The 1994 video game EarthBound, as well as its 1989 predecessor and 2006 sequel are known for their cult following and fan community. Multiple video game journalists have written about the dedication of the franchise's fans in producing fan art and lobbying Nintendo for further releases. The company has been largely unresponsive to their efforts. Prominent fansites include Starmen.net and EarthBound Central. The former was started in 1999 and became the definitive community website. Their members organized petitions and campaigns to bring English-localized games from the Mother series to North America. One such effort included a full-color, 270-page EarthBound Anthology as a demonstration of consumer demand for further releases. After nearly a decade, EarthBound was rereleased for the Wii U Virtual Console in 2013, whereupon it became a bestseller.

The fandom also spun-out other enterprises. When Nintendo did not release a localized version of Mother 3, fans organized their own fan translation. The video game merchandising business Fangamer grew out of the Starmen.net community, and sells video game-related items online. A full-length documentary on Starmen.net and the fan community, EarthBound USA, was released in November 2023. While series creator Shigesato Itoi has stated that he is finished with the series, a fan-created spiritual sequel, Oddity, began development in 2010, while another, Mother 4, was announced in 2021.

EarthBound is known for having a cult following, which developed over time well after its release. Colin Campbell of Polygon wrote that "few gaming communities are as passionate and active" as EarthBound's, and 1UP.com's Bob Mackey wrote that no game was as poised to have a cult following. Wired described the amount of EarthBound "fan art, videos, and tributes on fan sites like EarthBound Central or Starmen.net" as mountainous. IGN's Lucas M. Thomas wrote in 2006 that EarthBound's "persistent", "ambitious", and "religiously dedicated collective of hardcore fans" would be among the first groups to influence Nintendo's decision-making through their purchasing power on Virtual Console. The Verge cited the two-year fan translation of Mother 3 as proof of the fanbase's dedication, and Nintendo president Satoru Iwata credited the community response on their online Miiverse social platform as leading to EarthBound's eventual rerelease on their Virtual Console platform. Notable members of the EarthBound fan base include video game developer Toby Fox, who had made various EarthBound ROM hacks in high school and whose game Undertale took inspiration from the Mother series, and Let's Play YouTuber Emile Rosales, whose videos on EarthBound covered various aspects of the game including the sound, art design and various glitches.

EarthBound was hard to find before the rerelease. In 2013, prices for the game's cartridge alone were more than twice its retail cost at its 1995 release. IGN wrote that the game became a "cult classic" for its unique RPG and psychedelic elements alongside its reflection on American culture, and Eurogamer credited EarthBound's "cute and funny modern-world styling of the Japanese RPG". Kotaku hypothesized that fan favorite aspects of the game would include its "feeling of innocence, ... sense of whimsical adventure", "humor", "charm", "wonder", and "beautiful 2D maps". Marcus Lindblom, the game's English localizer, cited its "cuteness, colors, and hallucinatory bits" as fan favorites. Reid Young of Starmen.net and Fangamer credits EarthBound's popularity to its "labor of love" nature, with a "double-coat of thoughtfulness and care" across all aspects of the game by a development team that appeared to love their work.

Digital Trends's Anthony John Agnello wrote that no video game fans have suffered as much as EarthBound fans, and cited Nintendo's reluctance to release Mother series games in North America. IGN described the series as neglected by Nintendo in North America for similar reasons. Aaron Linde of Shacknews felt that Nintendo's "historic passive-aggression towards EarthBound fans [seemed] somehow anachronistic" in response to the outcries from the game's fan community. He added that while the company is known for providing "the most personal experiences in gaming's history", Nintendo lacks the "bedside manner" required of contemporary game companies, and that he could not think of a "more deserving fan base" than EarthBound's.

Marcus Lindblom, who localized the Japanese Mother 2 into the English EarthBound, followed the fan community from afar and, in mid-2012, introduced himself at the Penny Arcade Expo Fangamer booth. When the game's Wii U re-release was announced, the press became interested in Lindblom's experience. Lindblom had planned a book about the game's development, release, and fandom as a Kickstarter project before a reply from Nintendo discouraged him from pursuing the idea. He plans to continue to communicate directly with the community about the game's history. For instance, Lindblom struck down a popular ("infamous") "abortion theory" that the game's final sequence is a metaphor for an abortion, with Giygas as the fetus.

A film group known as 54&O Productions developed a fan-made documentary entitled Mother to Earth. The documentary focuses on the road to Mother's localization in North America, and includes interviews with key people behind the process. It was released on August 31, 2020.

The fan website Mother Forever hosted an annual "Mother Direct" live presentation of Mother-related fan projects.