Nintendo wanted to see
Dragon Warrior succeed back in the day, as its success could start a whole new trend of
RPGs for the
NES. The trick, they knew, was to get players to become hooked on the game. Until this point most of the
NES's library consisted of
platformers (such as
Super Mario Bros. and
Mega Man) or sports titles (
Mike Tyson's Punch Out!). How could they put the game in the hands of die-hard players? They'd give it away for free.
In 1989 Nintendo sent the game to all new Nintendo Power subscribers. It was, at the time, the biggest widescale premium giveaway in Nintendo history. It was an amazing deal. Spend $15 and get a year's worth of the magazine plus a free game. Nintendo gave away millions of cartridges thanks to the promotion. Nintendo Power gave the game ongoing coverage. For the first six months after the game's release (and giveaway) the magazine featured a new portion of the game in a full blow-out map section, devoted the Q&A column "Counselor's Corner" to answering queries about the game, and challenged readers to send in their best artwork depicting the game's characters.
I'd say that the promotion worked. 8-bit RPGs took off, and Dragon Warrior's success in the USA gave rise to other memorable games such as Mother (aka Earthbound Zero in the USA, which unfortunately was never actually released) and of course the Final Fantasy series (which Nintendo Power also seriously hyped). Dragon Warrior may not have been the first video game RPG, but it was one of the most successful.
References:
The promotion sucked me in to console RPGing. Thanks, Nintendo.