Do It Yourself Devotion: About The Anthology

Early in the summer of 2007, we at Starmen.Net launched a massive campaign to unify the EarthBound fanbase. We called it the EB Siege, and the goal was to ensure that every EB fan let Nintendo know what they wanted.

Media interest in EarthBound, which had died down following the Do It Yourself Devotion announcement (which emerged to huge fanfare as the MOTHER 3 Fan Translation two years later) needed to be rekindled. With that in mind, Jon Kay came up with an idea for a kind of "portfolio" for EarthBound, like an informational art album.

For the next month, Jon worked overtime pulling together the book's design, layout, content, and art. In the meantime, the Starmen.Net staff worked on the content, bringing EarthBound's story together as a cohesive narrative and writing captions for each of the hundreds of pieces of fanart which gilded the back pages. We also set an ambitious goal: to get a copy of the book in front of as many gaming media members as possible before E3.

Jon's incredible work ethic saw the EarthBound Anthology completed in less than a month. In the meantime, the fanbase undertook an equally impressive task: raising nearly $7,500 in donations in just two weeks (the original goal was $2,500).

With cash in hand, a completed book, and just over a week until E3, the mysterious "uberSiege" project (which was still under wraps) kicked into high gear. While dozens of copies of the full-color, 268-page book were being printed through an online publisher, Jon worked feverishly to compile DVD's to accompany them. Each book came with 4 discs brimming with fan-made music, art, videos, and more.

Everything came together at the last second, and the books were overnighted to dozens of gaming companies and publishers, including EGM, IGN, Gamespot, Destructoid, and Nintendo. The results were great -- old and new media alike picked up on the story of our devotion, and our website traffic steadily increased as anticipation of EarthBound's VC re-release mounted.

That day never came, though. Nintendo had one final, crushing disappointment in store for the fans (whose oppression was already well documented). As we explained in The Sad Story of EarthBound on the Virtual Console, the game is unlikely to ever emerge on the virtual console, barring a break in the stalemate between NoA and NCL.

In spite of a seemingly endless stream of disappointments and letdowns, the EarthBound fanbase remains as strong and optimistic as ever. This online version of the Anthology was posted as the final bonus for the 2009 EBFGP, a yearly event in which the community plays through EarthBound together over the course of a month. The 2009 event drew thousands of visitors, hundreds of whom would tune in daily to watch the live broadcasts by various community members.

During the final broadcast -- the battle with Giygas -- Starmen.Net cofounder Reid Young gave out his phone number, asking EarthBound fans to text him with anything they felt like sharing. Once the final battle started a few hours later, the text messages became a constant, steady stream, with hundreds of well-wishes, thank-yous, and prayers coming in from all over the globe.

There never was a greater illustration of the EarthBound community's spirit, and its in that same spirit that we (finally!) commit this book to the public. Stay classy, EarthBound fans!