View source for Nintendo Fun Club

{{short description|Former Nintendo fan club}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox magazine
| title = 
| image_file = Nintendo Fun Club News Issue 3.png
| image_size = 
| image_caption = ''Nintendo Fun Club News'', issue 3
| editor = 
| frequency = Bimonthly
| circulation = 
| publisher = [[Nintendo]]
| category = Video games
| company = Nintendo
| firstdate = {{start date and age|1987|1}}
| finaldate = {{end date and age|1988|7}}
| country = [[United States]]
| language = [[English language|English]]
| based = [[Redmond, Washington|Redmond]], [[Washington (state)|Washington]], U.S.
| issn = 
}}
'''''Nintendo Fun Club''''' was a fan club [[Nintendo marketing|marketed]] by [[Nintendo]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://archive.org/details/Nintendo_Fun_Club_News_Issue_02_Summer_1987|title=The Name of the Game is Fun!|last=Phillips|first=Howard|date=1987|work=Nintendo Fun Club News|format=[[PDF]]}}</ref> It was free to join, and its members received a free subscription to ''Nintendo Fun Club News'', a periodical that discussed popular games and games that were planned for the near future. It also offered tips and tricks, Nintendo video game news, and comics.

==History==
Since the [[Nintendo Entertainment System|NES's]] launch in 1985, warehouse manager and gamer advocate [[Howard Phillips (consultant)|Howard Phillips]] and marketer Gail Tilden had operated a consumer feedback campaign of insert cards within packages of Nintendo's hardware and games, and built a database of customer contact information with names and mailing addresses. Phillips started a free-of-charge gameplay advice hotline at Nintendo of America, with five or six counselors on staff. They wanted to consolidate this resource-intensive gameplay counseling into mass media form.<ref name="Nintendo Power: Remembering"/> Phillips said, "When we first launched the NES in 1985, we figured out very quickly that kids were just dying to get extra information about the games{{emdash}}not just new games that were coming out, but also how to play them."<ref name="Nintendo Power: Remembering"/>

In 1987, ''Nintendo Fun Club'' was started at [[Nintendo of America]] by Gail Tilden and Fun Club President Howard Phillips, with the publication of the ''Nintendo Fun Club News''.<ref name="Nintendo Power: Remembering">{{cite web|url=https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/nintendo-power-remembering-america-s-longest-lasting-game-magazine|title=Nintendo Power: Remembering America's Longest-Lasting Game Magazine|last=Cifaldi|first=Frank|date=December 11, 2012|website=[[Gamasutra]]|access-date=July 12, 2019}}</ref><ref name="aku">{{cite news|url=http://kotaku.com/5936766/remembering-nintendos-other-1980s-magazine-the-nintendo-fun-club|title=Remembering Nintendo's Other 1980's Magazine, The Nintendo Fun Club|author1=Luke Plunkett|date=August 22, 2012|work=[[Kotaku]]|accessdate=December 27, 2015}}</ref> The newsletter's first four issues were delivered quarterly starting in early 1987, with the final three issues being bimonthly.<ref name=aku/> Phillips said, "Kids loved the magazine because it included screen shots. Pre-internet and [[Videocassette recorder|VCRs]], actually showing kids the games was the only way to explain how to do tricks. They couldn't just look it up online."<ref name="Interview: Howard Phillips">{{cite interview | title=Interview: Howard Phillips (Ex-Nintendo Power Co-Editor) | date=April 14, 2013 | first=Howard | last=Phillips | subject-link=Howard Phillips (consultant) | interviewer=Michael Levy | url=https://www.retrocollect.com/Articles/interview-howard-phillips-ex-nintendo-power-co-editor.html |accessdate=July 9, 2019}}</ref>

The ''Nintendo Fun Club'' was marketed via catalogs and flyers contained in [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] boxes, and within the content of at least one game, ''[[Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!]]''.<ref name="Nintendo Power: Remembering"/> During the intermissions between rounds, when Little Mac's trainer gives him tips, Mac calls out "Help, Doc", who responds with, "{{sic|Join the Nintendo Fun Club today! Mac.}}"

After seven issues and 600,000 subscribers, along with more than 100 telephone gameplay counselors, Phillips and Tilden wanted to further streamline and expand the resource intensive and non-revenue-generating marketing outreach. The ''Nintendo Fun Club News'' was discontinued in favor of the vastly more expansive and ambitious ''[[Nintendo Power]]'' magazine in August 1988. Its first issue was free to Fun Club members, and otherwise a traditional paid subscription.<ref name="Nintendo Power: Remembering" /><ref name=aku/>

==See also==
*''[[Official Nintendo Magazine]]'', the official [[United Kingdom|British]] magazine and successor to the British [[Club Nintendo#Europe|Club Nintendo]]
*''[[Nintendo Magazine System (Australia)|Nintendo Magazine System]]'', the Australian equivalent publication
*[[History of computer and video games]]
*''[[Nintendo Player's Guide]]''

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[[iarchive:NintendoFunClubMagazines/mode/2up|''Nintendo Fun Club Newsletter'']] on the [[Internet Archive]]

{{Nintendo Company}}

[[Category:Bimonthly magazines published in the United States]]
[[Category:Quarterly magazines published in the United States]]
[[Category:Defunct video game magazines published in the United States]]
[[Category:Magazines established in 1987]]
[[Category:Magazines disestablished in 1988]]
[[Category:Magazines published in Washington (state)]]
[[Category:Magazines about Nintendo]]
[[Category:Nintendo publications]]
[[Category:Nintendo Entertainment System]]