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 Previous page | Questions from the court-of-public-opinion...
1, 2, 3, 4
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The developers that do "get-it" - specifically those at Rockstar North, and Team Soho - are getting a ton of press, a ton of new gamers who haven't played games in the past, and a ton of money for Sony - who has seen it's PS2 console sales put even the likes of Microsoft squarely into the 2nd place column for the foreseeable future. By bringing new gamers into the fold, the market has seen new growth that defies current economic conditions, and has placed - officially - the words "art", "culture" and "video game" into the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and the New York Times.
What made money for Nintendo in the past - regardless of the demographics of it's characters - was gameplay that was unique enough to weather challenges from the competition. It's at least one reason why Grand Theft Auto didn't get a large audience until it's 3rd iteration. What Nintendo didn't count on was the rest of the industry catching up to the gameplay and immersive-world structure that made Zelda and Mario so unique. Once Rockstar North applied the lessons of a virtual-world from Zelda to it's own franchise, they pretty much blew everyone away - including many found working for publications devoted to gaming who - literally - never saw the Grand Theft Auto juggernaut coming.
Suddenly mature subject matter - aka: themes lacking toilet humor, plots written with a sense of grown-up detail and mature style, and characters professionally acted by real adults - are being placed in games with the same level of immersion of those Nintendo pioneered. Now a new adult audience can bond with themes that are more relevant to adults - free of the limitations that infantile characters can bring to the minds, of those who are not Michael Jackson.
Nintendo now risks either becoming further marginalized as the marketplace pie grows, or worse - keeping the myth of the exclusive "child-gamer" in the public mindset. A mindset which is just-now coming to terms with joining the two phrases: "mature-content" and "video-games". The sooner the non-gaming public takes the ratings on the game boxes seriously, the sooner artists will have less reason to self-censure themselves against an imagined "corruption-of-youth" controversy, and will be free to expand the boundaries of new-content.
Even worse, by hindering the growth of the marketplace of ideas, Nintendo - either by accident or by design - is preventing one of the best minds in video games from exploring worlds that the rest of us would like to explore as adults.
That almost begs asking the unthinkable - that being - "what if Shigeru Miyamoto made a mature video game?" That question - "almost" - seemed like it would have had an answer at SpaceWorld 2000. Instead that question will remain forever a mystery when Link takes his place - among the usual infantile cast of characters in his game debut next month. Characters that include "a talking sailboat" and "Tingle-the-clown" - in "Zelda: The Wind Waker".
In March, this reviewer will probably be spending his free-time in "The Getaway", trying to memorize UK landmarks - from Kings-Road railway station, all the way to the outer fringes of the East-End and Tower Bridge - behind the wheel of a car I stole from some unlucky motorist who I just waved my gun at. I'm also trying to determine the best strategy for outgunning a Yakuza mafia cadre at an art-musueum in Hyde Park, unless I decide to explore the locations of all the pubs in central-London instead.
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The Doomsday Clock
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