Do you remember the Nintendo BadgeArcade?!

[CrosEl]

Does anyone remember this? Nobody brings it up and so it feels like a dream despite me knowing full well I saw others in the community on Miiverse, and Nintendo themselves updated it for a long while.. It had to be real, right?

Nintendo hasn't mentioned this ever again either as far as I know..it doesn't feel real, despite there being a bunch of screenshots and reviews of this.. Is that strange, and am I overreacting? Do you remember this? Do you remember the game that the arcade bunny said it would come out surrounding these badges?

[Drazah]

Yes, but having to spend real world money for a chance to even get digital pngs is dumb as fuck.

I loved it besides that part

[CrosEl]

At 5/23/25 03:48 PM, Drazah wrote:Yes, but having to spend real world money for a chance to even get digital pngs is dumb as fuck.

I loved it besides that part

Oh yeah, of course: I meant playing it with the free chances one could win from the "practice machine". The arcade was a ripoff, but you could also have more of a chance at playing for free than the stuff now...where they want $70+ for everything.....

(Actually the arcade was probably a test to see what they could get away with now that you brought it up....)

[DaserFH]

At 5/23/25 03:48 PM, Drazah wrote:Yes, but having to spend real world money for a chance to even get digital pngs is dumb as fuck.

I loved it besides that part

I appreciated that it was at least skill based, but it was definitely FOMO. If you got good at the games, you could pretty consistently get badges from just doing the practice mode and earning daily chances. But I would have preferred if the badges were just something you could BUY like themes.

Badges were a cute customization thing and I don't know why fun customization things in that vein are gone now.

[Gelert]

At 5/23/25 03:32 PM, CrosEl wrote:Does anyone remember this? Nobody brings it up and so it feels like a dream despite me knowing full well I saw others in the community on Miiverse, and Nintendo themselves updated it for a long while.. It had to be real, right?

Nintendo hasn't mentioned this ever again either as far as I know..it doesn't feel real, despite there being a bunch of screenshots and reviews of this.. Is that strange, and am I overreacting? Do you remember this? Do you remember the game that the arcade bunny said it would come out surrounding these badges?

Yeah! I remember having a lot of fun just finding ways to place every badge that I had on my 3DS homescreen; if the console kept track of the time I spent playing around with them like it does with actual games my counter would be in the hours xD

I also remember having lots of Animal Crossing flowers and similar items that were easier to win, since having limited pulls per day meant that if I went for the harder stuff I could just get nothing for the day. So I liked to play it safe (for the most part).

That being said, even though I have a very fond memory of it I never really payed that much attention to it, since it was clear from the start that the moment I got too invested into it I'd get extremely frustrated, like in a gacha game... actually yeah, I think I treated it exactly like I would a gacha game nowadays, "enjoy the freebies and not much else" xD

[Drazah]

At 5/23/25 07:05 PM, Gelert wrote:

At 5/23/25 03:32 PM, CrosEl wrote:Does anyone remember this? Nobody brings it up and so it feels like a dream despite me knowing full well I saw others in the community on Miiverse, and Nintendo themselves updated it for a long while.. It had to be real, right?

Nintendo hasn't mentioned this ever again either as far as I know..it doesn't feel real, despite there being a bunch of screenshots and reviews of this.. Is that strange, and am I overreacting? Do you remember this? Do you remember the game that the arcade bunny said it would come out surrounding these badges?

Yeah! I remember having a lot of fun just finding ways to place every badge that I had on my 3DS homescreen; if the console kept track of the time I spent playing around with them like it does with actual games my counter would be in the hours xD

Wait oh my god you said for playing with the badges, not the game, what an L I took

[EWisawesome]

I blew so much money on this game. Worth it. An actual arcade machine (or one of those sticker machines) of this would be sick.

[ZekeWatson]

Yeah I loved Badge Arcade. I'm surprised to read people actually spend real world money on it tho!

It was very easy to get what you wanted from my experience

[tehbusyman]

dude i loved the badge arcade, i played it until it shut down

[SepticDolphin]

Oh my god yess i do! Little gambling bunny wanted ma money xd

[TheGarbager619]

Newgrounds Badge Arcade collab when

[M-kirbs]

OH MY GOD, I LOVE THIS GAME! Arcade Bunny my beloved- and if people are gonna complain about using real money, think about like this: this is the equivalent of those IRL arcade prize games in Japan, if it worked there, then clearly it kinda worked here. At least you can get a lot of freebies daily from practice

[M-kirbs]

At 5/24/25 09:19 AM, TheGarbager619 wrote:Newgrounds Badge Arcade collab when

I'd be so damned down for that

[Chdonga]

At 5/23/25 04:00 PM, CrosEl wrote:

At 5/23/25 03:48 PM, Drazah wrote:Yes, but having to spend real world money for a chance to even get digital pngs is dumb as fuck.

I loved it besides that part

Oh yeah, of course: I meant playing it with the free chances one could win from the "practice machine". The arcade was a ripoff, but you could also have more of a chance at playing for free than the stuff now...where they want $70+ for everything.....

(Actually the arcade was probably a test to see what they could get away with now that you brought it up....)

We've come so far from Rusty's Real Deal Baseball, a game that actively tried to pressure you into spending as little on the content as possible.

(Jesus NG mobile has been absolutely ripping my posts to shreds lately)

[Dungeonation]

Always thought the bunny was cute

[JimXAnimations]

At 5/23/25 03:32 PM, CrosEl wrote:Does anyone remember this? Nobody brings it up and so it feels like a dream despite me knowing full well I saw others in the community on Miiverse, and Nintendo themselves updated it for a long while.. It had to be real, right?

Nintendo hasn't mentioned this ever again either as far as I know..it doesn't feel real, despite there being a bunch of screenshots and reviews of this.. Is that strange, and am I overreacting? Do you remember this? Do you remember the game that the arcade bunny said it would come out surrounding these badges?

I remember those days. I would arrive at home from school, play on my 2DS and, sometimes, play Nintendo Badge Arcade. I would get some badges from some of the claw machines there. Usually I would get mostly Mario or Pokemon badges. It was sad to see it go, the only gripe I had with it is that I had to pay to get more trys or unlock more claw machines, however I didn't mind playing the daily machines. I actually still have the app downloaded on my 2DS even after I homebrewed it.

[robotman5]

i remember it...sucks it shut down

[MixCatTape]

Indeed, the badges and Badge Arcade were really cool.

You were given so much free plays, it was pretty easy on most machines to get all the badges, or at the very least, the ones you really wanted.

I grabbed a lot of the Mario badge sets, the Link ones, Pokemon, and Animal Crossing. Plus extra sets from Monster Hunter and others.

Placing the badges was really fun, as I made scenes with them and tried to match ‘em with the 3DS Themes. Battle scenes, funny scenes, cute scenarios, all the good stuff.

One of the downsides of it was… not being able to carry all the badges in your Badge Box.

Long before it was shut down, I exceeded what I could carry and had to choose what to keep in my Badge Box on my 3DS and what went in the Arcade’s Storage.

Needless to say, when I was there for the final days and the bunny man, Arcade told me about the closure; I went through my badges in storage, to make sure I had all the ones I was going to keep and what stayed there.

It was hard choices, that’s for sure.

Still, the customization it offered was really creative and cool.

Would be nice to have another system like it.

[GlitchyPSI]

I sure do.

I feel like somewhere along the way we lost the whimsy that powered this kind of console UI customization ideas

[pikedhat]

I remember! Was such a fun concept. Would've been nice for something similar to return to the Switch 2.

[EnsignOnion]

I did the daily free drops. Of course you can now easily get any badge you want. Although there is a hard limit of badges you can have installed at one time, which is lower than the amount of badges which have been released.

I now have most badges of worth just by downloading them online. But it was still fun to play!

[FarawayDrip30]

At 5/23/25 03:32 PM, CrosEl wrote:Does anyone remember this? Nobody brings it up and so it feels like a dream despite me knowing full well I saw others in the community on Miiverse, and Nintendo themselves updated it for a long while.. It had to be real, right?

Nintendo hasn't mentioned this ever again either as far as I know..it doesn't feel real, despite there being a bunch of screenshots and reviews of this.. Is that strange, and am I overreacting? Do you remember this? Do you remember the game that the arcade bunny said it would come out surrounding these badges?

it was awesome cos I didn't spend any money on it. I remember that the load time was really really long but I still did it when I could because I thought it was kind of neat.

Looking back, selling pictures of pokemon to children via a somewhat luck-based crane game was kind of a scummy practice on nintendo's behalf, i'm sure there were better ways to monetise it - maybe through buying specific franchises that you then had daily attempts to get the badges for? Would also allow for the cranes to be harder as you get multiple attempts, could've made the game more fun.

[FarawayDrip30]

At 5/24/25 09:19 AM, TheGarbager619 wrote:Newgrounds Badge Arcade collab when

Make it happen!

[larryvangary]

At 5/23/25 03:48 PM, Drazah wrote:Yes, but having to spend real world money for a chance to even get digital pngs is dumb as fuck.

I loved it besides that part

We still have those

they’re called NFT’s

[larryvangary]

I’ve definitely heard of it, but I never had a 3DS until earlier this year

[TheGarbager619]

At 5/24/25 09:25 AM, M-kirbs wrote:I'd be so damned down for that

At 5/25/25 10:24 AM, FarawayDrip30 wrote:Make it happen!

I know I said the collab thing as a spur of the moment type of joke but I feel it'd be a lot of work and also be veeeeeeeeery similar to the toybox collab. So I don't think it'd be a good idea, imo, lol.

[Porter]

At 5/25/25 10:45 AM, TheGarbager619 wrote:

At 5/24/25 09:25 AM, M-kirbs wrote:I'd be so damned down for that

At 5/25/25 10:24 AM, FarawayDrip30 wrote:
Make it happen!

I know I said the collab thing as a spur of the moment type of joke but I feel it'd be a lot of work and also be veeeeeeeeery similar to the toybox collab. So I don't think it'd be a good idea, imo, lol.

My idea would be to have Wario-Ware like mini games where if you win a game, you earn a new sticker or in-game coins to purchase stickers. Could also experiment with trading a number of the same stickers into one rarity, and maybe share it to the community perhaps.

Might not happen, but could be cool though!

[bubblemunkee]

loved it still have my rhythm heaven mega mix badges all over my menu

[nicolistheguy]

I remember it, used to play it every night until I just stopped, got some cool badges though.

[Cosmic-Pixlz]

At 5/23/25 03:32 PM, CrosEl wrote:Does anyone remember this? Nobody brings it up and so it feels like a dream despite me knowing full well I saw others in the community on Miiverse, and Nintendo themselves updated it for a long while.. It had to be real, right?

Nintendo hasn't mentioned this ever again either as far as I know..it doesn't feel real, despite there being a bunch of screenshots and reviews of this.. Is that strange, and am I overreacting? Do you remember this? Do you remember the game that the arcade bunny said it would come out surrounding these badges?

Heck yes I remember that game, and it makes me sad Nintendo doesn't care about stuff like this anymore. Why is everything lame now?