Email: Culture

I agree the CEO change-up probably doesn’t mean much. 

I think this if far more revealing:

“In the field of home entertainment, where there are few Japanese world-class industries, Nintendo is a well-known brand truly representing video game culture throughout the world.”

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/management/message.html

Nintendo still thinks it is some sort of purveyor of “high art” or some crap like that.  Meanwhile, Wii U sales are atrocious, and everyone is laughing at the company.

I’ve read that they’re considering bundling Nintendo Land with the basic Wii U model, but that shows Nintendo still doesn’t get it.  They really think that people need to be “educated” about the Wii U.  Hell, those recent Wii U commercials about real families speak for themselves. It’s like the Super Mario Galaxy 2 DVD all over again.

Still in denial mode.  That bothers me.

I suspect the denial truly began when people began to criticize Nintendo’s creative decisions. Suddenly, I began seeing circling of the wagons everywhere.

How was Nintendo portrayed in the past? Everyone dumped on their business side. “Yamauchi was a poo poo head”, the Game Industry said. “Nintendo business relations were bad.” All the criticism was there. Yet, on the creative side, nothing but endless praise was poured. “Miyamoto is a god.” “Super Mario Sunshine is an amazing game.” “That Wind Waker is truly innovative!” I know criticism for their ‘creative side’ took them for surprise because they have never been criticized this way. Ever. Creative criticism did not exist for Nintendo back in the N64 days or even the Gamecube days. Not even the Virtual Boy had it. People said the Virtual Boy just had the ‘wrong’ type of creativity yet everyone poured praise on how ‘creative’ the Virtual Boy was. Criticizing Nintendo’s creativity is akin to criticizing Miyamoto and no one every did that. Miyamoto was god.

With the Wii, people and myself flipped that around. We poured praise on the BUSINESS SIDE of Nintendo and criticized the creative side. Wii Sports and Wii Fit succeeded because there was no room for the creative side to screw it up. There is no creativity in a sports game or a fitness game. Tennis is what tennis is. You can tell Nintendo is really reeling with this as Wii Sports Resort had the horrible ‘Wihu Island’ (or whatever name it was called). They just HAD to be creative even though the game would have been better without it.

When I see the classic Nintendo games of Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, and Metroid, I do not see creativity. I see incredible business decision making and excellent engineering. When I look at Super Mario Brothers, I see a ripoff of Alice in Wonderland. When I look at Legend of Zelda, I see a ripoff of computer RPG games and fantasy fiction. When I see Metroid, I see a ripoff of Alien. (If anyone doubts Nintendo rips anyone off, check out Balloon Fight which is a direct ripoff of the infamous Joust.)

I’m not criticizing Nintendo for ripping off the content for their IP. I’m praising Nintendo for doing so. Writers do it all the time. We need more people ripping off mythology and Alice in Wonderland. Don’t tell me the person is a ‘creative genius’ for doing this. Antiquity would praise such a person as being a great ‘translator’ as if Metroid was the ‘translation’ of Alien into a video game form. If one rebranded Nintendo’s IPs from Super Mario Brothers to ‘Alice in Wonderland The Game’, from Legend of Zelda to ‘Lord of the Rings The Game’, and from Metroid to ‘Alien The Game’, no one would be the wiser. Blizzard got away with Warcraft instead of using Warhammer, did they not?

Video games can explore content that other mediums cannot. Link to the Past had dual planes existing on top of one another which could not be explored in novels or movies. Only a game can really show that off. A game like Civilization can tell us something about the state of human history that no book or documentary can.

Video game culture is nothing more than reflections of actual culture. The ‘great video games’ were made because the makers read ‘great books’ or watched ‘great movies’. The first game developers read books and watched great shows because they didn’t have video games (they had to invent them). Today, it seems like every game maker was raised on a diet of video games so every video game made today feels like an homage to an older game.