With the fan translation effort underway, Starmen aimed at ensuring EarthBound's release on Nintendo's Virtual Console, a downloadable gaming platform on the Wii featuring scores of classic titles. Prior to Mother 3's shut-out, it was thought that strong commercial performance might strengthen the sequel's chances for a North American release--with those hopes dashed, however, the movement turned towards just getting something in North America, be it a Virtual Console release, a port on the Nintendo DS, anything.

But along the way, the site had made a few friends inside of Nintendo, who relayed information back to Starmen covertly, like secretive wartime communiques. A source inside Nintendo revealed that the company conducted an internal "culture audit" late last year and found that it ranked in the lower 9th percentile among 850 companies for altering their business based on consumer feedback.

"That bit of information serves as a perfect intro/backdrop for telling the story of EarthBound fans," Young told me in an email exchange.

Despite Nintendo's silence, the site's efforts didn't go unnoticed--at least, not publicly. Starmen's contact at Nintendo of America also told them that the site's 2003 phone campaign to get the Mother 1+2 compilation for the Game Boy Advance localized in North America almost worked.

"He said they flagged the game and waited to see if interest would stay steady, but our phone campaign ended after a week," Reid added. "As soon as we heard that, we immediately resolved to keep our current campaign going indefinitely."

Given that the Virtual Console amounts to little more than straight emulation of classic titles on the Wii, the process involved in bringing the game to the platform is virtually effortless--but the game never showed, and true to form, Nintendo remained silent. Starmen later learned that despite overwhelming support for the game, EarthBound was likely not coming to the Virtual Console for a number of reasons, including some undisclosed legal hang-ups.

The webmaster also revealed that Starmen made official attempts to license Mother 3 for release in North America, in a partnership with a small development and publishing studio. They later sent out exploratory emails to Nintendo of America, which were swiftly and decisively answered by the company.

"A few days later we got a decidedly curt response from Nintendo," Young said. "To paraphrase, a representative said 'the Mother series is our IP, and we're not letting anybody touch it. Even if we wanted to do something with the series, we would do it ourselves.'"

To make matters worse, Nintendo unceremoniously removed EarthBound from the Masterpieces collection--essentially a set of time-limited demos of several classic Nintendo games--in the North American localization of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, released in the States earlier this year. Mother appeared utterly abandoned by Nintendo of America.

Late last month, Young announced Starmen's (likely final) campaign: a YouTube contest awarding EarthBound-related memorabilia to videos dedicated to raising awareness for the series and getting the game on the Virtual Console. But morale was low--after several petitions, massive mail and phone campaigns and an entire book dedicated to fan devotion to EarthBound, what reason would Nintendo have to listen now?

"I firmly believe that this will be the end of the line for the series if we can't make something happen," Young said.

Just under a week later, EarthBound was listed on the ESRB's website. Though this small victory might not have been directly related to Starmen's campaign, after so many years of toil, it may have well been the first moon landing.

On Bone-Throwing
The gaming community at large has moved away from print magazines and has become one of the most vocal groups on the internet, spewing forth countless pages of forum posts at the slightest provocation. Overwhelming fan response has moved 2K Games to market a limited edition BioShock with a Big Daddy action figure; consumer outrage over a misplaced IGN logo on Okami's Wii box art spurred Capcom to supply replacement inserts to irate gamers. Developers read enthusiast blogs and forums, and keep tabs on consumer interest.

In a market with so much interplay between the fan and development communities, Nintendo's historic passive-aggression towards EarthBound fans seems somehow anachronistic, especially given the overwhelming show of support from Starmen. It's almost unfortunate that Shigesato Itoi's opus came courtesy of a company which routinely delivers some of the most personal experiences in gaming's history, but lacks the sort of "bedside manner" that many companies have come to adopt as part of strengthening their presence in the modern gaming industry.

And while Starmen's numbers might not rival the hundreds of thousands of gamers snarling over broken figurines or manual misprints, it's difficult to argue that they haven't put in the work for what they want. It takes little to no effort to gripe and complain on a message board as thousands do every day, but it's another thing altogether to communicate the way the EarthBound fan community has -- a respectful enthusiasm accompanied by a simple, honest appreciation of their favorite games.

EarthBound's ESRB rating is certainly a good sign, but it by no means guarantees the game's appearance on the Virtual Console. But if Nintendo has any sense of decency towards its base, it's time for something to happen. Even if it's just a simple re-release of a 13-year-old RPG that features zombie prostitutes, angry hippies and a delightfully crude sense of humor, at least it would be something.

After almost ten years of crushed hopes and unsatisfied efforts, I'd be hard pressed to imagine a more deserving fan base than Starmen and the EarthBound fan community. Nintendo, take heed: nearly a decade of devotion demands that you give back.