Nintendo's indie boss speaks out about Twitter gag order
Indie champion Dan Adelman has left Nintendo of America, some months after the company banned him from Twitter.
Adelman has been Nintendo's indie boss for nine years, and has been key to bringing many celebrated games to Nintendo platforms.
He was well known for his open, frank approach to interviews and engagement with fans, right up until last year, when he suddenly went silent on social networks and stopped making press appearances.
But that all changed last week, when he parted ways with Nintendo. Speaking with Kotaku, Adelman confirmed that the company had effectively silenced him.
"I think people were kind of on pins and needles about anything untoward I might say, and every once in a while, I'd give an answer that people didn't like, and some people would freak out, so they tried to scale things back," he said.
"First they had me do interviews with someone from PR or marketing. Later they just decided that I shouldn't be in the press at all anymore."
In one such incident, Adelman said in an interview that Nintendo should consider relaxing its content guidelines after it denied release to The Binding of Isaac. In another, Adelman sympathised over Twitter with a fan frustrated by region locking on the 3DS. It was after this latter incident that Nintendo asked Adelman to stay off Twitter.
"I had been strongly encouraged to stay off of Twitter—or at least say only things that were clearly safe—so after the region-locking comment they just said I needed to stop completely," he said.
"When people started complaining that I wasn't active on Twitter anymore, it was suggested that a PR person could just post in my name. I thought that was about the worst idea I'd ever heard, so I left it as is and let the silence speak for itself."
Woof. Despite this uncomfortable arrangement, Adelman said he and Nintendo have parted on good terms, and that there is a strong indie team at Nintendo to carry on his work. Adelman himself is going indie, in pursuit of his passions, and seems pretty cheerful. Do have a look through the whole interview.