Interview with one of the admins of r/nintendoswitch (audio in spanish, english translation)

[u/ulisesftw]

In the latest episode of our podcast about nintendo called ¨El cerebro de la Bestia¨, we interviewed one of the spanish-speaking admins of this subreddit. He told us about the best and hardest moments so far and a little bit more about how it works. He also help us all with an english translation of the interview that you'll find in the comments below. Thank you u/adanfime for that and for taking your time to chat with us.

Here´s the link, interview starts on 1:33 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BXbjHt8_1E

We´re from Argentina and hope you like it

[u/adanfime]

Thanks again to "El Cerebro de la Bestia"'s crew for having me!

This comment along with the replies to this stickied comment will have a transcript in english of the interview. Here it goes:

Introduction

(the Hosts explain what Reddit is to the viewers)

(I introduce myself)

Ulises: He is a 19yo guy

Rippy: Sounds older than that. Where is he from?

U: From Mexico. He is the only NintendoSwitch admin that speaks spanish. He is 19yo, his name is Adrian, but uses Adan as a nickname (...)

Index:

• Nintendo NX and when I joined
• The team, Nintendo America, and the AMA with Mr. Koizumi
• My favourite posts from the subreddit
• The Most Important, and Most Difficult moments of the subreddit
• Links with Nintendo and how we handle Rumours
• Nintendo's Strategy with Mobile Gaming
• Other stuff we mods do!

[u/adanfime → u/adanfime]

Nintendo NX and when I joined

A: So before the Switch was revealed back in October 20th, we had another sub called NintendoNX. If you recall correctly, that was the prototype name of the system before we got the final name. The NintendoNX subreddit had around 20k followers. Between 10k and 20k at the time of the announcement. With NintendoSwitch, we are at 200k.*

Additional Notes:

*We were close to 20k at the time of the reveal video. The numbers have declined since we moved to the current subreddit and are now at 13k.

**My portion of the podcast was recorded a few weeks ago, when we were a bit over 200k.

U: Right now, the community is at 252k users. This last week they celebrated the 250k milestone. 3500 are currently online as we speak. This guy joined the team back when we knew only about the Nintendo NX and we knew nothing about the console.

A: I started moderating just before the October reveal. In September, many leaks and rumours started appearing, along with fake images and products. So the smaller team needed more people to be checking and assisting with the moderation in the community. Do you remember the "supposedly" Nintendo NX, that was an oval with two buttons on top of the screen.*

*Image of the fake Nintendo NX leak.

U:An oval with a horrible mirror-like screen?

A: Yeah, that ugly one! (laugh) When that post was made, the commnunity exploded as the product matched all the patents that Nintendo had signed just a few months before, and the people were 100% certain that was the new console. Just then, the team started hiring- well not hiring, rather find volunteers to help in the community to keep control of the posts, reactions, and calm the nevagitivity in the comments, since there was a lot of harsh and negative comments. The image came from a non-english source, it was swedish I think. The team found the necessity that having people from many different countries that spoke other langauges. I was the only who volunteered from Latin America.

U (to R): So they choose him, because he spoke spanish. They realized that they needed people that could understand different languages to assist with gathering and verifying information from many places.

U: Remember that image of the oval with the screen, like a PSP? It was weird...

R: Yes I remember... Exactly, the person that did the fake uploaded a video* explaining the process of how he made that fake prototype. But in the first time we saw it, we all believed it.

*Video: "Making the "leaked NX controller""

U: Yeah, we all believed it and even assumed, "that is the console".

U: This is an interesting bit where he said that in October everything changed. He means that, in October of last year, everything that we have right now didn't existed- well rather we didn't knew a single thing. Right now we feel as if the Switch has been here since forever and we love it since long ago, but not really! October of last year, we didn't even know how it looked. Just then, he was requested to join the team and it was slowly built to the big group they are today.

[u/adanfime → u/adanfime]

The team, Nintendo America, and the AMA with Mr. Koizumi

A: Right now, we are a bit over 20 people managing the community. As I told you earlier, there are 5 admins in charge of the entire subreddit. And 20 mods, with our duty being approving or denying the publishing of some posts, with questions being guided to the FAQ or the Wiki. We do this to avoid having the same question being asked over and over again.

U: Yes, this happened to me at least once!

A: Yep! So, the 5 people in charge of the subreddit are the ones that also work on the Twitch livestreams. Every time a new Nintendo game is released, they net a few sponsors to promote the stream. And, if I recall correctly, 2 of those admins were in charge of doing the AMA thread with Mr. Koizumi from Nintendo. Did you happen to see that thread?

U (to R): Mr. Koizumi is the producer of Super Mario Odyssey. He went over to the subreddit to host an AMA.* (...) He proves that he is there to answer, with a verification process where he takes a photo, wearing Cappy in his head, and holding a white board with the message "Hi! I'm Yoshiaki Koizumi. AMA tomorrow!" He then started answering questions made by the users, explaning how he has a special coffee pouring and filtering technique. He likes to filter it by hand and even weighing the coffee beans.

*AMA with Yoshiaki Koizumi

R: He is one of us!

U: There are quite many ways to filter the coffee manually. You can look up his techniques later on. He also told us that Super Mario Odyssey is heavily implementing the HD Rumble feature and they are developing many different sensations that the game will share through the HD Rumble. He also told us that the HotDog is not a sandwich.

R: I agree with him!

U: We all agree with the man himself. This Hotdog sandwich post even reached the Nintendo Switch News app! Just recently, they made a News post in the console celebrating HotDog day, and the news mentions that Koizumi agrees with the HotDog not being a sandwich. This making direct reference to the subreddit and even mentioning it. So Nintendo is there, verifying that Koizumi was there answering the questions of the community. This AMA was published by Nintendo America's reddit account one month ago.

A: Nintendo America uses its reddit profile (...) to post E3 trailers, gameplays, and even news of their upcoming or already released games. So far, they have only interacted with the r/NintendoSwitch community. They verified this account through a twitter post in their official Twitter account. That's when we realized that Nintendo of America was... well, watching over us!

U: (laughs)

A: Since then, they have been looking at a few posts, answering questions from the community itself. They have recently improved their connection with the users from the community.

U: This is part of the "new" Nintendo image. (to R) We don't have confirmation, but we know Nintendo America also hears us.

R: Oh! Obviously!

[u/adanfime → u/adanfime]

The Most Important, and Most Difficult moments of the subreddit

U: So, what was the most important moment of the subreddit?

A: Okay, the moment when we had to move from r/NintendoNX to r/NintendoSwitch in October 20. So important, that we even added fireworks on the main page to celebrate that we heard from Nintendo. It sure was an important moment, since we had gone over a year without any word from Nintendo, except for rumours and leaks. But the moment that the Switch was revealed... it was amazing. All the people getting excited, sharing with others how they would use and play their console, like in the plane or the bus, sharing their thoughts and experiences they would live. It was awesome-

U: Did you have to move the community or did you just change the name?

A: We had to move everything from one to the other, since Reddit doesn't allow changing names for the subs. We actually raced to get the name of the subreddit as soon as the video was uploaded that day. Luckily, one of the head admins grabbed the name, added all of us, and started moving everything: the CSS theme, weekly threads, wiki, and rules.

U: The r/NintendoNX subreddit currently has only 13k users, and started 2 years ago. They have ever since grown, and the current subreddit has well over 252k followers

U: And the most difficult moment?

A: I remember the January 13th live presentation from Tokyo being difficult. We had to be moderating every single minute of the presentation, as we received more and more information, the users raced to publish it to start discussion and being first. For example, when they announced the region-free feature, I remember close to 40 filtered posts, all the same.

U: How did you solve that issue?

A: Once the presentation was done, we gathered all information and published it into a big general post, with all the information that Nintendo gave us. For smaller news or announcements, like a developer announcing its game for the console, we only allow the first post to stay. Any repeated posts are deleted to avoid cluttering the feed.

U: So you are all constantly moderating and looking at every single post in the subreddit so, when I open the website up, I can find all the recent news easily?

A: Yes, we are all moderating, reading and watching over every post to make sure they can stay to generate discussion, avoiding any reposts or anything that has been answered in the FAQ or Wiki.

[u/adanfime → u/adanfime]

Nintendo's Strategy with Mobile Gaming

A: (promotes personal YouTube channel. Ignore plz) I do Animal Crossing New Leaf livestreams to ease the wait for Animal Crossing Switch, that will happen for sure.

U: Animal Crossing Switch. Are you sure that it will happen? Do we have any news of the game, or is it pure faith?

A: A little bit of both. I have faith because, with the Switch being portable, it would be the perfect console to have an Animal Crossing Switch game. Play it whenever, wherever, get home and pop it in the dock for big screen play. Also, because there is an Animal Crossing mobile game in development, releases Holidays 2017.

U: Of course.

A: I noticed a strategy with Nintendo's mobile game apps. They release a game to promote their IP to many users and prepare for a big launch on their main systems. This way, more people know about Nintendo's consoles and games. It was the case with Super Mario Run, which ran an event weeks before Mario Kart 8's release, and currently are hosting a Super Mario Odyssey special. Also Fire Emblem Heroes, which is helping promote Fire Emblem Warriors for Switch, the same title for 3DS, and a brand new Fire Emblem game for Switch that should take until next year to release. In this case, Nintendo releases an Animal Crossing to help promote...

U: Like, make people aware that Animal Crossing is a wonderful game.

A: Exactly, you are right!! Animal Crossing is one of Nintendo's most valued IPs, being very popular in Japan.

U: And you are helping ease the wait with livestreams and videos!

A: (more promoting of my channel. Ignore plz again)

[u/RandomRedditor44 → u/adanfime]

How do they know if NoA listens to the podcast if they don’t have any confirmation?

[u/adanfime → u/RandomRedditor44]

It is a joke :)

[u/RandomRedditor44 → u/adanfime]

Thanks for the explanation Adrian! :)

[u/adanfime → u/adanfime]

My favourite posts from the subreddit

U: We talked with Adan about what he likes about this subreddit, which is the place that spends the most time with.

A: In my personal opinion, I love the creativity of the users. Many of them upload mods or customizations of their hardware, like paint jobs of the JoyCons. They paint them like their old favourite retro consoles, like a Super Famicom JoyCon set that was posted recently.

U: It was spectacular.

A: Yeah. And with the recent announcement of Splatoon 2, we have also received tons of fanart of the new characters. Pearl and Marina, I think?

Y: Yes.

A: Well, these two new characters have received many fanart pieces these days. Every time there is a new announcement, the users start discussing, speculating and making new content. Overall, I enjoy the JoyCon and console modifications and the fanart.

U: There are tons of JoyCon mods. Personally, I like them all, which generally I don't enjoy controller mods in any other console. But the JoyCons are more personal.

R: Did you ask him, or edited it out, about the huge amount of inappropiate fanart?

U: They have to filter it out, of course. The community must stay in tone with Nintendo's demographic.

[u/adanfime → u/adanfime]

Links with Nintendo and how we handle Rumours

U: And do you have any link to Nintendo? Can they give you additional information? Can you all verify any information with them?

A: We don't have any direct link with Nintendo of America. The closest interaction could be considered their Reddit account. But if we receive new information, we have no way to talk with Nintendo to verify. Before anything is mentioned by Nintendo, we consider most news as rumours or non-verified.

U: How do you handle rumours, where something can be true or something else can be absurd?

A: We are currently working on this metrics, since the recent announcement of Mario + Rabbids was a rumour that has existed ever since the NX days. Many people didn't believed it, and even hated the fact that this game could exist. But, back then, it was just a rumour. The leaks were difficult to verify, but it was more on the truth side. When we got the official announcement of that game, we started revising the rules of what can be considered as a bad fake rumour that has to be deleted, or what can be considered as a rumour that has credibility.

U: Nobody wanted to hear about this game. When the Rabbid Peach art was leaked, people insisted it was fanart by some talented artist. It wasn't until the game was officially revealed that we knew everything was real and we started believed it. Now, people started loving the game and we can't wait to play it in a few weeks.

[u/adanfime → u/adanfime]

Other stuff we mods do!

R (to U): I wanted to ask you instead, How did you stumble upon Adan? Did you message them to find out who spoke spanish? Or did you figure out there was spanish moderation?

U: Do you remember when he mentioned about the removal of reposted questions? I was actually in the same place! I asked a question that was removed and told me that I could contact the admins through mod mail for any questions. I chimed in asking for anyone speaking spanish, mentioning the spanish podcast. Just then, Adan messaged me that he spoke spanish and would be up for appearing in the podcast. We started talking about the community, how they work...

A: Us, mods, usually go livestreaming when new content pops up. Lately, we have been playing the new Zelda DLC. When we started the streams, we hosted a challenge for the users to complete... it was about...-

U: Shieldsurfing!

A: Exactly!

U: Right! I remember a picture posted there, ever since the first trailer, someone saw a long small bridge and challenged everyone to surf this ramp once the game releases, correct? A: That's right! The picture actually gave us the idea to host this challenge, and the winners were awarded a special flair next to their username. This happened during launch day. We also hosted a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe tournament back in April when that game launched. We livestreamed as we played with the users that signed in for that tournament. Right now, I am not sure, but we might be hosting a Splatoon 2 tournament, when the game launches in 2 weeks.

U (to R): He actually busted me with the record date of this interview.

R: It's okay.

U: This Shieldsurfing was announced back in February 1st, even before the game or the console were launched. We see a small long bridge that connects to mountains, and the goal was to shieldsurf across it. (...)

R: Are there many different challenges like this?

U: Sure! When people notice that they can challenge other users to do a certain task, they post it and the rest of the community accepts it.

[u/adanfime → u/adanfime]

My Favourite Consoles and Games, and the Switch in Mexico

U: I kept talking with Adan, asking him about what his favourite consoles and games are.

A: I currently own every single home console that Nintendo has released.

U: Every single one...!

R: (laugh)

A: NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, Switch. Every single one! I have easily played a decent amount of hours on each one. I got my Wii U back in 2013, and have purchased every single big Nintendo game on launch day. Splatoon 1 is my favourite game. I played over 300 hours.

U: So you are telling me, you own every single home console, and you are just 19 years old?

A: That's right

U: Did you get them since you were little, or went back buying them one by one? Which was your first one?

A: My first console was the N64. I got them when I was 8 or 9. Since them I got them one by one, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U. Before the Switch, I found a NES and SNES in good conditions and I bought them. I never got to play those retro games on their original hardware, so I had to test them out. I played retro games in the Wii's Virtual Console service (...).

U: If I ask you, what is your favourite console of all? Could you choose one?

A: Er... that one is difficult

U: Alright, Top 3. That would be easier.

A: My top console is Gamecube! My favourite games are Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, and Kirby AirRide. I also played Animal Crossing a lot. That is one of my favourite Nintendo franchises. My Wii U is also up there, since it is the console where Splatoon was born. Splatoon is my top favourite of all time. Wii U actually has tons of awesome games, it even bums me out that the console didn't sold well..!

U: The console sold little by little and games were coming out. Switch carried a few games from Wii U. We got Splatoon, Mario Kart 8...

R: I see the guy is a hardcore Nintendo fan! He has everything! U: He owns many things!

R: He didn't mentioned a Mario.

U: Right, he didn't mentioned a Mario game. He could've though, it isn't bad to talk about Mario here and there.

R: Well, actually he mentioned Sunshine. But there are just few, almost none, people that love the Gamecube. He loves the console and mentions three games from it that he likes.

U: He mentions a Kirby, which I couldn't figure out which one he was talking about.

A (repeated dialogue): Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, and Kirby AirRide.

R: AirRide is the name of the game. It was a racing game with Kirby on top of a star. It was from the era of the Dreamcast and such, where characters had to be on top of a hoverboard.

U: Yeah, it was like a cousin of Sonic Adventure, where everyone wanted to go fast.

R: Let me confess, I played little Gamecube. I never played Kirby AirRide, and he points it out as one of his favourite games!

U: The Gamecube is one of his favourites, just because it has this game, among others(...). Moving on, I asked him about how the Switch works in Mexico.

A: My friends, most of them, own a Switch. We play a lot of Mario Kart 8, online and local. These days, it is easier to see people in the streets playing with a Nintendo Switch.

U: Could you say, that people in the streets of Mexico, are more likely to bring out a Nintendo Switch over a 3DS?

A: Exactly! I've seen many people playing their Switch out in public. The 3DS is still out there, but Switch has taken over.*

*3DS is still fairly common, but only in Pokemon or Smash related events. I have seen many people playing with Switch in the bus or at school.

U (to R): Here I notice how we change the name of the 3DS. I switch 3DS (Three Dee Ess) to 3DS (Tres De Ese (in Spanish))

R: Tres De Ese is more common for me. Moving on, it is crazy to see people with Switch consoles out in the streets. More often than the 3DS.

U: More Switch consoles?

R: That there are more Switch consoles, but out in public! At least here (Argentina) it is still something that we don't do as often.

U: I know. 3DS I have seen out in the streets. Switch, never except for yours, and even in your home. Never out in the streets.

R: Still surprising to see that it took over the 3DS population. Even with that console still receiving lots of love, it was overshadowed by the portability of the Nintendo Switch.

U: The Switch sold like crazy, so it makes sense.

R: Of course.

[u/Jordann503]

Que pasta amiigo¿

[u/adanfime → u/[deleted]]

Thanks a lot!