If you are in America, it is time for Thanksgiving.

I give thanks to Super Mario Brothers 5. It shows me that talent is not dead, it is only sleeping.

I think back when Super Mario Brothers 4 was released.

Those who were ten years old are now thirty.

Those who were twenty years old are now forty.

Those who were thirty years old are now fifty.

I know one Atari Era gamer who has cancer and never thought he’d see another Mario game again. The parents of the NES generation, who played Mario with their children, are in their sixties and seventies if they are still alive.

I ran into a younger-than-19-year-old gamer, and I pointed to Super Mario Brothers 5. “How can you connect to that game? You weren’t even born when Super Mario Brothers 4 was released.”

And the young gamer responded:

“But I did grow up with classic Mario. I played it on the Gameboy Advance.”

Ahh…

When it comes to classic Mario, perhaps the Old Generation and Young Generation are not so different after all!

More emails come in than I can possibly respond to (what is fun about my email is that there is such a diversity of subjects they talk about, I never get tons of emails on only one subject). After weeks of this, I am really backed up.

I will respond soon.

I actually had a very long and wondrous essay prepared for you. Unfortunately, it was devoured by outlook, so in my frustration I deliver unto you, the condensed version.

I believe your fundamental assessment of Zelda to be incorrect.

Your assessment being composed of:

1. Zelda is non linear
2. Arcade Gameplay is the skeleton of the Zelda experience.

What you described as Zeldas game design in your recent email about Zelda wii, is in fact, not Zelda at all, but western RPG’s such as fallout 3. Which have large, non linear sandboxes for the player to go anywhere, at any time, he chooses.

Zelda is nothing like that. Zelda, is a completely linear game. There is one path for the player to take, every time, all the time. Unlike fallout 3, Zelda games are deliberately designed, the overworld is limited, by the items the player has, a new item, or even event allows the player to access a new part of the map, where the player will find the next spot he is supposed to go to.

While the player could go to many dungeons out of order in the first zelda game on the nes, there were certain dungeons, and areas, that could not be reached no matter what unless the player had the right items. This quickly became the status quo for Zelda.

See, the reason Zelda doesnt feel linear, is because it is DISGUISED, so as not to appear linear. The player goes forwards, then backwards again upwards downward, back to the beginning and through the middle. In a conventional sense, as far as where the player goes, this could not possibly be considered linear. But in game design, it is completely linear, because that twisted path was planned, and the player must execute it the same way everytime if they wish to make any progress in the game. Look at link to the past, you have to go through those dungeons in order, you cant get to, or complete them without the item from the previous dungeon. (Breaking this pattern, is known as sequence breaking, and many times results in cool glitches or bummer having to restart the game because the player is doing things the developer didnt intend and the testers never caught. On an unreleted side note, I totally love sequence breaking.)

Since, at any given time, in any zelda game, ever made, there is only one correct spot to go to next to progress the game, the super guide can work in ANY ZELDA GAME EVER MADE. And thus, has no changing effect on Zelda wii. In fact, its quite the opposite, it allows Zelda to go back to the way it used to be, without leaving the less dedicated and easily frustrated behind (These are, of course, normal people well adjusted to society who will not spend the time, and of course, not enjoy spending hours meandering around lost, unlike use sick gaming masochists.).

Your second point, the skeleton of Zelda is arcade gameplay, I also believe to be incorrect. For if it were ture, you would not be longing for this arcade gameplay outside of Wii sports, who’s skeleton IS arcade gameplay. You want content. You want an adventure.

The adventure is the skeleton of Zelda, where the player goes, what they discover, what they find, what they see. The string of events the player ‘discovers’ (actually they are being led on a very carefully designed path) is the skeleton of Zelda, the arcade gameplay is the skin that encompasses it, keeping the player entertained from event to event, from discovery to discovery, staving off disinterest until the next wonder is uncovered.

The reason Zelda seems non linear is because of all the effort put into disguising it. Zelda is like a maze, there is a huge world with only one path to navigate it, full of dead ends. Only one path. But dead ends are boring. So they filled them with zany characters, fun things to do, secret items like a cape, or wand, heart peices, a cursed fairy that upgrades your items, a character in need of your help who will help you in return. The player is overwhelmed with content, and thus cannot distinguish the one true path among all the wondrous dead ends, all the optional dead ends that are not requirements to beating the game. But its there, its always there, the dead ends are optional, but the player must travel the true path to make progress in the game.

Unfortunately, this is where recent Zeldas go wrong. See, recent Zeldas dont let the player discover the world. The player is shown the path, handcuffed to it. The player doesnt discover ancient ruins, or sacred spirits, they are led to them on a leash. Now that the true path is in plain sight, there is little incentive to disguise the path that has been highlighted and the player shackled too. The player sees the dead ends for what they are. And since the player is no longer accidentally stumbling upon them to find the true path, and the developers have no need to disguise the linear nature of the games progression they have become chores. This is the obligatory fishing minigame, these are the heart peices I have to find, this is the minigame I must complete for an item. I have to do these things because its a Zelda game and Zelda games have these.

This change in game design came around because Nintendo believed many gamers were becoming frusterated with getting lost, and selling the games without ever finishing them. So they made sure these players could get from starting village to last temple without fail. The end result, is the change in the way the zelda series has felt over the years.

With the Superguide, we can go back to stumbling through an unknown world discovering where to go next. And since, at any given time in any Zelda game, there is only one place to go to progress the game. An item to claim, a person to see, a dungeon to defeat, the next event along the true path. The superguide would enable those gamers who were frusterated by a link to the past, and Links awakening (Man I loved this one) to never get lost (And also never find the secrets….) and us who wanted a world to discover to play the same game and enjoy it.

The superguide, will have no negative effect on Zelda’s game design, because Zelda has always had linear game design.

My remark that Zelda Wii will be linear centric due to Super Guide has hit a nerve with many of my email. Zelda Wii is, at least, two years away and nothing has been shown about it. I never understand why people want to live in feel-good-hype about a game that is years off. We won’t know much until it is shown. But the direction the Zelda team has been going has been lowering my confidence. The more is showed off about Spirit Tracks, the more I shake my head.

Anyway, this was a good and valiant attempt. And, for that, I applaud you.

But now it is my turn.

Of course Zelda is “linear” because it has an ending. All video games that have a defined ending is “linear”. Just because you have to get items in order to get somewhere else does not make the game “linear”. By such a definition, even the “non-linear” games would all end up “linear”.

Your error was applying your new standard to only Zelda. But when treated universally, all games become “linear” under your broad stroke.

Let us take the king of RPGs, Ultima. Let us take what many consider the king of that series: Ultima 7 (Part 1, of course. Part 2 is very linear).

No one ever describes Ultima 7 as “linear”. In fact, it is considered the epitome of the “non-linear” game. Yet, in Ultima 7 you start off in the game confined in a walled town (Trinsic). You are ordered to go around and “investigate” the murder. When you do all these things, you get the password to leave the city. This is Copy Protection of the 90s at its finest!

The main game of Ultima 7 involves you chasing Elizabeth and Abraham on a wild goose hunt throughout the world. Wherever you go, they have just suddenly left. And new scenarios emerge with new murders and other occurrences. You must do certain events within the game such as freeing the Time Lord or destroying the Moon Gates. You must get material from a comet to make special helmets. You are not allowed to go in certain areas or do certain things and, especially, say certain things until you have done previous things or obtained previous items. All the things you do lead you to the final event of destroying the Black Gate which ends the game.

Ultima 7, which is replayed over and over again, always ends with the destruction of the Black Gate (with the exception of those choosing to walk into the Black Gate at the end and return home, but this occurs only in the last minute of the game), yet despite the same destination, the journey differs each time when playing the game. How is this possible?

It is possible because you have freedom. It is natural for someone to choose to do something different than what they did before. You can go left before you go right. You can use a bow instead of using a sword, or a magical hoe for that matter. You can make money by stealing dragons’ gold. You can also make money by baking bread. You can make money by stealing the mint. There are many different ways to play the game. At the end of each play, the gamer will feel like he had gone through a slightly different plot than what he saw before.

The “non-linearity” of early Zelda games had nothing to do with it being ‘disguised’. It had everything to do with the lack of text, the lack of dialogue, and the lack of cinematics and story. In the earlier Zeldas, you could go into dungeons into different order. Sure, you had to get a special item sometimes, but you could do it. With the earlier Zeldas, the overworld allowed different experiences to be had each time you played the game. While Link to the Past clearly shows how the vicegrip of “story” and “cinematics” were increasing, once in the Dark World Link is fully free to go wherever he pleases and however he pleases. He has to get some items first, sure.

Modern Zeldas ram a story down your throat. You don’t have much part at all in defining this story. No. Your role is to do nothing more than to move to a certain location or to kill a certain monster to trigger the next cinematic while gives you the next goal. The game becomes predictable. There are no surprises because you, the player, have no control over the story of the game. The more detailed the story becomes, the less control the player has.

And the stories suck anyway. Video game developers are crappy story tellers. Being a good story teller is very difficult. People who get paid to write books or to make movies are very rare among the population. Developers have not spent the decades necessary to form such a craft.

When game companies get the person to make music for the game, they get someone who is a professional musician (someone who can sell music anywhere). The programmers do not suddenly declare themselves master musicians and start making the music. (They used to have to do this as was necessary when a few people made games.)

When game companies get the people to make art for the game, they get someone who is a professional artist. They, themselves, do not suddenly declare themselves “master artists” and start drawing. This might have been necessary in the early games, but everyone has recognized that people need to know the craft of music in order to make good music or that people need to know the craft of art in order to make good art.

So why is that nonprofessionals, who do not possess the ability to sell a story to a book publisher or somewhere else, are writing the stories in these games?

Why is it that nonprofessionals, who do not possess the craft of movie directing and would be laughed out of Hollywood, are directing the ‘cinematics’ and the ‘flow’ of these games?

The result is mixing garbage with good food. It spoils the entire dish.

This is why I say it is better to have no story than a bad story. Just because the nonprofessionalism is not immediately recognizable as bad art or bad music is does not mean the consumer does not feel the bad story and bad flow. The consumer very well does. It is a reason why the consumer doesn’t want to finish or replay the game.

Ultima 7 is very interesting in this regard. The writing was all done by a hired and established playwright. This is a big reason why the NPCs all feel three dimensional and why the game feels very “rich” and “warm”. Yet, despite all the talking and all the text, no one describes Ultima 7 as “linear”.

Modern Zeldas are heavy handed. The game whacks you on the head with a cinematic skillet with many dialogue boxes. You are not allowed to imagine anything else. You are not even allowed to do anything else.

I didn’t have ANY of that in the early Zeldas. The fun thing about these type of games is that I had no idea what my journey would be when I replayed the game. It always ended up being very different than the previous game. No playthroughs of Zelda I or Zelda II are the same. The combat varies so much as well as the players’ approaches to it. Zelda III had that more in areas than as a unified whole.

Hell, even Mario 5 is more non-linear than Zelda is today. When you replay Mario 5, you can (and likely will) go a different path through the game.

Non-linearity is about the control the player has over the player and what can be done in the game world. In a broad definition, all games are ‘linear’ because almost all games have endings and all game worlds have limits due to the finite content. Modern Zelda likes to take control away from the player.

To repeat what you say:

Your second point, the skeleton of Zelda is arcade gameplay, I also believe to be incorrect. For if it were ture, you would not be longing for this arcade gameplay outside of Wii sports, who’s skeleton IS arcade gameplay. You want content. You want an adventure.

The adventure is the skeleton of Zelda, where the player goes, what they discover, what they find, what they see. The string of events the player ‘discovers’ (actually they are being led on a very carefully designed path) is the skeleton of Zelda, the arcade gameplay is the skin that encompasses it, keeping the player entertained from event to event, from discovery to discovery, staving off disinterest until the next wonder is uncovered.

This is nonsense. It is akin to saying that people like classic Mario because it focuses on adventures to new worlds and realms just like 3d Mario. No, people like classic Mario because of the arcade gameplay. This is why 3d Mario lost so many Mario fans from the 8-bit and 16-bit generations.

The earlier Zeldas were not played under a guise of “Ooohhh, I cannot wait to explore and hunt for that next cave”, or “Ooohh, I cannot wait to torch all the trees in Hyrule to find the entrance of the dungeon.” Instead, it was, “Screw this! Where is that Nintendo Power magazine that shows me where it is?” There was heavy use of maps then which negates any idea that players played Zelda for the “adventure” of the “game world”. What game world? That blocky mess?

Zelda used to be an action RPG. Things would attack you all the time. It was a very intense game. It was a thrill to upgrade your sword or armor. Do you ever upgrade your sword or armor in Modern Zelda? You do, but it isn’t for the purpose of combat (as it was in earlier Zelda). Your sword even used to shoot out across the screen. This was very useful. Where did that go?

The items in Modern Zelda are nothing but keys by another name. The boomerang is not used in combat (not often, at least). No, the boomerang is to be used to solve a puzzle at point 42X. Once solving the puzzle with the boomerang, the door (or barrier) opens. Modern Zelda is nothing more than moving from one room into another. They should rename the series to Legend of Lolo.

In earlier Zelda, something like the downward thrust or upward thrust totally changed the nature of the game and made the player feel more powerful. If Zelda II was remade today, the downward thrust would only be used once, maybe twice, and that is to get past a barrier so you could go into the next room. Zelda never used to be primarily about puzzle solving. It used to have action.

It was very easy to die in Zelda. This was not because the game was hard. It was because if you blinked or were slacking off, you could easily get enough hits which would ensure death. (Zelda used to be an intense experience.) Today, the only way to die in Zelda is to for the player to drop dead from boredom.

If the Adventures of Lolo was brought into 3d, you would not see any difference between it and the Modern Zelda game.

One big change is that Zelda used to have competition. There were many action RPGs that were Zelda-like. Some of these games were intentionally made like Neutopia. Crystalis was better than Zelda. Battle of Olympus was a damn good game. Some even call Guardian Legend similar to Zelda. However, the N64 didn’t have much in third party support which lopsided many of the Nintendo software there. What other RPG could you buy on the N64 that was not Zelda?

In addition, every franchise gets some bizarre *boost* in sales when it goes 3d. But that *boost* is just that, a boost. It is temporary and the franchise immediately begins deflating. Metroid Prime shows this. Final Fantasy shows this. The high sales for a game like Ocarina do not truly illustrate its popularity.

Most people who played Ocarina did not finish the game (myself included). Miyamoto assumed this was because the game was too difficult. Therefore, Zelda games have become easier. However, the sales for Zelda games are falling apart and this is striking with no competition.

Perhaps there is another reason why most people did not finish Ocarina. This reason has never been offered before because no one has the balls to offer it. In fact, every other reason is explored with every effort ignoring this reason. Do you want to know this possible reason? Here it is:

Maybe Ocarina of Time was not that good of a game in the first place. Maybe people stopped playing the game not because the game was hard but because they were bored and not having fun anymore.

A thoughtful email. Here it is in entirely below:

________________________________________________

Hi Malstrom!

The Gamasutra story where the analyst was “analysing” the survey was so interesting, i thought i should analyse the story.

Surveys itself are interesting, not because of what people answer, but because of what is asked. Surely, i don’t know what the “fall-holiday survey” asked, but i think we still can get something out of it.

Despite broadening audiences and casual platforms, core games remain the best investment for video game publishers, says Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz — who says “the Wii bubble could be deflating.”

This is just blowing hot air. Looking at where 3rd parties have had their biggest successes, then yes, core games remain their best investment. But we can also look where their biggest failures came from — surprise, they’re core games just as well. Also, the end of the world could be coming tomorrow.

Revealing the results of a broad fall-holiday survey, Creutz says Wii owners are buying fewer games now than they did a year ago — while Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 plan to buy more.
This most likely is “on average”. Biggest installbase still can sell the most software, even if games are bought less per user. There was also the keyword “plan”. Planning on buying something doesn’t automatically translate to purchase, just like “not planning on buying something” doesn’t translate to “will not buy”. 360 and PS3 owners on average likely follow the hype in the internet, as opposed to Wii owners who buy more games based on when they see it on a store shelf, so if the survey had been made after the COD release, we might have slightly different results.

This also is where background information would be very important. If you’re a teenager who doesn’t earn the money you spend, there’s little to none substance in your purchase plans and as we know, the HD consoles are the most popular among teenagers… After all, i’m planning to buy a Ferrari — if i ever get the money to spend into a Ferrari.

This is partially a function of the economic climate — core gamers are the group least likely to trim entertainment spending when budgets get tight. Consumers who own only a Wii, however, are least-likely among all current-generation platforms to increase their software purchases this holiday, he says.
When recession hits, where you spend the most money is going to be hit the most, while where you spend the least money, is going to be hit the least. This also happened during the 30’s. The most hardcore movie goers most likely cut their spending in movies, while the number of casual movie goers exploded and the existing casual movie goers didn’t have to cut down their spending to movies. And, obviously relating to the previous, the proof of substance is missing.

Over half of Wii owners also own an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3, Creutz says — but of those who own more than one console, only 23 percent consider Wii their main platform, which means bigger holiday wish lists among core gamers are more likely to benefit core market games rather than Wii titles.

I would love to see the results for other platforms aswell. 77 percent left for the two HD consoles and PC (notice the different wording platform=/=console).

A big fail was to differentiate Wii games and core games, Wii does have lots of core games. This tries to indicate that Wii isn’t in the core market at all (despite it contradicting what was said about half of the Wii owners owning a second current gen console). Here would be interesting to see the percentages for the other consoles aswell. Wii has around 45% of the current gen installbase in NA (where the survey obviously was made), then this means that about half of the HD console owners owns a Wii. Console specific numbers would be very interesting.

“While core gamers who own a Wii own more Wii games on average than casual gamer Wii-owners, the average title ownership spread between the two categories of gamers is much lower than it is for owners of Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles,” says the analyst.

Without knowing the specific numbers for attach rate, this can only mean that either casual Wii gamers buy more software on average than casual HD-console gamers, or core gamer on Wii buy less software on Wii than they do on HD-consoles, or then it simply means both. Oh, and casual gamers aren’t antithesis to core gamers. A large number, most likely the majority, of current core gamers are casual gamers.

Creutz concludes that core gamers who own multiple consoles are primarily buying Wiis to play Nintendo titles, and not games by other publishers.

Yes, there aren’t that many 3rd party core games on Wii that come even close in quality to Nintendos core games. Core gamers buying Wiis for Nintendo titles is the result, not the reason. And this is where the guy points out that Nintendos core titles are strong enough to warrant a purchase.

“We believe that the optics of this hardware cycle have been significantly distorted by the explosive growth of the Wii console,” says Creutz.

Distorted from what?

The Impact On Publishers

Wii was the primary driver of industry growth in 2007 and 2008, and remains the top-selling console in America. But according to the analyst, “its success did not correlate with strong performances by the U.S. software publishers as a group.”

Hahaha, “strong performance as a group” is just a way of saying “most of the industry did like shit, but with a couple huge hits, it managed to pull its head above the surface”. Software publishers, in real life, don’t work as group. It’s not heartwarming to see your biggest competitor to prosper while your own company is facing bankrupcy. Just look how Modern Warfare 2 made EA to prosper.

And with Wii hardware and software sales declining, investors have become much more cautious about the games business — meaning further negative impact for U.S. publishers.
I love this… This is just saying how meaningful Wii is to games industry. If Wii falls, the industry falls due to lack of investment.
In other parts of the article, future is used to show how the HD consoles will be doing good, while this particular part is predicting the past — early this year. A smarter guy might notice that the competition didn’t do any better.

“While we believe the Wii is likely to be a drag on overall software sales through the holiday, the impact should be limited to those publishers which have invested significantly in Wii development, with the biggest negative impact likely to be felt by Electronic Arts, which (unwisely in our view) heavily invested in Wii development for [calendar 2009],” says Creutz.

With NSMB Wii, Wii Fit Plus and Wii Sports Resort? Drag indeed. EA did right to invest in Wii, it’s just that their projects have mostly been the wrong type. But with all the money they make with the HD consoles, success on Wii is meaningless. Right?

Sony’s PS3 Strategy To Bear Fruit At Last?

On the other hand, Creutz says, the PlayStation 3 looks poised for a strong holiday — 21 percent of survey respondents who don’t currently own one plan to buy one this season.
Great for PS3. So many people wanting to buy PS3.

That’s slightly below the Wii’s 26 percent intent figure, but nearly double the Xbox 360’s 12 percent purchase intent, according to Cowen’s survey. And Sony’s long-held faith in brand loyalty may finally bear fruit: the data also shows that 32 percent of PlayStation 2 owners who haven’t yet bought a current generation plan to buy a PS3, versus 19 percent for the Wii and just 9 percent for the Xbox 360.

WTF? Even more people wanting to buy Wiis. Why wasn’t this mentioned above? What’s funny in this is, that the really meaningful figure, which is people who don’t own a specific console yet, is tried to be downplayed by with the figure of people wanting to upgrade. 21 percent is very good figure, but the data so far is showing that what really is doomed, is Xbox 360 (which is no wonder since PS3 is doing strongly). Expect new Xbox release soon.
Also, there’s 50% undecided left.

The uptick in intent is largely credited to the new $299 price point, says Creutz — and the Blu-ray player may finally be helping the console too, as consumers showed a willingness to pay slightly higher prices for a console with one versus without.
Indeed. PS3 eats away sales from 360.

“With the frontline Xbox 360 console (the Elite) also retailing for $299, we believe Sony now has, for the first time, a significant price advantage at retail, particularly in the minds of serious gamers who are more likely to be considering the PS3 vs. the Xbox 360 Elite rather than the $199 Xbox 360 Arcade version,” the analyst concludes.

What price advantage PS3 has? When two products sell for the same price, neither has price advantage. PS3 may have advantage with features, which previously have been nullified with higher price. The serious gamer (not core) is opposed to casual gamer. If PS3 is eating away the serious gamer and Wii owns the casual market, the 12 percent purchase intent is just going to go down.

Summa summarum: It’s interesting how the first half of the story is trying to show how Wii is doomed, but the latter half ends up showing that, in reality, 360 is doomed. Hahaha.

I’ve thought for a long time that Wii Music is a platformer in disguise – (see this post for example http://kotaku.com/comment/8784899/), which makes it interesting in different ways from other music/rhythm games.

Even more so now that NSMBWii is out. In particular, we get the same sort of fun from  multiplayer in the two games – that joyful mixture of helping or hindering each other through a familiar-feeling landscape.

It isn’t an exact match of course, especially as one is done in graphics and the other in sound. But the overall feel is very close indeed.

I can’t help but feel that the biggest problem with Wii Music was not so much the user-generated content aspect – as I don’t see that the content is any more user-generated than are the NSMBWii level designs – but the fact that Wii Music does not have a good and accessible single-player mode. Anything you try to do in single-player is either in the company of computer-generated dolts, or you have to painstakingly construct through several runs.

It is as if in Mario, you were obliged to play with computer toads/Luigi to complete any level. It just wouldn’t work.

That aside, they seem to me to be pretty much the same game – or at least very closely related.

Hello Malstrom,

You mentioned how “cultural academics” ignore video games partly due to creators like Miyamoto failing to admit the connections between their games and well-established works, the big example being Mario and Alice in Wonderland. While this might be the case, I’d wager the lack of esteem stems from many games being carbon copies, thanks to the Industry. If I turn on the TV, how many commercials for first person shooters set during a major war or in outer space will I see? The non-gamer sees these commercials and, like myself, says “it’s all the same stuff, why would I ever want to pay money for that?” It would be like if every film in cinemas for the last 10 or so years were explosion riddled action films, no one would take the medium seriously, even if there was the occasional brilliant, unique film that shone through. As someone turned off from gaming for years until recently, you wouldn’t bother writing “still nothing worth buying” articles during the period of decline (incidentally, my local newspaper feels the need to make puppies the front page headline when there is no real news, making me question why anyone would want to subscribe and how they’re still in business).

That aside, it’s true that the cultural connection between video games and other works of art is an excellent way to spur interest (though I’d argue Zelda has more of a Peter Pan theme than a King Arthur theme, while Fire Emblem uses specific names and concepts from Arthurian legend). This is something found in many Nintendo games: Kid Icarus with Greek mythology, EarthBound with Peanuts and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Professor Layton with Shirlock Holmes. What’s with the lack of fresh content from not only Nintendo, but more significantly, other companies? How much time does it take to find a copy of Macbeth or Huck Finn or the Jungle Book, read through it, and get ideas? Maybe developers just can’t get library cards. Anyway, the bottom line, as you’ve said a million times, is the lack of fresh content and quality gameplay, which are the perfect marriage in video game design.

PS: While I know Kid Icarus and EarthBound weren’t console pushers, the content is still fresh and unique. Better gameplay (Kid Icarus is short and EarthBound’s battle system is archaic) and advertising (as a kid, I saw EarthBound ads and thought it was a game about farts, ugh) would probably have made them better sellers.

The best way to make content is to STEAL it! And video games have many areas to steal content from. Content can be stolen from movies, from literature, from myths, all sorts of places.

Miyamoto’s advice to young game developers, I forget where or when he said it, but the advice for them was to do something other than just play video games. It was to learn more about the world, to learn things.

I wonder if it would be a good idea for a game developer to NOT play video games and focus more on other outside things such as literature or music or art or whatever else. Some top tier entertainers I’ve heard don’t even bother to listen or look at anyone else in their profession. They are in their own world. Also, not looking at those in their own profession cuts down on the risks for copying them.

Orson Scott Card’s advice to young writers was to avoid the “creative writing” courses at colleges and take up classes like history or science or anything else. The reason, he said, was that all those classes would act like a fuel to your craft. The “creative writing” class might even be detrimental to your craft. It would force you to write in the voice the teacher wants. And what in the world would you write about?

We have “video game classes” now in universities which, to me, appear as useless as the “creative writing” classes. I think the “budding game designer” is far better off taking classes in theater, music, history, science, or literature. After all, if the person teaching the “video game class” knew how to make sure fire hit games, he wouldn’t be teaching a class in the first place! (same way with the ‘creative writing’ teacher). I suppose such classes could have some use but nothing can replace solid learning of the humanities.

Even classes in marketing and business would be greatly helpful for the obvious reasons.

When I think of the great games, I think of the same thing. The game Civilization could not have been made unless the creators had a very large scope and sense of Human history. I mean, a young kid will learn much about history just from playing the game! And what is more amazing is that the game, Civilization, often leads the player to be more interested in history and to go look it up on his/her own.

A big element in the games business is licensed games. These games are often horrible. Yet, they sell. It is obvious to me why they sell. People buy the game to experience the imaginary world that game is licensed from (such as from a movie). They don’t seem to care that the game is horrible. But they do like the content of that game. This is a big reason why I suspect that content is what pushes a customer to a game as opposed to pure gameplay. Gameplay appears to be the bridge how the player interacts with the content. The bridge is very important, but the bridge has to lead somewhere cool.

There is so much discussion and exploration awaiting why the great games are great. Even discoveries can occur just through discussion. Unfortunately, the only discussion going around is “HorseRace” (which console is up? Which console is down?) or “Conjecture” (the games are slowing down due to poor marketing attempts of which…)

There is only discussion of “Industry”. There is no discussion about games. The only discussion of gaming is found among the gamers and that is usually limited to what they are currently playing. I don’t understand why “Industry” discussion is the only discussion.

I knew you were going to post about Miyamoto’s comments on Alice in Wonderland.  I just knew it.

What’s really funny though is that when I logged into one of my other emails today (after reading your blog post), I spotted my email’s “quote of the day.”

Guess what the quote was?

“There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.”
- Pablo Picasso

Too funny.

Heh.

EA is pulling back from the Wii

http://www.edge-online.com/news/ea-montreal-re-focusing-on-hd-quality-products

Considering how much money they are losing, you’d think they’d want to be on the console with cheaper dev costs.

EA has had phenomenal success with their Wii fitness game (forget the name). They have had big success with Tiger Woods Golf as another example. Boom Blox was also made by EA, wasn’t it? I forget about that title.

And EA has lost tons of money on some HD games. Mirror’s Edge ended up being a disastrous loss of money as an example.

Let them hop onto the Core Market again. Watch them swirl down the drain.

There is no business logic or financial logic in abandoning the Wii at all. The “Game Industry” wants the Wii to go away. They keep citing “Wii HD” because that would mean Nintendo would be abandoning its disruptive ways.

Core Market is the ‘high end’ of games. EA might get some profit back. However, that will only be short term.

It looks like maybe the “Game Industry” finally realized what disruption is and hopes that it can starve the Wii to death. But the “Game Industry” didn’t create the Wii, the “Game Industry” therefore cannot destroy it. What is going to happen is that other game companies are going to find big success on the Wii, game companies not associated with the “Game Industry”. There are already too many success stories.

This could be good. Instead of the Wii propping up the “Game Industry”, as I feared, it could very well be the battering ram we need to bust up the industry castle once and for all.

Looks like the ‘third parties’ are not all taking the analysts’ bait that they must abandon the Wii. Look! Blue Fang is talking about customers! It is such a rare sight to witness a game company actually talk about customers that we must highlight it. It is a rare thing indeed.

In the Mario 5 Iwata Asks interview, Miyamoto says,

Some time ago I was being interviewed and I spoke about Alice in Wonderland. But it seems there was some misunderstanding and it’s since been stated that I was influenced by Alice in Wonderland. That isn’t the case. It’s just that there has always somehow been a relationship between mushrooms and magical realms. That’s why I decided that Mario would need a mushroom to become Super Mario.

This is hilarious! Here is what Miyamoto said in 2005 in an interview with Business Week:
_____________________________
Do you remember how you came up with Super Mario Bros.?

It started with a simple idea. I thought: “I wonder what it would be like to have a character that bounces around. And the background should be a clear, blue sky.” I took that idea to a programmer, and we started working on it.

 

Mario ended up being too big, so we shrank him. Then we thought, “What if he can grow and shrink? How would he do that? It would have to be a magic mushroom! Where would a mushroom grow? In a forest.” We thought of giving Mario a girlfriend, and then we started talking about Alice in Wonderland.

I don’t see how in the world that can be a mistranslation. Miyamoto actually said they talked about Alice in Wonderland. Then, when others (such as myself) repeat exactly what Miyamoto said, he calls it a “misunderstanding”.

So what Miyamoto says instead, in the Mario 5 interview, is that…

But it seems there was some misunderstanding and it’s since been stated that I was influenced by Alice in Wonderland. That isn’t the case. It’s just that there has always somehow been a relationship between mushrooms and magical realms. That’s why I decided that Mario would need a mushroom to become Super Mario.

And where did that ‘relationship’, in the bold, come from? The relationship between mushrooms and magical realms is from Alice in Wonderland. Whether or not Miyamoto read it is not the point. If he saw it in manga or other stories, where do you think they got it from?

It is well known in Western humanities that we run around, saying and thinking things, that we believe we, ourselves, invented but were actually from somewhere else. For example, Shakespeare scholars delight in saying how much of the English vocabulary and popular sayings are Shakespeare quotes. When someone says, “That is Greek to me,” they are quoting Shakespeare whether they like it or not.

Since Japan at time was being invaded by many American media such as movies, it is pretty certain that some of those ideas were bouncing around in the minds of the Japanese people whether they know it or not. We are influenced by cultures and ideas which we may not even realize.

Western scholars love exploring Shakespeare’s “sources” this way. They chart the ideas of the plays through different nations, through different cultures, back to the ancient oral tradition from where they spawned. None of this takes away from the genius of Shakespeare. Shakespeare is the seed where influences or sources, which Shakespeare himself may not have been aware of at the moment, are the soil. Studying the soil is not taking away from the genius. Genius, that seed, can thrive in any time period. If Shakespeare lived today in another nation, he would be using a very different soil and have different influences. It is the nature of things.

So why is Miyamoto so defensive on not admitting that Alice in Wonderland is where the power of the Mushroom Kingdom comes from? Alice in Wonderland was such a widely known children’s story, especially many decades ago, that its influences would be everywhere. This is where the relationship between mushrooms and magical places come from.

Miyamoto even uses the word “wonderland”. And where did the word “wonderland” get popularized? Obviously from Alice in Wonderland.

So there are two problems here.

First, Miyamoto says he got the idea because everywhere he saw a relationship between the mushroom and fantastical realm. (This “relationship” was established because of the popularity of Alice in Wonderland. This “relationship” did not exist prior to the publishing of Lewis Carrol’s book.)

Second, Miyamoto says he was not inspired by Alice in Wonderland when, in an interview several years ago in Business Week, he says exactly that.

So why is Miyamoto doing this? It is no shame to find roots of ideas in the past. The world of Hyrule is obviously from pieces of popular myths here and there. The Master Sword in the stone is very much similar to the sword in the stone in King Arthur. Does it bring down Zelda by pointing this out? No. The universe of Metroid has no traces in the Eastern World. Metroid is clearly a child from the science fiction that was going on in the West. You can point to the movie Alien or to other books. Clearly Space Invaders was the same thing. Starfox could not exist if Star Wars did not exist in some form earlier. The pop culture at that time was clearly echoes from ideas in the past (this pop culture that was injected into these early games).

Miyamoto even gives the advice to “young game designers” to look at pop culture for inspiration on video games. This advice he gives in the Nintendo Power interview on the Creation of Super Mario Brothers 3.

My hypothesis of why Miyamoto is incredibly trying to backtrack from this is because he, himself, believes he is a creative genius. He, himself, believes that he created whole universes out of thin air. By saying that other works are behind what makes these universes resonate with audiences means that he is not the Creative God he believes he is. No one will deny his skill at game creation, but it is silly to believe he is some generator of fictional realms that had never existed before. Today, children grow up with Super Mario Brothers where they eat magic mushrooms and get big. A century ago, children grew up with Alice in Wonderland where they eat magic mushrooms and get big.

The User Generated Content movement by Nintendo was spearheaded by Miyamoto and it was based on the entire premise of “creativity”. As User Generated Content crashed in flames, perhaps Miyamoto’s perception of “creativity” is not correct. If he was the generator of whole universes coming from his head, like Athena sprouting from the head of Zeus, certainly there should have been some new game universes  in the last couple of decades. Creative geniuses do not reuse the same old universes over and over again as we have seen Miyamoto do with Mushroom Kingdom and Hyrule. Even average fictional authors won’t put up with it (but publishers force them to only write Wheel of Time or Dune or Ender’s Game books because they sell. The writer would rather make something new).

I actually think combining Wonderland into video games was a stroke of genius. And I think this fact needs to be realized if video games are ever going to legitimize themselves. Harold Bloom, that academic and literary critic, rightfully criticized Harry Potter because it would not lead children to Alice in Wonderland. However, there was another work out there that WAS leading children to Alice in Wonderland. It was Super Mario Brothers. Literary critics have not realized yet the connection that video games are providing the same imaginary realms that children had a century (or prior) ago. Centuries ago, children did have Zelda but it was either a King Arthur tale or some other type of myth or story. The idea that video game makers are inventing new realms that have never before been seen in Human history is laughable.

Since I am the one responsible for highlighting the connection between Alice in Wonderland and Super Mario Brothers, let me explain the context of how it came about.

I want to know why Super Mario Brothers endures beyond the children who initially grew up with it. Why does the Mushroom Kingdom still hold appeal? Why does it still resonate?

The answer is that the Mushroom Kingdom still resonates for the same reasons that Alice in Wonderland resonates.

My answer to explain this phenomenon has been mythos (which is constantly misunderstood). What I mean by Mythos is some work, in the past, often ancient past, that still resonates to this day. Like with Star Trek, I would point to the naval stories of the past, of ancient sailors traveling into the unknown. That is the source of its power in the minds of men. And this is why such entertainment becomes “classics” in a sense. Technology might be forward thinking, but the power of entertainment is found backward through time. Think of all the fantasy books out there. Where did they get their power? They got it through Lord of the Rings. Where did the author of Lord of the Rings get that power from? From the ancients.

Instead of video games being the “newest” form of entertainment, I suspect they are the oldest. The communal experience that video games offer is not unlike the oral tales. Even the “plots” and “worlds” of video games match these ancient oral tales shockingly well.

Connecting Alice in Wonderland to Super Mario Brothers is a no brainer. Even in Alice in Wonderland, Alice runs around nibbling on a mushroom that makes her grow in size (and shrink as well) as she talks to giant turtles, giant cats, giant rabbits, and so on. (If Miyamoto was serious about making gaming mainstream, he would openly acknowledge the connection between Alice and Mario. Academics, those cultural custodians, scrutinize plays, novels, and all. By rejecting the connection, Miyamoto is insulting their intelligence and comes across as if he is trying to make himself a giant in the same vein as a Shakespeare or a Lewis Carrol. These cultural academics do not forgive such narcissism which could be a big reason why they keep ignoring video games.)

The authors and makers of the tale are not relevant. Only the work and the audience is relevant. This is why I think interviewing Miyamoto about Super Mario Brothers is not going to result in explaining why the game is magical. Donkey Kong (which is clearly influenced from King Kong) is not “magical” in that same sense. Many games are not. Even many games made by Miyamoto (which is why he keeps re-using the Mushroom Land for over twenty years).

Miyamoto is on record clearly stating he and his team discussed Alice in Wonderland when creating Super Mario Brothers. Miyamoto, in that Mario 5 interview, even says that he ‘got the idea from the relationship of mushrooms and wonderland’ which was clearly established by Alice in Wonderland even if Miyamoto didn’t read it himself.

There is no doubt about. Alice is the mother of the Mushroom World.