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DefineStatutory
June 26, 2009 3:39 PM
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I'm in no way blaming the OP on this one, because I think its sort of cool that they got things fixed, but wow..that's a lot of time and effort.

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jesspark
June 26, 2009 5:19 PM
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@DefineStatutory: You say that like it's a bad thing. ;)

I had the time, writing emails isn't an effort for me, and it paid off in the end -- I don't see that as a negative.

What would you have done in a similar situation?

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Cyberxion101
June 26, 2009 7:15 PM
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@jesspark: Well done Jess. Good on you for sticking with this through to the end.

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jesspark
June 27, 2009 11:10 AM
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@Cyberxion101, @LadySiren: Thanks! :) It may have taken longer than I'd liked to get someone's attention, but, once that happened, I was really happy with the response.

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LadySiren is murdering her kids with HFCS and processed cheese
June 26, 2009 8:11 PM
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@Cyberxion101: Yup, way to go! Nintendo seems to have eased up on the way they used to rule their game devs. They used to exercise an *extreme* amount of control over even the slightest details, which was a PITA. Maybe they've gotten too lax? In any case, great job.

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Bob_Mackey
June 26, 2009 6:33 PM
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@jesspark: My initial thought after reading this story was \"this person likes dolphins wayyy too much.\" But somehow, in a contradictory way, your Batsu-Ichi avatar makes it all better.

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jesspark
June 26, 2009 6:46 PM
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@Bob_Mackey: I worked with real dolphins and other marine mammals at a well-known theme park and have memories both good and not-so-good of the slippery devils, so I have kind of a love/hate relationship with them. ;) Beautiful animals, but don't believe the PR.

That being said, I'm a total sucker for video games about or featuring dolphins. \"Ecco the Dolphin\"? I own every title in that series, spanning multiple consoles. \"Endless Ocean\"? My love for that game is unhealthy. \"Aquanaut's Holiday: Hidden Memories\"? It's on its way to me from Hong Kong right now. I even have \"Petz Wild Animals: Dolphinz\" for the DS, which was more entertaining than a video game ending in \"z\" has any right to be. So, when my husband saw \"Discovery Kids: Dolphin Discovery,\" he knew it had to be added to the collection.

Somewhat relatedly: I wish Batsu-Ichi was a real Sanrio character. I would buy a plush dolphin wearing a taco-stained wifebeater in a second! :D

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BigFoot_Pete
June 26, 2009 3:39 PM
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FTW?

I'm sorry, the game looks rather lame either way, but it's nice to hear about a customer win now and again.

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SybilDisobedience
June 26, 2009 4:07 PM
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@BigFoot_Pete: Eh; different strokes for different folks. I'm embarrassingly too old for Oregon Trail, but I still play it every once in a while. It's embarrassing (and my friends love to tease me for my dorkiness), but little sim games are fun for me. Plus, seeing \"Quentin Q. Dorkus\" die of diphtheria halfway through Colorado cracks me up.

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BigFoot_Pete
June 26, 2009 5:15 PM
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@SybilDisobedience:
For sure. I too have my throwback passions, and just because they aren't for everyone doesn't mean I find them any less fulfilling.

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Cyberxion101
June 26, 2009 7:23 PM
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@BigFoot_Pete: I wish I could say that. I always hide my passions every time I'm a social setting. Can't let people know that I like Manga at 30! :P

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jesspark
June 26, 2009 3:57 PM
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@BigFoot_Pete: Keep in mind that I have a shameless love for cheesy pet sims, though -- and the actual game that was advertised, \"My Pet Dolphin,\" is pretty adorable. :) I used to work with real dolphins and I was pleasantly surprised that the developers of \"My Pet Dolphin\" attempted to inject some positive reinforcement training concepts into the game. That was more than I was expecting!

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BigFoot_Pete
June 26, 2009 5:13 PM
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@jesspark:
I'll give you that there is clearly a target audience that I am not a part of with that particular game. That being said, I can see how this would be, given your description, a very interesting, and possibly therapeutic, game for some.

I'll repeat that it is nice to see your efforts get the results and my hat is off to you for helping protect other consumers form the same ill fate. Thanks for sharing the story and the results with us.

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Raekwon
June 26, 2009 3:40 PM
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I don't want to blame the OP but she totally missed the opportunity to include the following pun,

\"...they've already changed the text and screenshots on the DiscoveryKidsGames.com website to reflect the true PORPOISE of \"Discovery Kids: Dolphin Discovery,\"\"

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jesspark
June 27, 2009 11:13 AM
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@Raekwon: How did you miss participating in this thread from the original post on this story? ;D The puns, they are endless!

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WiglyWorm must cease and decist
June 26, 2009 3:55 PM
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I would have taken nintendo's money. They have enough of it.

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ludwigk
June 26, 2009 5:38 PM
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@WiglyWorm: Nintendo actually has phenomenal customer service. If you contact them for almost any reason, they will \"make it right\" in a hurry. Most consumers don't even get a chance to discover this because their hardware is already bulletproof, and their first party games are thoroughly QA'd.

I'd bet money that this would have been resolved to OPs satisfaction after the initial \"you won't received a response\" without further pressing, although we could only determine this using dimensional travel of some sort.

I had an issue with an out of warranty DS Lite, and my Wii Component cable. After submitting tickets, both were quickly and efficiently fixed with pre-paid mailers sent to me, and replacement/fixed/refurbished/whatever products sent back to me doubletime. It was a class act from start to finish.

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Zorantor
June 27, 2009 6:29 AM
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@ludwigk: No kidding. Nintendo's customer service is absolutely top-notch.

I know someone who had a Japanese DS Lite break while they were living in the United States. NOA said that even though don't normally service hardware from other regions, he'd see what he could do and took down my friend's info. Nintendo got back to him a couple days later and offered to send him a refurbished American DS Lite at no charge. Which is ridiculous.

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Burzmali
June 26, 2009 3:57 PM
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To be fair to Nintendo, they don't see copies of the box art or information when they approve a game for publishing. They only see the game itself and instruction booklet. Maybe they need to add box art and info to their submission materials, though.

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dragonfire81
June 26, 2009 4:03 PM
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My only problem with this is that the companies were apparently willing to do little to fix the problem until OP rated them badly on one of those almighty CSAT surveys.

I shouldn't have to fill out a damned survey to get proper service.

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Cyberxion101
June 26, 2009 7:28 PM
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@dragonfire81: Nintendo really didn't have much of a hand in this muck-up, so to my mind, anything that the company did before or after the survey was above and beyond what they were obligated to do.

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kaceetheconsumer
June 26, 2009 4:06 PM
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I'm glad the resolution was a good one, but it does make me worry about buying Nintendo products myself. We have a Wii and haven't bought any games for it yet other than Fit, which was our primary reason for getting it. But I'm waiting on little-kid-appropriate games to come out for my 3.5 year old, and reading this story makes me concerned that even if I check up on websites about a game, I still might end up with something different and have a screaming kid on my hands.

Because if I'd bought a game that supposedly allowed training of a dolphin sim for my daughter and then it didn't have that on there, she'd be in a severe tantrum and no amount of company apologies can cure my headache after that!

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Anonymous
June 26, 2009 6:51 PM
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@kaceetheconsumer: I've got a 4-year-old who's been playing Wii games for a year now. Boom Blox and Mario Kart are both good options, intuitive enough for kids to play but still fun for adults. My son is not all that good at either game, but he can play them at least competently enough that he enjoys them, and they're multiplayer, so we can play together.

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Cyberxion101
June 26, 2009 7:29 PM
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@lannister80: Rentals would be just as reasonable a suggestion. ;)

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Thanatos
June 26, 2009 5:06 PM
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@lannister80: *cough* there still is the problem of getting the softmod *cough* installed and getting the game ISOs *cough* which is a little too much for the average person *cough*

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Thanatos
June 26, 2009 4:40 PM
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@kaceetheconsumer: Well i dont know about kids games but alot of what happens sometimes is the promo material will feature screenshot and other things from when the game was early in development but having the promo material from the wrong game is surprising.

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Raekwon
June 26, 2009 4:14 PM
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@kaceetheconsumer: The chance of something like this happening is extremely small. Unfortunately it happens slightly more often with these sorts of games because they are what the industry calls \"shovelware\" which means the companies just \"shovel\" them out the door without much quality control. However I would bet you will not have an experience like the OP because it is so rare.

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EinhornIsAMan!
June 26, 2009 4:29 PM
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@BigFoot_Pete: Does anyone remember the old, old, old PC game Mario is Missing? Man I played that until we finally got rid of our old, crappy computer in 2000

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ludwigk
June 26, 2009 4:47 PM
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\"Nintendo itself evidently didn't play much of a role in this situation (other than slapping their \"Official Nintendo Seal\" on the game and distributing it)\"

The Nintendo Seal has more to do with licensing and branding now, but I can tell you from first hand experience that Nintendo takes game quality testing more seriously than any other console manufacturer.

This has more to do with continuity of the gaming experience, making sure that the game loads properly, and uses the correct conventions for directing the player, saving game data, using network features, etc. etc. It takes almost twice as long to get a game through to a Nintendo console than the other two major brands. This, of course, only ensures that the game plays properly on the hardware, not that the packaging matches the game contents or what have you.

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digitalskyfire
June 26, 2009 5:56 PM
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@ludwigk: Did you manage to type that with a straight face? Nintendo systems have worn the American Shovelware Crown for two conolse cycles, now.

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Megalomania
June 26, 2009 8:33 PM
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@digitalskyfire: Yes, the lower age group targeted by Nintendo leads to a lot of games that are - quite frankly - crap, but they aren't glitchy. Ever played Oblivion on a console (or PC, but at least you have the console there)? There are like 15 different places where that came can just fucking break and there's nothing you can do about it. Nintendo makes sure that the games work - whether or not they are worth playing, they couldn't care less since they (rightfully) don't decide what you want to do.

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Cyberxion101
June 26, 2009 7:35 PM
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@digitalskyfire: Well, your silly display of bias better left to Kotaku aside, what's good for the goose aint always good for the gander.


For example, I hate Carnival Games with a passion, and yet my aunt and uncle enjoy it quite a bit. By my standards it's a poorly conceived piece of shit, but by theirs, it's a good game. Who is right or wrong? Neither, by our own wholly subjective standards. To each their own, right?


What I'm getting at is that your trash is another man's treasure, so citing \"shovelware\" in order to cast doubt on Nintendo's quality control measures is a little silly, not to mention completely pointless.

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supercereal
June 26, 2009 7:59 PM
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@Cyberxion101: With the exception of the Virtual Boy, I've owned every Nintendo system out there. I'm a huge fan of all their franchises, so I suppose I'm about as fanboyish as you can get.

That said, you're out of your mind if you don't think the Wii and DS are shovelware magnets. The epic levels of redundant, meaningless, short-sighted garbage on these systems in unfathomable. Of course, That's not to say there aren't great games on them, though.

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Alarmpro
June 26, 2009 5:44 PM
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Congrats on reeling in the victory Jess. It's about time someone got those corporate whales to listen. This just goes to show that diving deep will net the results you're fishing for.

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grandzu
June 26, 2009 6:17 PM
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Damn.
Wrap
It
Up.

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dimndgal1
June 26, 2009 7:04 PM
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That is amazing!
Everyone may say \"it's just a dolphin game\" but that's not the point. If it was Guitar Hero or Zelda, people would be up in arms about anything misleading, so I don't understand why because it's this game, it should make a difference.

I think it's great you took time and effort and successful. I have always had good customer service from Nintendo, even if it takes a few tries to get to someone who can help, and I'm glad they worked to resolve this situation!

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jesspark
June 27, 2009 11:18 AM
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@dimndgal1, @Cyberxion101: Thank you! I know most people roll their eyes at games like \"Discovery Kids: Dolphin Discovery,\" but they're one of my guilty pleasures, and I think they should be held to the same basic standards as other titles. You can argue about the quality of the game-playing experience if you'd like, but the game in the box should match the description on the outside of it, at least!

I figured I'd get ripped a new one by posting about something as silly as dolphin pet sims, but I was hoping people would see the principle behind my concerns. I'm happy to see that a good number of readers understand. :)

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Cyberxion101
June 26, 2009 7:39 PM
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@dimndgal1: That's your average gamer for you. They'll rally to a cause if it's a game that they care about, but anything else is just superfluous, even if the circumcstances are exactly the same.


Now I enjoy playing games, and have since I was little, but I just can't come to terms with the average gamer's behavior. Cognative dissonance is a huge issue with them. If it doesn't effect them directly, they couldn't care less about most stuff. I think the anonymity of the internet and the freedom from responsibility it brings only exacerbates the problem.

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midniteslayr
June 26, 2009 8:45 PM
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You should have asked that they donate the refund on your behalf to Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity. Same with 505 Games. If they are offering you games for free and you don't want them, there are kids that will gladly accept them. This is one thing that could have made you look fantastic, make you feel fantastic, and you would have helped make fantastic press for the companies involved. A massive win for everyone!

Check it out: [www.childsplaycharity.org]

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HogwartsAlum
June 26, 2009 9:23 PM
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Great job, Jess. It's good when companies make it right for everyone.

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Sarah Black
June 26, 2009 10:49 PM
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Hey again Jess! Im glad you pushed through and got this worked out. I know that when I was looking to help you out in listing games, I too became confused very easily - even more-so after visiting the page for \"My Pet Dolphin 1 \" & \"\"My Pet Dolphin 2\", and seeing \"Dolphin Discovery\" instead. Then running through to find \"Dolphin Island\" and being shown pictures for \"Petz Wild Animals - Dolphinz\" instead. BAHHH! Confusion is happening, and I haven't even mentioned \"Dolphin Trainer\" yet!! (All titles for the NDS systems)

BTW, I found the Foster's Home Ring-Tone you & McGee mentioned. Thanks for the tip!

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