Reid Young

Monday, May 10 1999

To whom it may concern:

As you’re surely aware by now, this petition has been given the utmost care and concern. As we understand it, a company like Nintendo doesn’t solicit the suggestions of fans. As we know it, Nintendo is more intelligent than to totally ignore us. This is why we hope that you’ll listen carefully and objectively, not thinking behind the "We don’t solicit" barrier. As proof of the purity of our intentions, we’ve taken great measures to go above and beyond what you may have seen before. We knew that a simple e-mail with a few signatures wouldn’t even make it past your mail server. Hopefully by now we have your attention.

I speak for thousands of fans, some on the internet and active, some not. These fans rally behind our cause readily, telling friends of the petition, posting banners on their sites. Over the past few months, a group of three people has been working to gain support for this, the Mother on Game Boy Color Petition. Even though you may not need a refresher, I’ll remind you of the once-abandoned game called ‘Mother’, the NES prequel to EarthBound that never made it to America. It was a hit in Japan, spawning things like the Mother Encyclopedia and the soundtrack CD. This served to inspire the sequel to Mother, Mother 2. This kicked up even more dust in Japan, enough to bring Mother 2 to America, under the name EarthBound.

Years later, as the story goes, an individual obtained a prototype cart of the translated Mother. This person created a ROM image of the cart, making it possible to play the game using an emulator. This is where the dilemma comes in.

The legality of the ROM is only partially clear. There are a few points to be brought up in favor of legality, but it is generally assumed that anything pertaining to emulation is illegal. Therefore, the ROM is questionable at best. This scared off many potential gamers who wanted to know exactly what the predecessor to EarthBound was like.

Even if one wanted to play the game, problems invariably tarnished the experience. This is where the Mother on Game Boy Petition comes in. This petition has been created and supported by all the EarthBound and RPG fans who want the real experience, rather than playing a cryptic and possibly illegal prototype.

We are confidently assuming that Nintendo has already considered the possibility of bringing Mother back to life, using the Game Boy Color as a medium. We’ve already seen this happen with some of the NES classics, such as Super Mario Bros. We hope that this petition will dispel any doubts or uncertainty surrounding Mother – many people who signed the petition are willing to buy a Game Boy Color purely for the purpose of playing Mother. Money is no object when it comes to the sort of high quality entertainment provided by RPGs like EarthBound, and potentially Mother.

Don’t think that the EarthBound fans haven’t taken notice to Ness’s cameo appearance in Smash Bros. The talk on the EarthBound scene hasn’t gone astray from the topic since the game came out! Its obvious that Ness is being brought back to spark the interest in EarthBound once again. Bringing Mother to Game Boy Color could work wonders for the sales of Mother 3, when it comes out in America. Not taking into consideration the avid fans who have signed this petition, thousands and thousands of people would be delighted to see an RPG on their Game Boy Color screens.

So we present this petition to you. I again ask you to look at it objectively. We have spent lots of time on this, talking with the biggest gaming sites all over the net, trying to get coverage, updating incessantly. Please don’t let these past months of work go to waste, muffled by a cold shoulder.

Sincerely,

Reid Young

reidman@earthbound.net