Operation Rainfall

Operation Rainfall, commonly known as oprainfall, was a video game-oriented fan campaign founded to promote the release of games not available in North America. Initially aimed at promoting the North American release of three games on the aging Wii home video game console only released in Japan and Europe, it later transitioned into a community blog dedicated to niche Japanese games and further fan campaigns aimed at the localization of Japan-exclusive games. From inception, its stated intention was to show publisher Nintendo the demand for the three chosen games.

Not to be confused with Occupation: Rainfall.

Operation Rainfall
FormationJune 22, 2011 (2011-06-22)[1]
TypeFan campaign (2011–2015)
News blog (2015–)
PurposeTo publicize Japanese video games
Websiteoperationrainfall.com

Beginning in 2011, it was designed as a push for the release of Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower, three games released late in the lifespan of the Wii. The campaign was acknowledged by Nintendo, and though they initially announced that they had no plans, all three games were eventually released in North America. Reception of the campaign has been favorable overall, and its perceived success when compared to similar earlier campaigns was also noted.

History

Origins

The campaign focused on three role-playing games created for Nintendo's Wii home video game console during the last years of its life: Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower.[2][3] Xenoblade Chronicles, developed by Monolith Soft, was an entry in the Xeno series, initially announced as an original project dubbed Monado: Beginning of the World. The game was announced under this title at the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), but its title was changed to honor earlier Xeno games created by the game's writer Tetsuya Takahashi.[4][5] The Last Story was developed by Mistwalker, a company created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and intended to be a game that ran contrary to typical elements of the genre based on feedback from the company's previous games Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.[6][7] Pandora's Tower was developed by Ganbarion, who had previously worked primarily on licensed games and pitched the concept to Nintendo after favorably impressing them with their work on Jump Ultimate Stars.[8] Despite hopes from fans and journalists that the games would be released in North America, Nintendo gave no comment on the matter.[2][5] The only explanation for the lack of localization was related to The Last Story: Nintendo stated that due to their work on Kirby's Epic Yarn and games for the new Nintendo 3DS, The Last Story was too much effort.[9] Nintendo of Europe did want to feature Xenoblade Chronicles at E3 2011, but Nintendo's American branch prevented it without explanation.[10] In response to this and continued silence on both The Last Story and Pandora's Tower, Operation Rainfall was born.[2][10]

Concept and later development

Following the announcements concerning the three games, Operation Rainfall came into existence in an effort to persuade Nintendo to bring the games to North America.[2] Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story were chosen for their genealogy, while Pandora's Tower was selected due to its unique mechanics and the fact that it was also published by Nintendo for the Wii. The team also decided on the games as they were already confirmed for an English release in Europe and had received critical acclaim in Japan, so they avoided trying to push for the release of critically and commercially unsuccessful games such as Earth Seeker. The campaign's name stemmed from the group's wish to reach out to Nintendo of America with requests.[3] Beginning in June 2011 on the message boards of gaming site IGN, it was met with support from the gaming community. Its campaign was spread across letters and emails to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé, in addition to campaigns on Facebook and Twitter.[2][11] Both physical and digital media were chosen for the campaign to make them more obvious and less able to be deleted, as a purely digital campaign would have been. To this end, letters and objects inspired by the games were sent to Nintendo of America.[3]

Operation Rainfall gave itself an eighteen-month deadline, with the conclusion of their campaign planned to coincide with the release of Nintendo's new Wii U home console in November 2012.[3] The first phase of the campaign focused on Xenoblade Chronicles, with a part of their campaign resulting in large numbers of pre-orders being placed for the game on Amazon.com under its placeholder name: the game reached #1 in the site's pre-order list, beating both The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and the PlayStation 3 bundle for Call of Duty: Black Ops.[2][12] The second phase of the campaign coincided with the European release of Xenoblade Chronicles, with the aim being for fans to make Wii purchases on its release date of August 19, 2011, in addition to further letters to Nintendo of America.[13] Following the announcement of the game's North American release, the group refocused their efforts on The Last Story.[14] For Pandora's Tower, the campaign expanded to pitching to recognized publishers of niche Japanese games, including Atlus, Xseed Games, Aksys Games, and NIS America. To fund the campaign, they asked for donations, offering a special wallpaper in return, and for larger contributions a special slip case for all three games.[15]

While Xenoblade Chronicles was published in North America by Nintendo, The Last Story was taken up by Xseed Games.[16] With the announcement of the North American release of The Last Story, the fan community launched their own site. Dubbed "Oprainfall", it continued news coverage of the original three games, in addition to extending to other similar niche games and hosting fan petitions.[3] Pandora's Tower was also eventually released in North America, once again by Xseed Games.[17] As of 2015, the site has transitioned from a fan campaign hub to a blog and news site focusing on Japanese games considered niche in the West, in addition to continuing support for similar fan campaigns.[18][19]

Public reaction

When it first appeared and gained popular support, Operation Rainfall drew considerable media attention, being covered by Kotaku,[2] IGN,[20] Eurogamer,[21] GamesRadar,[22] Joystiq,[23] Game Informer,[24] Destructoid,[12] and Japanese gaming sites Inside Games and ITMedia.[25][26] In addition to popular and press support, it received favorable responses from Soraya Saga, the writer for Xenogears and Xenosaga, and Mistwalker.[12]

More extensive coverage has been given by some sites. VentureBeat noted that, while comparable with other similar campaigns, Operation Rainfall was notable for maintaining an identity during its efforts.[16] Zach Kaplan of Nintendo Life said that the campaign needed to make a clear mark, showing that the success of the then-announced Xenoblade Chronicles was not a fluke.[27] In a later feature for the same website, Thomas Whitehead said that the otherwise niche and slightly unremarkable Pandora's Tower had been granted a level of mystery and anticipation among fans through its inclusion in the Operation Rainfall campaign.[28] In an interview feature conducted after the announcement of a North American release for Pandora's Tower, PC World noted that Operation Rainfall was going against the trend with its complete success in pushing to bring all three games to North America. In particular, it compared them to the unsuccessful efforts by fans to bring Japan-exclusive installments of the Mother series to the West.[3]

The campaign was also noted by the game's publishers. Nintendo acknowledged the campaign and its effort in the same month it began, but said that there were no plans to release the three games in North America.[29] Three months into the campaign, several Nintendo employees were asking the group to stop their campaign.[3] In 2013, speaking about Xenoblade Chronicles, Fils-Aimé said that while the campaign had not been a decisive factor in their ultimate decision to release the game in North America, they did take it into consideration.[30] In an interview concerning their role in localizing The Last Story, Xseed stated that Nintendo had long been open to partnering with another company for a North American release, and that Operation Rainfall had not influenced Nintendo.[31] Later, in their press announcement concerning Pandora's Tower, they acknowledged that it was a game with a "vocal" fan base, but did not mention Operation Rainfall by name. They also stated that it was the positive sales and fan efforts for The Last Story that prompted them to release the game in North America.[17][32]

References
  1. themightyme. "xenoblade, the last story, pandora's tower mail campaign for localization". ign.com. Archived from the original on 27 June 2011. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  2. McWhertor, Michael (27 June 2011). "How Badly Do You Want The Last Story, Pandora's Tower and Xenoblade for Wii?". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 2 February 2016. Retrieved 27 June 2011.
  3. Gagne, Ken (4 March 2013). "Operation Rainfall: How a fan campaign brought Nintendo to its knees". PC World. Archived from the original on 28 November 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  4. East, Tom (3 June 2009). "E3: Nintendo Release Monado Wii Trailer". Official Nintendo Magazine. Archived from the original on 7 June 2009. Retrieved 9 April 2010.
  5. Kohler, Chris (29 January 2010). "Nintendo To Publish The Last Story, Mistwalker RPG". Wired. Archived from the original on 19 May 2015. Retrieved 29 January 2010.
  6. "Sakaguchi's Last Story". Computer and Video Games. 20 February 2012. Archived from the original on 21 February 2012. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
  7. Gifford, Kevin (5 January 2011). "Hironobu Sakaguchi Reflects on His Last Story". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on 23 November 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
  8. "Iwata Asks: Pandora's Tower for Wii". Nintendo UK. 23 May 2011. Archived from the original on 13 July 2015. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
  9. Yin-Poole, Wesley (20 January 2011). "Why The Last Story is Japan exclusive". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 16 January 2015. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
  10. Ronaghan, Neal (23 June 2011). "Xenoblade Chronicles Not Coming to North America". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on 2 February 2016. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  11. Sterling, Jim (24 June 2011). "Letter writing campaign for Last Story, Pandora's Tower". Destructoid. Archived from the original on 17 June 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  12. Holmes, Jonathan (26 June 2011). "Fans bring Xenoblade to #1 on Amazon, internet goes wild". Destructoid. Archived from the original on 1 February 2016. Retrieved 22 January 2014.
  13. Max, Josh (12 August 2011). "Operation Rainfall Enters Phase Two". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on 29 November 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  14. Sterling, Jim (24 January 2012). "Operation Rainfall regroups, focuses on The Last Story". Destructoid. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  15. Zeidler, Brett (22 April 2012). "Operation Rainfall to pitch Pandora's Tower to publishers". Destructoid. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
  16. Lopex, Jacob (8 June 2012). "The Last Story developer talks Operation Rainfall, reason for cover system, and Wii U". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on 19 June 2015. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
  17. Carmichael, Stephanie (16 January 2013). "Xseed completes Operation Rainfall trilogy with Pandora's Tower this spring (updated)". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on 5 October 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  18. "Oprainfall / About". Oprainfall. Archived from the original on 21 October 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  19. Khan, Zarmena (17 October 2015). "XSEED Vice President Talks Video Game Censorship, Says Platform Holders Don't Accept Adult-Only Games". PlayStation Lifestyle. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  20. George, Richard (25 June 2011). "Nintendo Fans Campaign for Missing Wii Games". IGN. Archived from the original on 30 May 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  21. Dutton, Fred (24 June 2011). "Fans spam Nintendo for Last Story release". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 14 January 2016. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  22. Gudmundson, Carolyn (27 July 2011). "Join Operation Rainfall to help get Wii JRPGs localized". GamesRadar. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  23. Fletcher, JC (27 June 2011). "'Operation Rainfall' campaign seeks localization of Wii RPGs". Joystiq. Archived from the original on 26 August 2011. Retrieved 11 July 2011.
  24. Kollar, Phil (25 June 2011). "Join The Fight To Bring Some Good RPGs To The Wii". Game Informer. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  25. 北米でも発売してくれ！海外版『ゼノブレイド』発売未定にも関わらず米アマゾンのNo.1ベストセラーに (in Japanese). Inside Games. 27 June 2011. Archived from the original on 29 June 2011. Retrieved 27 June 2011.
  26. ぼくらは「ゼノブレイド」が遊びたいんだ！海外のJRPGファンが「オペレーション・レインフォール」を開始. ITMedia. 29 June 2016. Archived from the original on 28 April 2015. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  27. Kaplan, Zack (2 July 2011). "Talking Point: The Growing Storm of Operation Rainfall". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on 15 May 2012. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  28. Whitehead, Thomas (14 April 2012). "Feature: The Odd One Out in Operation Rainfall". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  29. Pereira, Chris (29 June 2011). "Xenoblade, Pandora's Tower, Last Story Still Not Planned for U.S. Release". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on 1 February 2016. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  30. Ward, Roberd (4 December 2013). "Nintendo's Reggie Talks Wii U, Western Development And Operation Rainfall". Siliconera. Archived from the original on 26 November 2015. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  31. Schreier, Jason (15 June 2012). "The Surprisingly Simple Story Behind What Might Be The Last Great Wii Game". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 11 September 2015. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
  32. "Xseed Games Announces Pandora's Tower for Spring 2013 Release". Xseed Games. 16 January 2013. Archived from the original on 8 December 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
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