Wizard. HAL Laboratory\u2019s 1989 puzzler Adventures of Lolo was another pain point for gameplay counselors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, these are like the Candy Crushes of the time,\u201d says former counselor Casey Pelkey about Lolo. \u201cPeople would call, and they\u2019re in, like, the 11th level or something like that. They\u2019re like, \u2018Give me step-by-step.\u2019 And we\u2019re talking block by block how to do something. It can take forever, and as soon as they do something wrong, it\u2019s a reset, right? Let\u2019s try it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLots of people would hang up on those calls,\u201d Filori says. \u201cThen, because the supervisors could still hear what you\u2019re saying, even once you\u2019ve wrapped up [since they would monitor calls for quality], they would just keep talking. They\u2019d hang up and keep talking and then say like, \u2018Um, are you still there? Are you still there? Hello? Hello?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
King of the Castle<\/h2>\n
Jack Sapperstein was on vacation in St. Thomas Island when he got stuck on a boss in The Final Fantasy Legend, released by Square in 1989. Despite the long-distance charges required to call the Nintendo Power Hotline, Sapperstein, who grew up in New York City, says his parents generally understood when he asked at home to call \u201cthe Nintendo people.\u201d However, in hindsight, he admits calling from the Caribbean was a bit outrageous.<\/p>\n
Sapperstein was one of the millions of kids who bought into Nintendo\u2019s marketing around gameplay counselors. He really thought these were all-knowing game fans who could answer every question under the sun without much second thought.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just always felt like it was so official, and they were always kind of getting these answers off the top of their heads,\u201d he says. \u201cAs if I was talking to Mario himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so he called. A lot. Not just for games he was stuck on. Sometimes Sapperstein called with impossible questions \u2013 like how to unlock Vega on the Super Nintendo port of Street Fighter II. He wasn\u2019t alone. Ben Rico, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, called the Hotline numerous times. Rico says he was convinced there was a way to not automatically go down the pipe at the end of world 1-1. He called the gameplay counselors to try and confirm his suspicion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was sitting there, like, \u2018There\u2019s gotta be a way to not automatically get sucked into it,\u2019\u201d Rico says. \u201cBecause I was, you know, a f—ing 9-year-old kid. I might have even been 8. The gameplay counselor \u2013 very nicely to this little kid \u2013 said that \u2018No, there\u2019s no way to do it. You get sucked in; you have to go to the next level.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Saperstein and Rico are what gameplay counselors refer to as \u201cregulars.\u201d While the Hotline did require long-distance charges for anyone outside of the Redmond area code, that didn\u2019t stop people from calling so much that counselors began to remember them \u2013 somehow standing out among the thousands of other people they talked to every week. In some cases, these were just people who wanted someone to talk with. In other cases, they were dreaded calls; people counselors hated talking to. But in even more cases, they were just kids, entirely beside themselves with the idea of talking to their heroes \u2013 people that worked at Nintendo.<\/p>\n
The Nintendo Power Hotline\u2019s years of operation coincide exactly with Nintendo\u2019s rise in pop-culture prominence and the video game industry\u2019s in general. Moreso than ever before, people were playing video games, and here was this entire service built around helping people play their games. While young male children made up a lot of calls, according to those we talked to, people from all walks of life also called the Hotline.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some grandparents who were passionate about this,\u201d Waters says. \u201cMaybe they started as a way to play with their grandkids, but they really got into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The importance of talking to that many people \u2013 and more importantly, that many Nintendo fans \u2013 was not lost on founder and then-president of Nintendo of America Minoru Arakawa, who impressed upon counselors that they were providing a service for people who loved Nintendo. Treating them with patience and kindness was paramount. Admittedly, they were also helpful marketing.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Arakawa, I remember him conveying to us through the managers that this is how we make this business successful,\u201d says Pelkey, who later worked as VP of marketing at the Tetris company, where Arakawa served as president until 2013. \u201cIf we don\u2019t get people through the games, then they\u2019re not going to want to buy the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n More so than many executives, people talk about Arakawa with an absolute level of respect and appreciation. A lot of the people we interviewed for this piece were teenagers or young adults when they first joined Nintendo \u2013 the call center was their first job, and of course, it was an entry-level one. But Arakawa and his management team were insistent that, should people put the work in, being a gameplay counselor could be a first step towards a career within Nintendo. It didn\u2019t matter how low someone was on the totem pole or what department they worked in; there was always room to go up at Arakawa\u2019s Nintendo.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a very kind, generous, man,\u201d Hudson says. \u201cI mean, what other CEOs knew every single employee\u2019s name?\u201d<\/p>\n Arguably, however, that generosity did come back to bite Arakawa at least a couple of times.<\/p>\n For a brief period and in the \u201980s and \u201990s, Nintendo spared no expense when throwing its annual holiday party. It would rent out entire floors of luxury hotels in downtown Seattle, offer hotel rooms and limo rides to and from for every employee so they wouldn\u2019t need to worry about finding a sober driver, and give them top-shelf food and drink. Nintendo invited every employee \u2013 not just its C-suite. Former counselors we talked to describe being in awe of the parties. But for a group made up of many teenage boys and young men in their 20s, things quickly got out of hand once alcohol got involved.<\/p>\n \u201cI do know some stories of people \u2013 whose names I can\u2019t remember, and it\u2019s probably good that I don\u2019t \u2013 who lost their job after a Christmas party because of inappropriate behavior and apparently actually broke an elevator at the Sheraton in Seattle,\u201d Waters says. \u201cI don\u2019t know how you do that. Maybe they put too many people in the elevator or whatever, but [they] managed to get an elevator stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey ended up having to stop doing that,\u201d Hudson says about the holiday parties. \u201cThey were destroying these rooms, and Nintendo was hearing about it from the hotels. That only lasted a year or two before they put a kibosh on that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n No one we spoke to for this piece had anything negative to say about the culture of Nintendo or the call center at this time. However, with 30 years of hindsight, Waters does admit the culture probably wouldn\u2019t be acceptable by 2022 standards, likening the call center office to a \u201ccollege dorm.\u201d It was also majority white and majority male. However, she does point out that her team \u2013 the bilingual call center employees, which served Spanish-speaking callers and French Canadians \u2013 was largely female.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the call center, there was a lot of things probably going on that I would say people would recognize now as inappropriate. But at the time, it was still sort of that fun [thing where] this organization was established by young people,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, you know, there\u2019s some things you look at now and go, \u2018Woah,\u2019\u201d Waters adds, laughing.<\/p>\n The Nintendo Power Hotline ran until 2005. It was a major part of Nintendo of America\u2019s day-to-day business. Eventually, the green binders were replaced by a computer system called ELMO, or Electronic Manual Organizer, which streamlined looking up and finding answers. But after a while, technology phased out the need for gameplay counselors. If every walkthrough is easily accessible online \u2013 for free \u2013 why would you pay to call the Hotline? Especially after it switched to a tolled 900 number from its original Redmond area code number.<\/p>\n But if there\u2019s one thing that stands out and one thing that makes it unique, it\u2019s that it\u2019s remembered at all. There are numerous other call centers in the world, few of which have any longstanding legacy \u2013 much less any as fondly remembered as Nintendo\u2019s.<\/p>\n A simple reason for this is the call center focused on fun video games. It also helped that Arakawa required people in the call center to be kind to the people calling in. Beyond that even, he required every single letter sent to Nintendo of America to get a response; there was an entire team within the customer service office dedicated to just answering mail. As far as customer service goes, it was hard to beat Nintendo at this time.<\/p>\n Stephan Reese, who\u2019s dedicated his life to collecting Nintendo ephemera and runs the Art of Nintendo Power education exhibit, describes it succinctly: This was the first time many people had taken their hobby seriously. It was the first time people didn\u2019t talk down to them about liking video games.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really was a friend for a lot of these kids,\u201d says Reese, who called the Hotline once when he was around 7. \u201cSpecifically, a friend who spoke their language, who knew what they were talking about, who loved games as much as they did, and was able to articulate that back.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese were the only adults in my life who were not openly mocking something that I love more than anything,\u201d Reese adds.<\/p>\n The call center was the first step to joining the game industry for the counselors we interviewed. Waters later worked on the Nintendo GameCube software development kit before moving on to a job at Microsoft. She\u2019s now a self-employed contract strategist. Hosier worked as an event production coordinator and assistant manager of trade events at Nintendo before spending time at other tech companies like T-Mobile. After working as a tester for Nintendo, Filori worked for EA, Microsoft, Nike, and Oculus. He\u2019s now a technical programmer at Meta. The list goes on.<\/p>\n But for all of them, it started in that call center.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes you hear about something being this golden age, right?\u201d Filori says. \u201cIt felt like a golden age at the time. This is different. It\u2019s something new; it\u2019s different; this is a unique thing. I don\u2019t know that it could ever be recreated or replicated to be part of the explosion of video games at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was weird,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt was a very weird and unique thing.\u201d<\/p>\n This article originally appeared in Issue 343<\/a> of<\/em> Game Informer.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/inside-the-nintendo-power-hotline-2.jpg\")
Fans write in to the Nintendo Power Hotline. Image: Stephan Reese\/Art of Nintendo Power <\/article>\nHang Up<\/h2>\n
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GPC annotations on a map of Super Metroid\u2019s Brinstar area. Image: Stephan Reese\/Art of Nintendo Power <\/article>\n
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