In the United States, there are two class systems that like to rise above everything: the political class and the entertainment class. When a House representative goes to Congress, he has a meager salary. Yet, when he returns from Congress he is a multi-millionaire. You know something is going on. When you hear constant reports of politicians who are guilty of not paying taxes, while you or I would be gored by the IRS, they literally believe they don’t have to pay taxes since they are members of the ‘political class’. If you ever asked, “Why would a parent raise their daughter to be like a Monica Lewinsky or a Chandra?”, the answer is because once they are into the political class, they are set for life. This is why so many people are licking envelopes, sleeping on floors, working for nothing in political campaigns just so they can become members of this political class.
When there is discussion about the disruption of newspapers, it always is said it is caused by the Internet. But newspapers are in the content business. If their newspapers aren’t selling, there is likely a problem in their content. So the question arises as to why newspapers have a problem with their content today that they did not have many years ago?
My theory is that (American) mainstream journalists have so often repeated the phrase that they are the ‘fourth branch of government’ as to actually believe it. In other words, these journalists literally believe they are members of the political class and now see journalism as a way to enter that class system. Over the years, more and more reporting was revolving around political press conferences. The journalist, instead of being curious and finding out what is going on in the world, would just sit in the state capitol all day jotting whatever was going down there. During a government specific holiday, the journalists would go home too! As if news stops when politicians are in recess!
What is happening is mainstream journalists ceasing to see themselves as part of a news business and more as part of the political class. When leaving their jobs, they often look for work for a political administration. News, to them, ceased to be about creating and cultivating customers and more about greasing the skids of the political class.
A welcome example has emerged to illustrate all this. Yesterday, the state of California had a special election to vote on various propositions concerning taxes. These propositions dealt with increases of taxes with various ways. These propositions were all soundly defeated. It is not hard to understand why as the state of California is bankrupt with businesses and citizens leaving due to higher and higher taxes and costs. With these propositions defeated, it is also clear that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political career is over.
Consider this editorial written the day after the vote in the Sacramento Bee:
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You did it! Uh, so what now?
Good morning, California voters. Do you feel better, now that you’ve gotten that out of your system?
You wanted to show the state’s politicians just how mad you are at them. And you did. Boy, did you ever.
Proposition 1A with its taxes and its spending limit? Too much of one and not enough of the other, you said (or was it the other way around), and voted it down. Never mind that the taxes go into efffect anyway. You showed ’em.
Proposition 1B? That was a tougher call.
Proposition 1C? No way. You like the lottery just like it is. And all they were going to do with that extra $5 billion was spend it.
Propositions 1D and 1E? Forget it. You had already voted to put money into preschool and mental health programs. You’re not taking it out now.
And 1F? Heck, yeah! Let’s not pay our legislators if they can’t pass a budget on time. So what if it likely won’t have any effect, or that this year they actually passed a budget months earlier than they needed to? That’s not the point.
The point is that you’re sick and tired of all this political mumbo-jumbo. So you showed those politicians who’s in charge. You. You’re now officially in charge – of a state that will be something like $25 billion in the hole for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
So, now that you’ve put those irksome politicians in their place, maybe it’s time to think about this: Since you’re in charge, exactly what do you intend to do about that pesky $25 billion hole in the budget?
Lay off some state workers? Which ones? And how many? Remember, the entire state payroll is about $25 billion. You could lay off every last one of them – every Highway Patrol officer, every prison guard, every state firefighter, every health inspector, every professor in the UC and CSU systems, every DMV employee and every nameless, faceless paper-shuffling bureaucrat – and the state would only be barely in the black. But if you want to do that, go ahead. You’re in charge, remember.
Wait, how about taking money back from the counties? Great idea. Not that it will be easy. Most of them are already in the red and getting ready to lay off cops, prosecutors, probation officers and clinic staff.
Let’s see. What about laying off more teachers? Shortening the school year? Releasing prisoners? Selling some of the state’s real estate holdings? Borrow billions to tide the state over until the economy improves
What’s that? Few of these ideas sound like what you want to do? Well, that’s OK. You really don’t have to do these things yourself. You just have to figure out what you want done and tell the Legislature to do it.
They’ll surely hop right on it, now that you’re in charge. Just keep in mind that your suggestions have to keep the state solvent and able to meet all its legal obligations. And you know how complicated things get when the lawyers get involved.
You say it’ll take you awhile to figure this stuff out, that you’ll need a little time to get up to speed on the details? No problem. You’ve got until June 30 to get it all straight.
That sounds a lot like work, you say? Sorry, no whining allowed. You asked for this job. Now you’ve got it, so get on it. Oh, and remember. The entire nation is watching to see how you do now that you’re in charge.
No pressure or anything. Just thought you’d want to know.
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Aside from the arrogant condescension dripping from the words, this is the response you would hear from a burned state politician in California. Yet, the editorialist is talking as if he/she is a member of that political class. This editorial received some attention and was pulled and replaced very quickly.
The journalists used to be watchdogs on… well… everything. They didn’t want to be the political class’s friends, they would blast incompetence or wasteful spending if they found it (and they would be eagerly looking for it).
Almost every California newspaper urged voters to vote for the propositions. The gulf between the newspapers and its customers could never be wider.
So what does this have to do with gaming? If the disruption of newspapers, which is a content business, was occurring in part due to journalists seeing themselves as members of the political class instead of the news business, was something similar occurring with entertainment? We all know of these airhead entertainment ‘reporters’ who just ask cream puff questions to actors.
But consider game journalists who go from ‘game journalism’ straight to a game company. Is that not a conflict of interest? Were they posting wonderful coverage for that company in hopes of getting hired? And with the intense competition of outsiders who want to get into the games industry, was it not an abuse of applying game journalism connections to leap frog over competing applicants into a position at a game company?
Remember when there was so much talk about ‘prestige games’ and making the games industry like Hollywood with red carpet walks and all? This, to me, was an indication that there were people in the games industry that wanted to become an entertainment class. The entertainment class, as personified as Hollywood, makes its money from standard summer blockbuster or kid movie formulas, applies that money to make ‘prestige films’ whose purpose is to impress other directors and actors (and pursue ‘art’), have industry talk be nothing more than gossip about themselves, and refer to customers as ‘riff raff’ who must be kept away at all costs.
Instead of just saying, “Game industry disruption is caused by Wii,” it would be more illustrative to ask what the Core Industry was doing that opened up the door to a disruptor in the first place. They never saw any problems with the standard 14 button controller or longer games for some reason. I suspect that reason is that a gulf began to spread between the industry and consumers. The industry people desired prestige and looked to the Entertainment Class as to how to obtain such prestige. Disruption literature says that an industry’s desire for prestige is why they do not care when a disruptor appears and gobbles up ‘undesirable customers’. In this case, the ‘undesirable customers’ would be the non-hardcore, the ones who do not bow down and worship game industry comings and goings and couldn’t care less.
I find it interesting to note how industry people refer to consumers. Reader, are you a ‘market’? Are you a ‘demographic’? Are you simply a number in a NPD report?
I’ve asked myself if I’m imagining this idea of a games industry trying to separate itself from its consumers (because, to me, the idea is so incredible). All this talk of ‘prestige titles’ and red carpet walk-ons are simply just ‘talk’ and dreams from some people, right? But why did E3, when remade, get to throw out consumers? Game trade shows in Europe and Japan don’t throw out the consumers, yet there was an interest to do so in North America. One important difference is that North America has Hollywood, a definite entertainment class which the games industry had been increasingly desirous to emulate.
If I’m correct, the desire for the games industry to become an entertainment class has increasingly blinded it to consumer reaction. Nintendo, an old game company who never had the similar desire to become part of the ‘entertainment class’, was not blinded and could see the increased consumer frustration before others.
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