Notes from ‘Game Over’
After hearing it talked about time and time again, I decided to give David Sheff’s ‘Game Over’ a read. A description of Nintendo of America from 1993, this is a book detailing a technology company at the height of its power and popularity, which makes for a very interesting read. Originally subtitled: “How Nintendo Zapped an American Indsutry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children”, the book is slightly sensational and over-the-moon about Nintendo’s success.
Though looking back it can seem overstated, there is certainly a point to be made about the difference between a world without video games and a world with them. There was a transition that took place, a subconscious shift, and the author picks up on the differing generational lessons given by these new interactive heroes:
Generations of children had been imbued with Mickey’s message: We play fair and we work hard and we’re in harmony.… M-I-C … See you real soon. K-E-Y … Why? Because we like you … Mario imparted other values: Kill or be killed. Time is running out. You are on your own. Donald Katz, in a February 1990 Esquire magazine article, observed that the lesson from Mario is “there’s always somebody bigger and more powerful than you are and … even if you kill the bad guys and save the girl — eventually you will die.”
As if that wasn’t enough of a chance, these experiences and stories placed the user in not only a new role, but a new world. To quote Mario’s creator:
“What if you walk along and everything that you see is more than what you see — the person in the T-shirt and slacks is a warrior, the space that appears empty is a secret door to an alternate world? What if, on a crowded street, you look up and see something appear that should not, given what we know, be there? You either shake your head and dismiss it or you accept that there is much more to the world than we think. Perhaps it really is a doorway to another place. If you choose to go inside you might find many unexpected things.”
Shigeru Miyamoto himself can be directly attributed for much of what video games became, and his artful and inquisitive nature meant that the experiences moved from sports to story:
He boldly told the Nintendo chairman that he would enjoy creating a game. However, he said, the shoot-’em-up and tennis-like games that were in the arcades at that time were unimaginative, simply uninteresting to many people. He had always wondered why video games were not treated more like books or movies. Why couldn’t they draw on the great stories: some of his favorite legends, fairy tales, and fiction — King Kong, Jason and the Argonauts, even Macbeth?
It was extremely interesting to read this book, disconnected by decades. Time and time again, reading this history reminded me how much things have changed, and how much they will continue to do so:
Microsoft’s chairman, Bill Gates, has founded a side venture called IHS to create multimedia software. Gates exploded the boundaries of the pre-multimedia definition of software and has attempted, for instance, to corner the market on the rights to digitize museums full of paintings. With those rights, Gates could offer, say, a CD-ROM tour of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. A “visitor” could peruse the paintings in any order, at any pace, zooming in to study details, and calling up audiovisual biographies of the painters. The discs could contain audio commentary from critics and historians, and users
At one point the book’s author details a vision for a world where children could go “on-line” and interact with one another, using a CB radio as the closest analogy:
One could get on-line game tips, and there would be a “chat line,” where gamers could “talk” to one another. It was modeled after CB lines of other networks. Users would choose “handles” to identify themselves and jump into a dialogue with dozens or hundreds of people. On computer networks, the CB lines were dedicated to specific subjects such as cars, computer software, or sex. The Nintendo CB channels would be for game talk and socializing. Kids could have access to electronic pen pals throughout the country, and eventually the world. Ruttenbur’s market research showed that Nintendo’s prime audience would love to reach out and touch one another via Nintendo.
…and at another point, he detailed a vision (which, sadly, fell apart), for the NES to play the roles of other hardware, in this case a lottery machine:
The NES would be transformed into a lottery-playing machine with a special “game” cartridge. A modem, similar to the one designed by Ruttenbur’s team, would connect to the NES via the port in the bottom of the machine. Through the phone lines, homes could have a direct link to the Minnesota lottery.
Though this particular use-case was not meant to be, it’s interesting to see that all time later, we have realized this vision of ‘transforming’ a device into something else. It’s called the iPad.
Technology has changed quite a bit. It will be all the more interesting to read a book about 2016, twenty years from today.
