Club Nintendo Says Goodbye

All good things must come to an end, and so the UK version of Club Nintendo ended with the release of Volume 5 Issue 4. But were club members notified? I would say it's likely that they may have been informed of the situation through accompanying letters, although that is just speculation on my part. What of the magazine itself, though?

At first glance, it appears that Volume 5 Issue 4 of Club Nintendo doesn't really inform readers that it was to be the final one, choosing to largely ignore the matter. For a start, it is not mentioned in the opening 'Mario says...' section on the Contents page. This would've been the most likely and least intrusive place to include such an announcement, but it seems even Mario didn't want to talk about it.

What about addresses to write to the magazine? On the one hand, the tips page no longer includes the address for readers to send tips to. On the other hand, however, the Mailbag page still shows the address for readers to write in, which is quite the oversight for the final issue. Perhaps that page had already been finalised before the staff knew about the magazine's end?

One understandable omission is the competition, which had been a regular feature of the magazine since 1991. After all, if this is the end of the magazine and the staff have been packed off elsewhere, who would organise the sending of the prizes?

It seems, then, that any announcement of Club Nintendo's end may have just been handled by letters to members (assuming such letters were sent, of course), with the magazine itself being left free of such news, bar the odd little clue here and there.

And then there's this! Unique to this issue is the message "Thank you and goodnight!", placed just after the staff list and address on the Contents page. The finality of the message, coupled with its unique appearance in this issue, makes me suspect that this was the staff's 'goodbye' message to its readers within the magazine itself.

It's not much, but it's something. Perhaps the decision to end Club Nintendo was not made until late into the issue's creation, leaving no space or time for a full announcement to be included. Or perhaps the writers didn't want to announce the end with a grand proclamation, instead opting to bow out quietly.

In any case, there it is: Club Nintendo's farewell message to its readers. Short and sweet, just like a certain Italian plumber.

(Don't worry, we're not going anywhere! It just seemed a good way to end the article!)