“Video Game Enthusiasts Wanted!” teased the advert in the Portsmouth Evening News. Other than a phone number, this mysterious call to arms offered no further information. But as a gaming obsessed 18-year-old looking for a job after finishing a BTEC in Computer Studies, I was mesmerised by the possibilities - I had to call. A female voice answered and proceeded to quiz my gaming credentials: what games did I like? How many games had I completed? And curiously, did I have experience in telesales or call centres?
A month later, in December 1990, I found myself joining five other rookie ‘Games Counsellors’ on the UK’s first Official Nintendo Hotline, a telephone helpline dedicated to providing live hints, tips and tricks to flummoxed Nintendo gamers.
Call of the wild
Our modest call centre was housed within Nintendo’s UK headquarters in Fareham Heights industrial estate, just outside Portsmouth. My rudimentary company workstation consisted of a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) plugged into a 14-inch CRT television, an old beige telephone (disconnected until training was complete) and an ashtray.
Mike Hayes, then Managing Director of Nintendo UK, recalls how the British incarnation of the Hotline came about. “The UK Hotline was established after it had been a great success in the US. Nintendo believed that having a direct relationship with its users was key – and it was something that SEGA did not have. To be honest, there was no choice. Serif and then Bandai had the distribution rights for Nintendo in the UK, and we were obliged to set the Hotline up as part of the distribution agreement. Also, Nintendo was never as strong in the UK as it was in Japan and the US,” he says. “We had to battle against SEGA.”
Despite the success of Nintendo of America’s Hotline there was no guarantee the UK version would take off in the same way. No one was sure if UK gamers would be prepared to pick up a phone and ask for help.
“With any hotline,” says Hayes, “the biggest issue is knowing what the capacity would be and therefore how many lines to have and people to man the phones. The training was easier because the folk we hired were Nintendo enthusiasts.”
Live and kicking
This training consisted of completing the entire NES catalogue, about 100 games, in one month. Some, like The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Metal Gear and Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!! were a joy. Others — like Castlevania, Fester's Quest or the infuriating Faxanadu — less so. Each Hotliner had their kryptonite, but our strengths and weaknesses had been well curated. Together we crafted maps, guides and walkthroughs for the entire NES catalogue. With no internet – the six of us evolved our own hive mind.
We went live in January 1991. The lines opened at 11am and after ten minutes of nerve-wracking silence a phone rang. Soon another rang - and then mine. I gripped the handset and tentatively greeted my first caller. There was a short conversation that I’ll never forget:
“Nintendo Hotline, Keith speaking, can I help you?”
“Hi! Well, er, maybe… this is a bit embarrassing really, there’s a dragon and it’s breathing fire and I can’t get past it and I don’t know what to do.”
“Okay, no problem. Firstly, what game are you playing? You are playing a game, right?”
“Yes – sorry, Super Mario Bros.”
Piece of cake I thought - it had to be Fake Bowser on World 1-4. “Shoot him with fire or just sprint underneath him.”
“Er, okay. Thanks. I’ll give it a try.”
We were up and running. When the lines closed that evening, we’d taken 100 calls between the six of us. It felt like a lot at the time, but we had no idea. We started covering Game Boy titles soon after and by the end of 1991 calls had increased to around 500-per-day. Three more Hotliners were hired and then another three...
Feeling the burn
Super Nintendo launched in the UK in 1992 meaning we had to cover NES, Game Boy and SNES games. Nintendo relocated to a new Southampton office (to the horror of the Portsmouth contingent) and our musty Hotline got a makeover. In came wall posters, modern headsets and a “state of the art” call distribution system that monitored and logged vital statistics. There was nowhere to hide.
“There was a ‘traffic light’ system on the wall that displayed off/green/amber/red to indicate waiting calls. We had to try and stop it being red,” recalls Ben Gunstone, Hotline supervisor (’92 to ’95). “Call times were based on an average and this was tracked. To ensure getting the call volume answered, we tried for a two-minute average call.”
People lasted about a year before getting burned out... We had no support as it was seen as a “dream job”
But throughout ‘92 and ‘93 those lights were permanently red. Twelve Hotliners were answering around 200 calls per day each. After major game launches, we could easily hit 2500 calls a day in total, but still the lights were red, and that inevitably took its toll.
“People lasted about a year before getting burned out,” laments Gunstone. “The constant demand to answer calls was unrelenting and some people couldn't deal with it. We had no support as it was seen as a “dream job”. In reality it was hard work (mentally) and we also used to regularly receive abuse calls. I don't think it helped that we all had to work one weekend day combined with the 11am-8pm working day. Socialising was difficult.”
The Super Nintendo era was dominated by Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World and Street Fighter II. Ex-hotliner Dan Carter, (‘91 to ‘93) recalls: “We took Zelda calls on autopilot whilst beating the crap out of each other on Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Sometimes you would unintentionally stop talking if the match got too tense. Eventually you’d hear this voice in your headset asking if anyone was still there.”
Mushroom kingdom
By the time I entered my third year as a Hotliner in 1993, the 16-Bit console war was raging. Mike Hayes remembers a Mail on Sunday article “comparing Nintendo and SEGA to The Beatles versus the Rolling Stones; Coke v Pepsi; Wranglers v Levis. Fun times!”
At one glitzy Nintendo launch party in London, oblivious to the revellers inside, a colossal Sonic the Hedgehog was projected onto the outside of the building in a particularly audacious show of SEGA guerrilla marketing. By the time a posse had been assembled to confront the perpetrators, they’d gone.
“My oppos at SEGA tried to hijack the launch event for the new SNES/Game Boy ads starring Rik Mayall (God bless his crazy soul),” says Hayes.
The Hotliners' gaming prowess meant our skills were in demand: “We went to production studios to record gameplay footage for television adverts,” says Keith Taynton (‘91 to ’93). “I also did stuff for a TV show with Keith Chegwin in it. Can't remember what it was called...”
We attracted the attention of local and national media — and suddenly our office became a kind of celeb hangout. Craig Charles from Red Dwarf presented a bizarre promotion film where, amongst other things, he chats with the Hotliners and then fantasizes about becoming one. Competition winners were given tours of Nintendo HQ, the highlight of which was watching us work.
I ended up commentating on Street Fighter 2 and ActRaiser for Channel 4’s Gamesmaster. I also scripted the Nintendo tips for Sir Patrick Moore’s eponymous character. We knew exactly what games and where people were getting stuck, so the content was always relevant. Most of that segment of the show ended up being about Nintendo games – to the delight of the marketing bods upstairs.
The relationship we had with Nintendo gamers was unique. “Little kids would phone up and ask if they could speak with Mario,” remembers Dan. “There was this wonderful innocence about it, like believing in Santa. We never had the heart to say he wasn’t real, so we’d say that he was busy making a new game and couldn’t come to the phone.”
“One of my regular callers was an elderly lady that needed help with Super Mario World,” says Ben. “She ended up being in the Sun newspaper as the oldest person in the UK to complete the game. She used to ring up and we’d chat for a bit as well. I got the impression she was lonely, and the Hotline was a way to speak to someone.”
Insert coin to continue
In July 1995, it was game over for the Hotline and Nintendo’s entire UK headquarters. With the boom years of the early '90s over, Nintendo sold UK distribution rights to Total Home Entertainment, a division of John Menzies. Many of the Hotliners moved on to careers in marketing, public relations, and QA within the games industry. In 2004, Mike Hayes became CEO of SEGA Europe.
I’ve worked in games ever since, but nowhere has been quite like the Nintendo Hotline. There will always be a camaraderie amongst ex-Hotliners, a sense that we helped Mario make a few new friends: the influencers of our time.
Comments 40
Ahaha... I recall calling my country's equivalent of Nintendo Hotline at some point, most vividly I recall calling for assistance with Wind Waker because I could not figure out how to proceed from the point when the pirate ship is parked at windfall islant, I though I would need to figure out the password for the ship from the hint it gives but turns out I just had to enter the bomb shop, another case was for Ocarina of Time Master Quest when I got stuck in the water temple so they did have access to g̶a̶m̶e̶f̶a̶q̶s̶ info on some some pretty obscure games at the time as well.
Though my best memory is always with the Playstation Hotline when I called in for help with how to recruit certain character in the PS1 game Star Ocean Second Story, he read me this very long description on how to do it and then it turns out he was describing Star Ocean 3 instead, so I guess he got kind of annoyed with me (to be fair I was still a little brat at the time) so he told me to give him my adress so he'd send a document to help me get what I want and few days later I received a 200+ page printed gamefaqs walkthrough for the game, which at the time before I had access to the internet was a godsend, I could get all the broken custom weapons & armor & figure out how to unlock all the characters and the secret dungeon and whatnot, it's probably part of the reason why I do view the game as positively as I do.
I really enjoyed reading this piece! Sounds like interesting times, both good and bad.
Great piece, a trip down memory lane. I did phone once, but most of the time I brought magazines for cheats and walkthroughs...... arh those were the days, even if it was not for free like youtube
Great article, actually made me login. Just to say thanks for this👍
Enjoyed this article! I used them too!
Thank you to the guy I spoke to at some point in the mid-90's who advised me to use the spear to beat Tropicallo in Secret of Mana. I never thought to try it. I was the Mana Knight, dammit! I refused to use anything but the Mana sword, no matter how rusty it was! His name was Grape. To this day, not sure if a nickname, but thank you Grape!
I remember ringing the Nintendo hotline in 2000, I was playing the original Zelda on the Nes and was stuck. This was before I had Any Internet access. So it must have still been going in some form
Great article. This kind of coverage of aspects of video game history at risk of being forgotten is what I like to see from NL. More like this please folks! 👍
That was a great era of gaming. Everything was so positive and we were all unified in the love of our hobby.
Yea, there was Sega vs Nintendo and it was a "hot topic." But no one really cared. You'd make fun of your friend for having the other platform and then you'd go to their house and play it for hours. And vice versa.
Looks like a pretty awesome little office to work at. I get nostalgic feels looking at the pictures, even though I only would've been in elementary school at the time.
Also, apparently a young Ewan McGregor worked at the Nintendo UK hotline. On the far right side of frame, in the picture with the cardboard Mario in the foreground.
I called once. For Donkey Kong Country 3 - there's a part where you have to swim around two rocks in a figure-8 shape to open up the path. I haven't gone back to it recently so I'm not sure if this was a particularly cryptic part of the game or if I just missed the clues for it.
Shaun White (long blonde hair, second from left in one of the pictures above) went on to write for Nintendo Magazine System in the 90’s.
Great read, thoroughly enjoyed it.
I never used them as like others I bought magazines instead.
Great time to be a gamer though.
@Spacebible I remember him ! I would be interested to know what happened to some of the early day writers and what they are up to now.
Believe it or not, in the early 90's we had official Nintendo Hotline in Brazil (managed by Playtronic). I called only once, asking about the magic flute in Super Mario Bros. 3, since that item was in the manual, but it's use and location was described as a "cool secret" you had to discover yourself.
Very nice!
I never actually called the hotline in the US, I just used every morsel of info available in my Nintendo Power issues.
But man, the early 90s were an awesome time.
Great article!
Please talk less about bugs, updates and NFTs and write more articles like this. This is why I read about gaming, not just for the latest reviews or bad news.
These are exactly the type of articles that gamers from the golden age want to read!
Great work
Once phoned the Nintendo Hotline while a friend and I was playing his copy of Zelda 2. They couldn't help us as they "didn't have the maps."
Thank you, Ninty Hotline 😂
This sort of stuff was "before my time", but I found it incredibly interesting and well written
What happens if you call Nintendo now about game tips? Do they laugh in your face and tell you to ‘beat it’?
I don’t think I was ever aware Nintendo had a 1-900 number back then. I doubt I’d have called even if I did.
@BionicDodo Yes!!!
Never called the Nintendo one but I remember calling Sierra for help in Hero's Quest. Sadly it turned out to be a bug in the game where you couldn't get past a certain maneuver if you were on higher speeds so you had to turn that down in the game settings. I was very annoyed.
@Chocobo_Shepherd Yeah back then console wars between Nintendo and Sega was basically a marketing strategy to sell more hardware and expand the consoles market. Now it's more about targeting specific games of other hardware to hurt the developers as punishement for collaborating with rivals As we're seeing with SMT5 and all the fake rumors Sony fans are spreading about it to make people not buy it. It's really a disgusing behavior and gamers should sanction this with their wallet.
Having to beat 100 games in a month is a prettt impressive task. Sure, NES games were generally pretty short but most of them were tough as nails.
Wow, interesting article. Friend and I back during the SNES days had to call for help on some vampire in Shadowrun, which we'd rented on the SNES. I think back then I pictured the 'game counselor' as a much older adult, so it's funny seeing they were all very young.
Huh. Really interesting.
I missed out on the hotline days, but I have heard about them. Wondered what it'd be like.
And yeah. 100 NES games in a month sounds like it'd be torture. To a degree. But it'd make sense if they were all working together, and they had to complete them as a collective.
Interesting read, especially as in 2010’s I worked at Nintendo UK Customer Support so interesting seeing some things that changed and others that did not!
Fantastic article - keep historical pieces like this coming.
Not sure why but I always felt like asking for help when I got stuck was cheating, and to this day my moral compass is still skewed in this fashion.
With a job, family and limited gaming time I regularly search on the internet now if I become stuck. The shame, oh the shame.
Oh dear.
Suddenly I remember hiding in the closet as a kid, talking to the NoA hotline for hours.
My mom was NOT happy when she got the $40 long distance charge on her phone bill.
I really enjoyed this article, thank you! I’ve read stories about the US hotline but never the UK one. Being in the UK I found this much more interesting and relevant so thank you. I almost forgive you for using US game names in most of your articles, despite being a site based in the UK. I said almost….
@GravyThief
"I really enjoyed this article, thank you! I’ve read stories about the US hotline but never the UK one. "
Completely agree. That's exactly what inspired me to write it. - and I was fed up with the US hotliners getting all the glory!
Sorry for the US game names. We sometimes used US consoles to get up to speed on games before the UK release. Things have got a bit blurred over the years.
@kuppakeff thanks for the reply! I really did enjoy reading it and seeing the pictures so thank you. Getting any insight into Nintendo UK from the 90s is quite rare.
And sorry, the comment about the game names wasn’t directed at this article! It was more generally aimed at Nintendo Life who, despite being a UK based site, seem to always use US game names in their articles. And it was in jest 😀
@GravyThief
No worries! I'm really glad you enjoyed the article. Thank you.
Excellent time their that’s for sure.
I remember we changed the waiting music to Ren & Stimpys ‘Happy Happy Joy Joy’. Drove people insane.
Nice article! Never called one of these hotlines but loved buying magazines with tips and walkthroughs in them. Ahh the memories..
Ahhh...good old days when phone calls were still quite expensive. I wasn't alive back then, so calling the Nintendo Hotline must've been a luxury when it was around.
I called several times as a kid, i remember even writinging a question about the Enix game 7th Saga hopping to be published in "Counselor's Corner" of Nintendo Power.
In this written request, i also asked how to become a game counselor. Although they didn't publish my letter, Nintendo did send back like a 5 page response, detailing everything from the RPG games i should check out to classes to study for my future career as a game counselor. For a 10 year old, that was badass.
Great article. Those days were fun times in general with lots of fond memories!
NintendoLife had some stellar articles this past year. Really helped me get through some tough days
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