Si è parlato spesso di Console
Wars, affrontando the historical-cultural aspect of the video game understood as a new reference medium among
young people, and not only them, starting from the Seventies up to the modern
era, dominated by stratospheric giants worshipped on the altars of franchises,
the new untouchable temples. Some time ago, I had mentioned a discussion as
interesting as it is complex, regarding how the change in a console’s distribution and the related video games
associated with it, for example in Italy, for example in the golden age of the consoles
of the last fifteen years of the previous millennium, affects on a
collecting level and the changing value of a title.
Inevitably, then, let’s talk about the most famous video game Civil War of all time, at least in our country, which saw, on one side, our own GIG and, on the opposite side, Mattel, the American giant that yielded to the former, radically changing the landscape up to that point and leaving behind consequences whose echoes we still hear today. It wasn’t really a war, in fact, because there was a collaboration underway between them, but somehow something happened.
Let's broaden our horizons for a moment and make a brief premise: Mattel and Gig represented in those years the very best of toy production and distribution, but the video game market was in clear expansion (crisis or no crisis, that is the truth) and only one step was missing to take it to the next level: the paradigm shift from toy to new reference medium, a cultural tool and means of communication. GIG specialized in importing foreign products and intellectual properties into Italy, consequently the partnership with Mattel allowed Italian gamers to get their hands on the NES (not the only console, but the one that best represents the generational watershed), presented to the general public, not only children therefore but also and above all teenagers and adults, with targeted marketing strategies; after all, GIG certainly knew how to move in this field.
GIG and Mattel “worked”
together because they divided up the tasks, the former handling the distribution side and the care taken in localizing titles and the manuals (which, as we will see, would become a benchmark for collectors and a real boost to the intrinsic value of the product)
as well as an area that made all the difference in the world in the Italian context, namely technical support
for Nintendo products, advertised in magazines and on the pages of the manuals
included in the game packaging, while Mattel, bolstered by resources and
legendary research and development departments, was responsible for developing and
creating games, in essence.
Perché did we speak at the beginning
of war between GIG and Mattel, then? The issue is tied with very tight knots
to the titles that, when Mattel gradually withdrew from the Italian market
(it is not an official withdrawal from Italy as one is often led to
believe, incorrectly, but rather a long-term Mattel choice in which it
ceded greater decision-making powers to GIG, let’s put it that way), became
officially GIG labeled, drawing
a deep divide between those that came before and those that would come
after.
Even if you are not collectors, I am sure you will understand the enormity of such an event: searching for a title marked GIG rather than another distributed directly by Mattel “at the time” allows for different valuations that take into account not only the year of distribution, but also emotional parameters not to be underestimated, indeed.
Being GIG the official Italian distributor, it goes without saying that products bearing this brand constitute a true treasure for collectors, just think that the issue does not concern only the dear old NES; moreover, as I mentioned a little while ago, the nostalgic element comes into play, intimately connected to childhood or adolescence and especially at a historical moment when finding titles that were already limited in circulation back then: the chance to finally find, buy, and own them after so much time is the equivalent of a time travel, a return to the past and to what we felt, heart and soul, that no DeLorean could ever give back to us.
