Doug Bowser has officially concluded his term as President of Nintendo of America. His presidency was marked by a tweet from the official account of The Game Awards which was shortly followed by a highly mixed response from gamers. The tweet confirmed the decision of Bowser to step down. This management switch can be seen as a new era for the Japanese company in the U.S. market where consumers already start to rethink the company’s future under the new management.

So, the history of Doug Bowser has already begun. The Game Awards came out with a simple tweet saying, “Today is Doug Bowser’s final day as president of Nintendo of America. Thank you @thetruebowser,” along with a nice picture of him wearing a pretty nice sweater. The Internet… didn’t hold back… the ones who were not holding back were those who found it impossible to be silent anymore about the man who had to step into the shoes of Reggie Fils-Aimé, the gaming legend whose job it was to make

And the replies, my goodness, are a complete mix but predominantly heavily one-sided. To be more precise, the constituent phrase of “good riddance” was indeed one of the most frequently expressed. Users YaboyOringe and LordEmpire192 even went as far as to say it, with the latter even backing up his argument with a gif. Some were not as… polite. Jason Quinn simply stated, “He sucked.” and Vista Larga Games asserted, “He contributed NOTHING.” Ouch. Exobro_7 was pretty straightforward as well: “He actually did nothing good for the players.” Such a harsh verdict but it is how some gamers saw him – just no more than a presence.

Quickly, a huge part of the argument turned into a Reggie love hymn. Like, right away. Christian Castle posted, “They need to bring Reggie back” with a crying emoji at the end. C.Keenan commented, “Eh, this guy was never that much of a presence like reggie.” And then Rukasu gave an example of an event: “Remember when rege fought for wii sports being free? Bowser fought for nintendo to be a joke even more than it already was.” That comparison is ruthless but it still depicts the oppositional feelings. The users who loved Reggie thought he was a charismatic king of the gamers, on the other hand, many see Bowser’s rule as an era of corporate, perhaps even distant, control.

Among the negative criticism there were some quite thorough observations. Day One Patch Kids posted, “Mario and Peach are just friends PFFT! Dismissing Dispatch from their store… Bye, Felicia.” That is a major dig at Nintendo’s sometimes very strict content policies. Another account, HeadBlok, took a swipe at the company’s culture “Maybe now Nitendo won’t be such closed minded assholes. Ah who am I kidding, that’s just their neutral mood.” So to some extent, Bowser represented a larger disappointment with Nintendo’s decisions.

Not everyone was being negative. There were a few voices that said their thanks. Iceman just commented, “Thank you for your work, sir.” and Ragequitgodd called it “The end of an era😢.” Thus it was not wholehearted revulsion, but those affirmatives were certainly in the minority. The overall feeling that was bathing that thread was… not favorable to the leaving president.

In any case, he has had a poser and ambivalent role for a long time and thus no one really knows what he actually did. Silvio Head-Smasher asked the question that apparently a lot of people had: “What the fuck did he even do?” It is a rightful question considering the holding position. The president of Nintendo of America does not develop games, instead he/she manages the business side of things, marketing, and the distribution. His name is somewhat linked to the enduring financial success of the Switch, as well as such issues as the Nintendo Switch Online expansion, pricing policies, and those strange corporate decisions that make gamers wonder. Someone’s else response included “variable pricing” as negative. It is all quite vague, which is perhaps the main problem – he was not a strong, clear, and charismatic leader.

Of course, people are already speculating about the future. The tweet from Neroshade pointed out that Devon Pritchard is taking over, thus making her the first female president of Nintendo of America. Some replies immediately worried about “woke DEI nonsense” which is… a choice. But most of all, gamers just seem to have a positive attitude and are looking forward to a change.