Email: 3DS and 3d in general

Hello Malstrom,

I’ve been reading your pieces on the 3DS, and simply couldn’t agree
more. However, I would like to point out one other piece that you
glossed over, but haven’t really gone into depth on. I am an
individual with no depth perception. I simply can’t see in three
dimensions. So, for the 3DS, a product that aims to appeal to those
who want 3D visuals, this is pretty much useless for me. It’s a
glorified Super DS, with a price tag for a dimension that I can’t even
use! Nintendo pretty much alienated myself, and many others with the
same affliction. It can be played in 2D, but… what’s the point? I
really feel that the company made a huge misstep in forgetting about
this subset – it’s a strict minority, but still accounts for a large
number of people, regardless. Instead of worrying about making
something everybody can have fun with, they went and built a machine
that fulfills their own selfish needs.

All I can really say about the situation is “Nintendo just blew off a
giant part of the overall market.”

Anyway, it’s great to see you back and blogging. Take care!

You’re not alone. Before the Wii was unveiled, there was buzz (bzz bzz bzz) with Nintendo fans that Nintendo would do a stereoscopic approach to gaming. One huge Nintendo fan I know was extremely worried because he had only one working eye.

Human beings do not have good eyes in general. This is why we have eye doctors. Every Human being’s eyes are different. Perhaps the eyeball is so complicated that Nature can never produce ‘perfect eyes’ in people. When we grow up, our eyes transform and change. And as we age, our eyes slowly get worse. It’s not just you but everyone has some issue with their eyes. There are people who get headaches using the 3DS. Why? It is because everyone’s eyes are not made the same.

The reason why the 3D is such a huge problem is because…

A) It is jacking up the price for the hardware and software. $40 for a 3DS game? Screw that.

B) It is forcing all 3DS games to be in 3d. Can the market absorb every handheld game being 3d?

With the second point, everyone tells me, “But Malstrom, like the DS and Wii, developers will make games that do not use the 3d.” No, they won’t. The reason why the DS and Wii had many games that did not use the touch screen or motion controls was because game makers actually did not like the touch screen or motion controls. It made programming games much harder. It made creating new gameplay much harder. Game makers LOVE the 3d output. There is no reason to develop a game on the 3DS and not use the 3d output (as there are alternative platforms). This is a repeat of history where no one is going to make a game for the N64 and make it a 2d game. Already, Miyamoto said the Super Mario Brothers game for the 3DS will be using the 3d output (whereas NSMB didn’t use the touch screen except with the minigames).

Also, the brand and marketing of the DS was not about the touch screen. The brand and marketing of the Wii was not about the motion controller. Wii meant ‘we’ as in gamers coming together and playing together. The 3DS brand and marketing, like the N64, is all wrapped up around the 3d.

I don’t believe Nintendo likes the DS and Wii and what they stand for (for the same reason why the rest of the Game Industry doesn’t). Remember how many people began saying that Nintendo doesn’t stand for ‘high tech’ products which is a key to their success. This must have greatly bothered Iwata and others at Nintendo. It must be the reason why 3DS keeps being touted as ‘high tech’ and ‘first mass market 3d device’ and all this nonsense of ‘recording 3d video’.

As I’ve let you guys known, I come from an engineering family full of programmers, nuclear engineers, people who work at NASA, to physicists, to even the mechanic. I’m the black sheep of the family because I am not an engineer.

There is a personality trait where they become ‘technologists’. They believe they are superior human beings because they understand ‘technology’ and are paid generously well to develop it.My point is that the technologist has a HUGE ego and believe they are on the cutting edge when, in reality, they are behind the times.

99% of all questions concerning the nature of video games can be solved by looking at the conflict between Space War and PONG. Space War was the darling of the technologists. Those who toyed with the big giant computers in universities at the time were playing Space War. But when it came time to sell Space War to the public, the public did not buy it. But the public did react to PONG which was a simple tennis game that the technologists found was ‘beneath them’.

What were the arcades, the cradle of video games? The arcades were the working class. PONG didn’t sell in universities and technology institutes, it sold in a tavern full of working class people. The same occurred with Donkey Kong. It was the working class, not technologists, that began the Video Game Revolution. You can see that divide today even with the Wii. The Wii succeeded because of the working class, not because of technologists.

The cancer eating the video game industry is that game developers prefer to wear the personality of the technologist. The working class, to them, is ‘beneath them’. Their tastes are ‘beneath them’. The reason why the mass market feels video games are beneath them is because the game makers feel the mass market’s tastes are beneath them.

I think this explains why so many game makers can start off with a huge hit game but soon their games become mediocre. They start off as working class, understand and relate to the working class as their equals (and desire to make games for them), and once becoming ‘game developers’, they begin to think of themselves as ‘technologists’ and ‘working class’ people are ‘beneath them’.

I know countless ‘indie’ game developers. Like Trip Hawkins says, many of them are going at video games like the indie garage band trying to become a ‘rockstar’. But the motivating factor behind this endless sea of ‘indie game developers’ is that they are technologists in personality. They find the working class (the masses) in contempt. In fact, the reason why they want to be a ‘game developer’ is an escape from the working class. Many of these people do not have real jobs. They might program a website here and there for some cash.

Now, if you were serious about becoming a successful game developer, you would look at best selling games and wonder what is their appeal, why do they sell. What always happens is these indie game developers (and their brethren, the brats that live on gaming message forums) become enraged at the thought of ‘learning why best selling games sell so much’. Like a knee jerk reaction, they say, “But best selling doesn’t mean the best! Look at how many records <insert pop music star of the period> has sold.” What they are really saying is that the working class tastes are ‘beneath them’.

We have been wondering why the Wii, despite its huge sales, did not attract developers. And we have been wondering why so many game developers keep making games that are nowhere aimed at the mass market. A good answer might be the technologist’s disdain for the working class. In fact, people who bought the Wii were not even ‘gamers’ but ‘non-gamers’ or ‘casual gamers’. They were considered a subhuman class of customers.

I have heard that if a game company’s programmers (who are usually younger ambitious people [when you get older, keeping up with programming gets harder]) were told to work on a Wii game, they would rage quit the company. It makes no sense normally. But it makes perfect sense if they had the personality of technologists and found the Wii to be ‘beneath them’.

The Wii was always talked about as if it was technologically backwards. The truth is that for its price and considering the motion controls, the Wii was actually technologically forward. But facts do not matter, of course. The Wii had to be technologically backwards.

This is exactly how a technologist would talk. They believe they are superior to any and all things of the working class, that if the working class likes a product than they cannot either. As soon as Grand Theft Auto 3 found appeal with the working class (and its sales numbers jumped through the roof), the technologists abandoned it and began to hate it.

Space War versus PONG is Technologists versus Working Class. In a similar way, the PS3 vesus Wii is Technologist versus Working Class. The reason why every winning game console each generation is the one least appealing in technology is reason enough to suggest the kingmaker role the Working Class has.

My constant griping about 2d Mario versus 3d Mario isn’t really about 2d versus 3d or even Classic Nintendo versus Modern Nintendo. It is all about Working Class versus Technologist. I am detecting Miyamoto, after so many years of job security and extreme wealth, has adopted a technologist personality. He feels that 2d Mario is beneath him. It doesn’t matter if the masses prefer it because those masses are made up of working class people. Nintendo is full of technologists (as most game companies are). They never stopped to ask whether 3d technology is what the masses want. It is what they want because they are technologists first. What the masses desire is ‘beneath’ the concern of the technologist. Iwata is a huge technologist which might explain why he got offended when everyone began referring to Nintendo as not a ‘technology’ company. It would explain why the 3DS is so over-the-top in the direction of ‘technology’.

Consider Mario. Why is he so popular? I’ve said Mario was the first Mii. What that means is that Mario was a reflection of his customers. Mario is not a superman. He wears overalls, wears a hat, and is a plumber (or a carpenter). He is a member of the working class. Mario appeals to the working class because he is the first video game character from the working class. (And Link is not a prince or King. Link is the village boy who has no prestige.)

A technologist is someone who thinks technology is more important than people. When I watch Miyamoto rush to make more 3d Mario games, give them orchestras, and continue to look at 2d Mario games as ‘beneath him’, what I am seeing is someone who thinks technology is more important than people. As gamers, we prefer gameplay above technology. But what is gameplay but the people who play the game? It is a microcosm of what I am seeing going on in gaming in general and why gaming is in decline.

Is the 3DS designed for the technologist or for the working class? With higher prices and less accessibility, it clearly is for the technologist. A voice might say, “Why can’t it be for both?” It is because technologists refuse to co-exist with the working class. (And why that is so, I cannot say.)

To sum up this long post, emailer, Nintendo does not care if you are unable to use the 3d output of their new game machine. Why? It is because technologist is about putting technology before people. The technology is more important to them than actual people, like you and me.