@@neilrunyon3391 I looked it up, too. But, I don't think that house is there anymore. Normally houses are in numerical order, and the houses that appear there on Google Maps are 3660, empty lot, 3668. In my experience, as a previous Delivery Driver, odd house numbers are on one side, and even house numbers are on the other side. So, I think it may be gone, now.
Funny how often Craig got calls about Zelda 2. That game is quite difficult to navigate. It's very impressive how he was just rattling off all the information off the top of his head while also playing Milon's Secret Castle on the side.
@@vampirerobot do you have anything about the Sega Genesis channel that used to be around back in those days? A lot of people don't know what I'm talking about but there was a Sega channel and they would have different games each month and you could try new games and it was awesome back then
I think I spoke with Craig. Called back in 87 or 88 about getting through early section on Bomberman. Smart guy but not good for $$ for nintendo, he was too smart and answered immediately. The lady probably ended up charging the kid 5x as much while she fumble through the manuals lol
I did this job back in 1990-1991. It was pretty fun. I did a TH-cam video last year going over two manuals that survived these last 34 years. They are all hand drawn maps, hints, tips, etc. Pretty neat. This was about a year before the SNES launched, so peak NES time. They had Cafe Mario "lunchroom" that was split into two sections. Smoking and non-smoking. Heck, Todd Bergman was my supervisor. I recently saw him in another video recording. I did that Leo D meme pointing at my TV. Haha
Craig is the shit. He’s just rattling off game info while casually playing. We humans are pretty amazing with our abilities to multi task. And the girl in the beginning answering phones was amazing. I couldn’t imagine having to do that all day everyday. But she’s really good at it.
There are a number of interviews with former Nintendo game counselors online and they all said the majority of calls they got were on the same games (Mario, Zelda, Metroid). Every now and then they’d get a call on a more obscure title but those were rare occurrences
Because you are taken back mentally to a more peaceful, video games on the cusp, no cell phones, emergence of the home PC, exciting revolution of the technological time warp.
4-6 weeks to receive your first magazine is a lifetime in today's instant gratification world. BTW: I was alive then and owned the first Nintendo Power. It had the clay looking Mario on the cover. I remember wait times like that, slow world back then.
6:00 “Is your son in the fun club”. .. lol that brings back memories - I was in the fun club and got their free magazine/newsletter for years. It was a bummer when Nintendo Power was announced, as they killed off the free newsletter-and I knew my parents would never pay for a subscription.
Something about this is making me tear up. Idk maybe it was just a simpler time. I'm playing The Legend of Zelda for the first time, and I'm using a guide (as sparingly as I can) and all I can think is how hard and esoteric the game must have felt to people without any kind of outside input. That I can just look up a guide that someone made is so much more convenient but the fact that Nintendo had this kind of support back then just amazes me. Maybe I was just hit with a wave of Nostalgia, maybe there's something about being a kid and playing games and just living in that world where everything felt so fresh and new. The world felt so much smaller then.
Check out Angry Video Game Nerd’s channel on TH-cam. He plays almost ALL of the games for the NES and SNES and does hilarious reviews on how much they sucked! Funny stuff if you aren’t offended by excessive swearing 😂
I remember me and my brother called a lot of video game hotlines one time. My dad eventually received a phone bill of over 300 bucks. He was quite upset of course.
Calling this help line was a long distance call for me as a kid, and I had no idea that it was...as I was a little kid with a phone in his room. Man, when that first phone bill came, my dad took the phone out of my room...haha. This was in a world before Google, or any way to look up walkthroughs or guides. It feels like it is a different planet.
This sort of reminds me how there used to be a Nintendo repair center in Birmingham, AL that I took my nes to back in like 1999. It’s weird because even then the nes was long past its prime, but an actual brick and mortar certified Nintendo only repair center would never exist today.
What a time this was. No instant answers from a google search or spoilers on social media. The kids were all in the dark unless they had a magazine subscription or trustworthy word of mouth at school.
This is AWESOME!! Idk if I could play a game n give tips for another game at the same time. N remembering every little detail in those games. I mean i kno they have their binders to go by but they still know all kinds without having to reference the binders. Would b a pretty cool job tho really. Thanks for this.
there are a few AMAs of people who have done this job and apparently it was just as fun as we all thought it would be as kids. they all seem to have very positive memories of working there and apparently got paid pretty well. they would take up to 20,000 calls a year! they would get 'issued' a NES, an NES advantage (the controller/joystick you see them using) and a gameboy. the most commonly asked questioned games were the Zelda games, of course. and for anyone wondering, the game the male counselor was playing was Milon's Secret Castle and the female was playing The Adventures of Lolo
I used to call in this hotline all the time in that period between 10 and maybe 14 years old around this time, never once did any person had any negative attitude or lack of patience despite my barrage of probably puerile and stupid questions. Always nice and courteous to the nth.
Crazy how Nintendo started way before Microsoft & Sony but yet the Playstation 2 is still the best selling console of all time. It'll be turning 23 years old this fall 🙂
@@metv2363 Hard to live on that , I would imagine. Good job if your going to school , or if you don’t really care about money. But answering phones and providing customer service and providing game support, should have paid better. Thank you for the answer, I knew it would take awhile before I found one. Anything from the 80’s is now like trying to find something from the 50’s and 60’s in the early 2000’s.
@@gamerscubeixxi2152, at the time I could rent a house in Seattle for 400.00 a month. That same house rents for about 3000 a month now. But yeah it was a struggle at the time.
casually puts ladies address on national news
hey leonhart
This is the raw footage they didn't use everything for the news story.
House is still there but definitely looks rundown. I got curious. LOL.
@@neilrunyon3391 I looked it up, too.
But, I don't think that house is there anymore.
Normally houses are in numerical order, and the houses that appear there on Google Maps are 3660, empty lot, 3668.
In my experience, as a previous Delivery Driver, odd house numbers are on one side, and even house numbers are on the other side.
So, I think it may be gone, now.
This was my dream job as a kid. I wanted to work here so badly.
I always wanted a job like the lady at the beginning. Never did get my desk job… 😢
Mine too! I love Nintendo.
Me too
This should've been a tv sitcom
They could still make it if they wanted to
Haha great comment. You’re totally right!
ill make it one day
This footage just made me realize that my job sucks. Now I need to find a way to travel back to 1986 so that I work here!
Funny how often Craig got calls about Zelda 2. That game is quite difficult to navigate. It's very impressive how he was just rattling off all the information off the top of his head while also playing Milon's Secret Castle on the side.
Very difficult. Great comment!
I wonder if Craig is still with us
@@vampirerobot do you have anything about the Sega Genesis channel that used to be around back in those days? A lot of people don't know what I'm talking about but there was a Sega channel and they would have different games each month and you could try new games and it was awesome back then
@@purefoldnz3070 he died on September 11th 2001
Really?
I think I spoke with Craig. Called back in 87 or 88 about getting through early section on Bomberman. Smart guy but not good for $$ for nintendo, he was too smart and answered immediately. The lady probably ended up charging the kid 5x as much while she fumble through the manuals lol
I did this job back in 1990-1991. It was pretty fun. I did a TH-cam video last year going over two manuals that survived these last 34 years. They are all hand drawn maps, hints, tips, etc. Pretty neat. This was about a year before the SNES launched, so peak NES time. They had Cafe Mario "lunchroom" that was split into two sections. Smoking and non-smoking. Heck, Todd Bergman was my supervisor. I recently saw him in another video recording. I did that Leo D meme pointing at my TV. Haha
Definitely something that'd be worth preserving - hell, scanning them and putting them on the Internet Archive.
Craig is the shit. He’s just rattling off game info while casually playing. We humans are pretty amazing with our abilities to multi task. And the girl in the beginning answering phones was amazing. I couldn’t imagine having to do that all day everyday. But she’s really good at it.
There are a number of interviews with former Nintendo game counselors online and they all said the majority of calls they got were on the same games (Mario, Zelda, Metroid). Every now and then they’d get a call on a more obscure title but those were rare occurrences
This is weirdly calming
The 90s were ASMR in itself lol
Because you are taken back mentally to a more peaceful, video games on the cusp, no cell phones, emergence of the home PC, exciting revolution of the technological time warp.
Wow, the infamous 1-900 number my folks would never let me call. What a time. That job would have just been a dream, pre-internet.
These kind of call centers have very high turn over rates. You have to meet quotas and keep callers on for a duration of time or you're canned.
@@Dan-di9jdright. Can’t get to o-town too early.
@@Dan-di9jdyou letting those fellas get to o-town too early. Slow it down.
Powerline to the pros... I always thought this was a scam, but damnng, Craig WAS a freaking PRO!! Wonder if he's still around.
4-6 weeks to receive your first magazine is a lifetime in today's instant gratification world. BTW: I was alive then and owned the first Nintendo Power. It had the clay looking Mario on the cover. I remember wait times like that, slow world back then.
Yep, left you to figure stuff out on your own or; cut your losses and move on to the next game
a better more civil innocent world
"I was alive then...." Sigh
6:00 “Is your son in the fun club”. .. lol that brings back memories - I was in the fun club and got their free magazine/newsletter for years. It was a bummer when Nintendo Power was announced, as they killed off the free newsletter-and I knew my parents would never pay for a subscription.
I used to call Nintendo for help while I worked for Vons in 1990-1991 during a closing shift.😊
They needed about 4 more people to help that lady answer calls
yeah I couldn't imagine doing that solid for 8 hours. I need downtime to watch ladies at Nintendo HQ in 1986 answer phone calls for 8 hours on TH-cam.
Gameplay counselor?! Wow, what a job!
Something about this is making me tear up. Idk maybe it was just a simpler time. I'm playing The Legend of Zelda for the first time, and I'm using a guide (as sparingly as I can) and all I can think is how hard and esoteric the game must have felt to people without any kind of outside input. That I can just look up a guide that someone made is so much more convenient but the fact that Nintendo had this kind of support back then just amazes me. Maybe I was just hit with a wave of Nostalgia, maybe there's something about being a kid and playing games and just living in that world where everything felt so fresh and new. The world felt so much smaller then.
Check out Angry Video Game Nerd’s channel on TH-cam. He plays almost ALL of the games for the NES and SNES and does hilarious reviews on how much they sucked! Funny stuff if you aren’t offended by excessive swearing 😂
I remember me and my brother called a lot of video game hotlines one time. My dad eventually received a phone bill of over 300 bucks. He was quite upset of course.
Calling this help line was a long distance call for me as a kid, and I had no idea that it was...as I was a little kid with a phone in his room. Man, when that first phone bill came, my dad took the phone out of my room...haha.
This was in a world before Google, or any way to look up walkthroughs or guides. It feels like it is a different planet.
This sort of reminds me how there used to be a Nintendo repair center in Birmingham, AL that I took my nes to back in like 1999. It’s weird because even then the nes was long past its prime, but an actual brick and mortar certified Nintendo only repair center would never exist today.
This is incredible footage! Enjoying a little TH-cam while I play my Switch!
Nintendo please hold
If you look up the house for the Nintendo magazine phone call it’s abandoned now 😢
The blue dilapidated and abandoned house is 3668 if you look from satellite view it shows that the empty lot is 3664. So it was bulldozed actually.
@@Rick5150 oh wow. Thanks for the reply !
The Watkins lady lives in a nice apartment building in Solon, OH now lol
Or it might be on TH-cam in 40 years ..is that ok ? 🤨
You what? 🤨
Well played 😂😂
"Sure"
"Fine, ok so it's left left up left"
I remember getting my Dad's permission to call that long-distance number.
Wow! This is amazing footage
Dude is a total pro. Could probably complete Zelda 2 with his eyes closed. This was always a dream job of mine
14:40 How the hell are you going to charge me to call you when all you can say is I can't help you out with the final boss?
The White Sword only takes 5 hearts to pick up, the Magical Sword takes 12
How dare you undermine greg
What a time this was. No instant answers from a google search or spoilers on social media. The kids were all in the dark unless they had a magazine subscription or trustworthy word of mouth at school.
Hopefully Sean Watkins family has moved on, that house in Cleveland looks like a crack den
How does this guy memorize off hand every detail of every game?
When we played the game multiple times and got hundreds of calls on it, it was quite easy to remember every detail.
@@metv2363did you get calls on Mario 3?
Probably the only recording of this in human history
Not all all. I have a huge cardboard box filled with VHS tapes of broadcast and raw video from inside Nintendo's American headquarters from this era.
@@metv2363 can you post those in your channel?
pls pls pls share it with us@@metv2363
@@metv2363post em
Beating that shadow Link is quite easy if you have the right controller, especially one with a turbo button or whatever it was called.
OMG An actual human answering a phone?!!!
🤣🤣🤣
"Hello, this is Nintendo....I just wanted you to know that I'm being..................................."
"corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking.. Just a moment" ...
"corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking.. Just a moment," ... corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking..
This is AWESOME!! Idk if I could play a game n give tips for another game at the same time. N remembering every little detail in those games. I mean i kno they have their binders to go by but they still know all kinds without having to reference the binders. Would b a pretty cool job tho really. Thanks for this.
So crazy how that guy was able to hide the bodies for so long.
5:00 that guy didn't have a single heart container 😂
OMG THAT WAS MY MOTHER THAT WAS MY ADDRESS ! HOLY COW
???
Yep she definitely said your name, Burt Simmons
im still playing Milons Secret Castle with an Nes Advantage to this day, Channeling my inner Craig lol.
there are a few AMAs of people who have done this job and apparently it was just as fun as we all thought it would be as kids. they all seem to have very positive memories of working there and apparently got paid pretty well. they would take up to 20,000 calls a year! they would get 'issued' a NES, an NES advantage (the controller/joystick you see them using) and a gameboy. the most commonly asked questioned games were the Zelda games, of course.
and for anyone wondering, the game the male counselor was playing was Milon's Secret Castle and the female was playing The Adventures of Lolo
Born in 2002 so before my era but the address the mother gave is like 20 minutes from me. Small small world
Somehow I got my hands on this magazine back then, it was a glorious time. No idea they had a help line.😅
I used to call in this hotline all the time in that period between 10 and maybe 14 years old around this time, never once did any person had any negative attitude or lack of patience despite my barrage of probably puerile and stupid questions. Always nice and courteous to the nth.
The home that belonged to that address no longer exist :(
Folks sure did love to zoom in with video cameras in the ‘90s
Present yourself to the gentleman
Hi! I've got a wizard who's going to the championships in Los Angeles! All I need is a little help. Let's start with... Simon's quest.
🤣🤣🤣
how about "SUPER MARIO BROTHERS... *THREEEEEEEEEEEE*"
OMG poor guy he had to repeat this like 500 times lol I’m pretty sure he was glad when they left😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
calls cost .95 cents per minute
Not in that era they didn't. Back in the 80s it was a long-distance phone call.
The days before NET was the NES, great times,be blessed ,saved and all in Jesus shalom
Did you get all this footage working at a news station vampire robot ?
This receptionist is an NPC before NPCs
Awesome video. The front shot of the building makes it look so sad and boring for Nintendo
The front door looks like a massive 8 bit cartridge should in fact fit perfectly 😁
Such is life.
Crazy how Nintendo started way before Microsoft & Sony but yet the Playstation 2 is still the best selling console of all time. It'll be turning 23 years old this fall 🙂
What game is the guy with the beard playing while he's talking to people?
I think it is Kid Icarus that he is playing when the camera zooms in on the screen.
Nope! That's Milon's Secret Castle.
Milon's Secret Castle
Craig = Stud
Shannon = Dud
Have you guys seen the Nintendo Power episode of the angry video game nerd (AVGN)? You'd like it, if you dont mind bad language.
I'm still holding
I remembered going to Darrell & Debbie’s house to play Nintendo with Timothy (Darrell & Debbie’s son) while enjoying some snacks
Oh no Chris chan at 13mns
this is so cool
What year was this recorded?
Does anyone know what Nintendo actually paid that Nintendo power guy?
They were paying $5.50 an hour when I started there in the late 80s which would be about 13 bucks an hour when adjusted for inflation.
@@metv2363 Hard to live on that , I would imagine. Good job if your going to school , or if you don’t really care about money. But answering phones and providing customer service and providing game support, should have paid better. Thank you for the answer, I knew it would take awhile before I found one. Anything from the 80’s is now like trying to find something from the 50’s and 60’s in the early 2000’s.
@@gamerscubeixxi2152, at the time I could rent a house in Seattle for 400.00 a month. That same house rents for about 3000 a month now. But yeah it was a struggle at the time.
I think I made like $6.50/hour or something as a temp through The Seekers temp agency.
What was the price of this service?
That woman didn’t even know that she leaked her address
How do I get better at call of duty modern warfare to remake? Wonder what he would think if he saw that game in this moment lol
✌️✌️✌️✌️
telephone bill: Omae wa mou shindeiru
I google the address and there is still a home there...
House is gone ... a fire happened
Nintendo please hold