Shameful Human of the Week: Cammie Dunaway

This week’s Shameful Human is Nintendo of America’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing Cammie Dunaway. Cammie began her career with Nintendo in 2007 when she replaced Reggie Fils-Aime following his promotion to president, and she will thankfully conclude it October 1st. She also kind of replaced the legendary Perrin Kaplan who held a similar role in the company, and who also left in 2007.

Cammie was introduced to the vicious world of online fanboys when she made her debut at E3 2008. The conference is remembered as one of the worst in E3 history, with Cammie clumsily attempting to play Shaun White Snowboarding using the Wii balance board. Nintendo’s showing was infamously bad that year, as that was also when the company tried to push Wii Music as anything worth existing. Her E3 embarrassments piled on in 2009 when she died facing off against the first Goomba in New Super Mario Bros. Wii during a live demonstration.

Cammie did not appear at Nintendo’s 2010 E3 conference, which coincided with a showing more aligned to “hardcore” gamer tastes. A move which, I suspect, was not coincidental. Cammie’s employment with Nintendo always seemed like a cynical choice. Her public persona was as a friendly “mommy” who was used to try to preach to her own demographic. Seemingly, Nintendo could not be bothered to find someone who was both female and a competent gamer.

In his comment regarding Dunaway’s departure, Reggie stated, in part, “we appreciate Cammie’s contributions to Nintendo,” but not many fans of the company have. I’m relieved to be done away with Dunaway.

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