The Source of Anti-Content

Are you tired of Anti-Content yet?

Anti-Content are things you buy, they could be games, consoles, or services, that do not present gaming content. Anti-Content would not only be ‘user-generated content’. Anti-Content would be anything where the game feels like a circle-jerk where, instead of presenting content, it relies on your entertainment to be either yourself entertaining yourself or other people entertaining you. Anti-Content means the nature of the entertainment is not coming from the content of the game. “Creativity” and “personality” software would also be anti-content.

I’ve been wondering how could Iwata and Miyamoto make such a DUMB mistake as to embracing anti-content software that resulted in such gems such as ‘Wii Music’. Did you know they think Wii Music’s ‘failure’ was because customers couldn’t understand the ‘concept’? I kid you not! Actually, the customers understood the concept of Wii Music very well. They just hated it.

Iwata’s proverbial cook serving the kingly customer new treats and dinner plates could use this example. Imagine if the cook, who loves cooking, delivered a cookbook to the customer instead of a meal. The customer goes, “What in the world is this?” The cook responds, “Why, it is a cookbook! You get to make your own meals!” “I don’t want to make my own meals. That is YOUR job.” “But cooking is so much fun! It will be a new experience for you.” The customer then becomes hostile. “Get this cookbook away from me! And get back into the kitchen and start making something I can consume.” The cook returns to the kitchen, confused, and ponders what went wrong. “I believe the customer didn’t understand what I was proposing.” No, the customer DID understand. The cook needs to understand that the customer is hungry and wants something to consume. The customer doesn’t want to put on the chef’s hat.

It is not just one game that Nintendo made with Wii Music. Nintendo went so far off the deep end that they made an entire line-up of anti-content software: Flip Book Studio, the new WarioWare DS where you ‘make’ your own levels, school girl fashion shopping software, and some other software I cannot remember.

This is very strange for Nintendo. What they were doing with Wii Music was, by all means, radical. Yet, they were so sure it was going to be a success that they not only made Wii Music their flagship 2008 holiday game, they were already beginning development on other games that shared a similiar philosophy!

It is strange because, normally, Nintendo would release only one software as a trial run of this philosophy and see how customers respond to it. Pretend, for a moment, that instead of just releasing Wii Fit, Nintendo was making half-dozen more fitness games. If Wii Fit failed, Nintendo would be screwed. So what happened to make Nintendo bet so much on Anti-Content, i.e. User-Generated Content (Creativity Software, Personality Software, etc)?

On one level, Nintendo believes Anti-Content works because of the success of the Mii’s. No customer looks at the Mii as user-generated content. It is simply an avatar of the person within the game. If Miis are user-generated content, then the earliest RPGs like Ultima had ‘user-generated content’ if they think customer definition of their controlled characters is ‘content’.

But the main reason is the misplaced reverence for things of computers and the Internet. In the notoriously quirky Japan, they see progress of processes on computers and the Internet to mean progress of everything and should be emulated. For example, they see what they think is ‘user generated content’ on the Internet (like Youtube for example) and go, “Yeah, we need to get that type of thing into gaming!” Nintendo of America, whose primary purpose is to put a brake to Japanese quirkiness, would respond to all this by going, “That feels disruptive to me! Oh boy! Green light it! Disruptive! Disruptive! Disruptive!” This misplaced reverence for Internet behavior is the source for all this Anti-Content.

The Silicon Revolution truly has little to nothing to do with computers or a valley in California. In the same way, the Industrial Revolution wasn’t about the factories. The Industrial Revolution began with the invention of the corporation which was invented to protect companies from losses of ships sent out to explore the New World. The Industrial Revolution was very much a change in finance and law which allowed those factories to be made in the first place. The Silicon Revolution is no different. This is why I tell people that their lives depend on their financial education because there will be no more pensions or even government retirement plans in the future. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most people were business owners from farmers, to maritime traders, to lawyers, and shop owners. After the Industrial Revolution, most people were employees. Now, after the Silicon Revolution, it looks like things are reverting more back to a pre-Industrial Revolution way in that most people will become business owners within a hundred years from now. Everyone alive, who was educated in an Industrial Revolution context of ‘go to school and get good job’ will become extremely frustrated as the future moves away from that model.

Legally, the context of the Internet used by the United States Supreme Court is as an oral medium which is very interesting and very insightful. For example, if you present before a court the issue that a chat room modded you down from talking, your case will be dismissed. It won’t be because someone made that chat room (though that does apply) but because of heckler’s rule.

Or let me put it in another way: in the 80s when everyone watched television, I asked someone from a distant country (where people didn’t watch television) what the people did. After all, at this time period from my perspective, it was inconcievable how people could function without watching TV. So what in the world did they do? The response was that they talked. Talk about what? Well, anything.

And that is what the Internet is: talk. The Internet is, after all, nothing more than computers talking to one another. It is also nothing more than people talking to one another. This is why every text on the Internet takes an oral form, a conversational style of writing. This is why message forums thrive. This is why magazine and newspaper writers cannot seem to transition to the Internet style. This is why game blogs dominate instead of online sites of game magazines. This is why people like ‘comments’ sections. This is also why my long articles ‘work’ when they shouldn’t precisely because they are written in an oral or dialogue nature. When you read them, it should be clear that you are reading a speech more than reading an essay. The Internet is an oral medium not unlike the gossip fence old ladies stand around all day just yacking.

This is why looking at the Internet for ‘innovation’ for non-oral mediums, such as gaming, is suicide. Games, books, movies, and television are in the content business. But the Internet is not in the content business, it is in the sharing or discussion business. What has not become commodification (news has become a commodity now, no one will pay for it) has become literally stolen.

Online multiplayer gaming is nothing more than Local Area Network type experiences with a headphone.

MMORPG experiences are more interesting as they cannot be emulated in a local multiplayer manner. But lets remember that games like Ultima Online to World of Warcraft sold entirely on the basis of the content within the game. World of Warcraft took four years to make, the Manhatten Project to build nuclear weapons took three. WoW was FULL of content when it launched, and the content keeps coming from patches to expansion packs. So it is not the online manner that is driving the $15 a month, it is the consuming of content. People are paying $15 a month expecting new content to be added in the patches, and Blizzard has been furiously trying to keep up with the demand.

There are no examples of ‘user-generated content’ or ‘personality customization’ or ‘creativity stuff’ in any entertainment medium from books, to movies, to television, to music. To those who say ‘fan fiction’ to ‘music remixes’ and all, keep in mind that all of that is GIVEN away for free. It has the value of $0. The value of nothing. None of that could ever be sold.  To those who point at Youtube or Google in general, remember that Youtube loses billions of dollars and Google makes money only by acting as an advertiser vendor. Everything else Google does is just a science experiment as they do not generate money.

But the most important reason why gaming should not look to the “Internet” for innovation is because gaming is actually the true center of the Silicon Revolution storm. Nolan Bushnell did not work for Apple. Rather, Steve Jobs worked for Nolan Bushnell. Console companies aren’t building operating systems, but operating system companies are building game consoles. Old computer software becomes forgotton. Old gaming software becomes classic and sells forever. Standard computer software, such as word processors and spreadsheet editors, are becoming free as their value whittles away. Games keep on selling and resist becoming free (outside sheer piracy).

The best selling Head First books that teach computer programming were made by studying how games work and their effect on the brain. Not just Steve Jobs, but many employees of Atari ended up becoming in key positions in Microsoft and other various companies behind the Computer Revolution. Most programmers became programmers because they loved games. In fact, games are where people first learn to interact with computers. Pong came out before the PC. Children understand video-games even if they don’t understand their PC.

When people bought the Wii, they did so believing that motion controls would bring a new type of experience to game content. People would cluck among themselves: “Can you imagine Animal Crossing on the Wii? You could actually fish like using the controller as a fishing rod! You could swing the controller to catch flies!” People looked for motion controls to bring a new play to content especially such as “I can’t wait until the next Zelda where you get to swing your controller to swing the sword!” This is why people are excited about Zelda Wii. But imagine their disapointment with Animal Crossing Wii which could have been so much more than a Gamecube Plus version.

WiiWare being garbage also highlights Nintendo’s Anti-Content stance. WiiWare is not about exploration of content, it is about exploration of gameplay. To game developers, they interpret this to mean  ‘quirky stuff’ and making games for themselves. Customers become repelled by such quirkiness and lack of content. Virtual Console games have many shortcomings, such as their bad graphics, bad sound, outdated gameplay, too hard, but boy do they deliver in the content.

Nintendo’s Anti-Content embrace of user-generated content, of ‘creativity software’, and ‘personality software’ will destroy the company if continued. It has already done irrepairable damage to the Wii where the once ‘hottest thing ever’ became the ‘coldest thing ever’ as Nintendo demonstrated to customers that they don’t believe they are in the content business (which killed off belief of potential for the system). Nintendo should return to their E3 2006 outlook before they got arrogant with the Wii’s success and thought they could make games without content.

The Revolution did not fail Nintendo. It was Nintendo that failed the Revolution.