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Fred Mason

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games: Consuming the Olympics through Video Gaming

Fred Mason University of New Brunswick, Canada

Dating back to 2008, the series is in its 4th installment, with two summer and two winter versions, all officially licensed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The first three games of the and Sonic at the Olympic Games series were produced by for the and handheld devices, and the most recent (2014) by Nintendo for the platform. The games in this series bring together popular characters from the Mario and Sonic franchises to compete in Olympic events, such as track and field and alpine skiing, in facilities that look like the real Olympic venues of the time, or “dream events” set in worlds from Mario or Sonic games. The Wii platform also enables game players to use their “’s,” customizable characters that players construct to look like their real- world selves. These features encourage the association of enjoyment and positive affect, and a certain amount of self-identification, with the Olympic Games. One stream of in-game rewards that players can achieve offers information on the history and organization of the Games, and on different Olym- pic sports. This can be seen as a form of “Olympic education,” where both positive aspects and criti- cism as a form of indoctrination can be applied. Other in-game rewards encourage players to “shop” with stars earned or scratch cards. This series could be taken as marketing the Olympic brand with enjoyable and popular video game characters. At the same time, it speaks to the depths of the commercialization of the Olympic movement, and how much of the Olympic ideal can be tied to individual consumption of goods and experiences.

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Since the Beijing Games in 2008, two of the most iconic videogame characters, Mario the portly plumber in red overalls, and Sonic, the speedy blue hedgehog, have competed at the Olympic Games. Starting with Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, released as an officially licensed Bei- jing Games tie-in in 2007 for the Wii and DS (handheld device), Sega and Nintendo have collabo- rated on a series of Olympic titles – Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (2010 tie-in for Wii and DS), Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Wii, DS and 3DS), and Mario and Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games (for Nintendo’s new Wii U console).1 The games in this series bring together popular characters from the Mario and Sonic franchises to compete in Olympic events such as track and field and alpine skiing, in facilities that look like the real Olympic venues of the time, or “dream events” set in worlds from classic Mario or Sonic games. Drawing on game studies literature and critiques of the commercialization of the Olympic Games, this paper con-

69 Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 70 siders the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games videogame series with an eye to game play, in- game rewards systems, and how the games interact with Olympic ideologies and branding efforts. As far as I can determine, no scholars interested in the Olympic Games have analyzed videog- ames, despite a vast literature looking at how the Olympics is (re)presented in various types of media, and some excellent work on Olympic commercialization, sponsorship, and marketing.2 Scholars interested in videogames tend not to investigate the sports game genre, despite it being one of the best-selling genres in gaming.3 Videogames are another medium where the Olympics frequently appear, in both official and non-licensed forms, and they are an important medium because of their interactivity.4 As well, they can be an important, if unrecognized contributor to revenues from Olym- pic licensing—cross the 4 games of the Mario and Sonic series, over 29 million copies sold for differ- ent platforms, with proceeds split between the game companies, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Sports Multimedia (ISM, the IOC’s licensing partner), and the relevant Organizing Committee.5 In their introductory text on studying videogames, Engelfeldt-Nielsen, Smith and Tosca outline different approaches used in “game studies.” This work draws on three of these - focusing on the game – its structures, design, and meaning; on the players—how players use games as a medium or social space; and on the culture – how games interact with and create wider cultural patterns.6 My exploratory approach to the Mario and Sonic series focused on game play and internals, and how the games incorporated Olympic events and symbols, with some focus on player use. I “played through” each of the first three games for the Nintendo Wii, including circuit modes and embedded mini- games. I also played each game occasionally with my daughters (aged 5 and 9) and their friends, over a period of several weeks, taking note of which events and game actions they preferred and played repeatedly.7 Ultimately, I am concerned with relating this back to interactions with, and representa- tions of, Olympic images and ideologies.

Mario and Sonic’s Gaming Context

Mario and Sonic are almost certainly the most recognizable videogame characters ever. Each have featured in literally hundreds of titles from their respective companies and crossed over into other licensing and merchandising. Mario first appeared as the hero in the 1981 game , and there are 137 videogame titles with a Mario connection currently on the market.8 Sonic first appeared in in 1991, and received top billing on at least one, if not multiple games every year since. Mario and Sonic served as company mascots while Nintendo and Sega bitterly faced off against each other through the 1990s, in a period some call the “Console .” This rivalry only ended when Sega stopped making consoles in 1999, mainly due to increasing competition from Microsoft () and Sony (Playstation).9 Officially licensed Olympic videogames appeared with every Olympics going back to at least 1992, although unofficial games go back much further.10 Aside from those focused on here, all offi- cial videogames attempted, within the limits of the , to provide realistic play as athletes in different events. Sega also produced a realistic Olympic videogame for Xbox in both 2008 and 2012, so this style of game has not disappeared, and still proves popular in European markets, which are less saturated by games based on professional sports.11 Olympic videogames are not unusual, but those starring cartoony characters with their own massive media profiles are unique. The first Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (from here, M&S) hit the market for holiday buying in 2007. It became one of the early successful games (in sales) for the Nintendo Wii, which debuted just Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 71 over a year before. The Wii console brought Nintendo back on top of the console market for the first time in the 2000s, after long trailing behind higher tech systems from Sony and Microsoft. Wii market- ing focused on family-friendliness, playability, and cheaper cost. Its main innovation consisted of the , or “Wiimote,” with embedded accelerometers that allowed the real-world motions of play- ers to influence in-game play through interacting with an infrared sensor. The combination of accessibil- ity for non-hardcore gamers, with “active video gaming” proved so popular that Wii consoles sold out on a monthly basis in North American stores up until early 2009. Many first-generation Wii games con- sisted of mini-games, or loosely related contests of skill, and M&S fit firmly in this mold.12

Game Play

M&S offered sixteen playable characters from the two franchises, and other characters appeared in background roles like officials and media personnel. Players could compete in nine sports, including track and field events, swimming, single-scull rowing, and table tennis. The venues looked like the actual Olympic facilities, with their walls painted in Olympic rings and pictures of the Beijing Olym- pic mascots.13 Four “dream events” were also available – dream race, table tennis, fencing, and plat- form diving. These occurred in settings from old Mario or Sonic games, and players could use “power-ups” to enhance their abilities or negatively impact opponents. The M&S game took full advantage of the Wii’s “Mii Channel,” allowing players to import their “,” avatars of their own design, into the game where they competed side-by-side with the franchise characters.14 In the “Gallery” section of the game, players could play mini-games (such as card games and counting games) to open information on the Olympic Games, in the areas of “Olympic Truce,” “Modern Olympic Games Facts,” “Beijing 2008,” the “Ancient Olympic Games,” and “About Ath- letes.” This essentially amounted to unveiling five short Olympic factoids in each category. The 2010-related Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (hereafter M&SW) had a similar in-game format, with nine winter sports incorporating various events, including alpine skiing, speed skating, and sliding sports. It also included mini-games under a “Party Games” section, and eleven dream event versions of winter sports. M&SW offered a festival mode for one to four players, where players trained for and competed in all events across seventeen days of Olympic competition. In playing different modes, and for accomplishments such as setting new records, players col- lected star tokens, which could be spent inside a game menu selection called “Shopping.” This fea- tured a layout of five different stores around a town square, with Mario and Sonic characters walking around in the background. Players could buy background songs from past Mario and Sonic games at the Music Shop; decals and paint for equipment like snowboards at the Sports Shop; and trophies and power-ups at the Secret Shop. Similar to the Gallery in the first game, players could spend their tokens at the Library, where they could open up information on the Olympic Games in categories such as Olympic Records, Vancouver 2010, and Olympic Winter Games Origins. Most notably, and most popularly of all things with the children I observed, was the Boutique, where players could buy clothing and costumes for their Miis, which could then be worn in further gameplay. Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (M&S2012) borrowed elements from the preceding games. While many events played similarly to the original 2008 version, M&S2012 offered twelve sports and ten dream events. Rather than star tokens, players earned “scratch cards” where they had the chance to win songs, clothing, and stickers. Non-winning tickets became the currency that players could use to buy items in a simplified “Bonus Mode.” The main innovation in the 2012 game was the “London Party” mode, where up to four players could compete in sports events, dream Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 72 events, and mini-games for a cumulative score. Like previous iterations, some of the mini-games involved questions about Olympic facts. In-between play was set on a stylized map of London, with monuments like Big Ben and London Bridge on the landscape. The games received generally positive industry reviews, with reviewers waxing over the meeting of characters from the two franchises. M&S was described as fun, but repetitive. Some complained that the controls for some events were too complex, too touchy, and required too much “waggle” (waving of the Wiimote). The controls and gameplay in M&SW was seen as too similar to the original, even if it involved different winter events. The London Party for 2012 proved popular, and reviewers appreciated the inclusion of dream events in all the games, with some suggesting those played better than the Olympic sports. Still, the games did not receive anywhere near the highest possible ratings.15 Consumers responded more positively than reviewers, if considering sales as a measure. Across plat- forms, M&S sold 12.99 million copies, M&SW 7.87 million, and M&S2012 8.03 million, meaning they all ranked highly on sales charts in their respective years.16 Olympic Ideologies and Commercialization We now need to turn to critical questions about how the games tie to Olympic ideologies and ongo- ing patterns of commercialization. This is particularly important given the Wii’s marketing as a family oriented gaming console, and because after discussions with the IOC, game developers tailored the games specifically to attract youth.17 Through these videogames, various “Olympic matters” are being transmitted to young consumers. Positively, notions of people coming together in friendly competition and peaceful exchange may be promoted. While mostly marketing, the companies made much of the idea of the Olympic Games as a platform where such previously intense corporate rivals could come together for the first time.18 Industry writers certainly stressed it as something most would never expect.19 However, one would have to know the history of these companies, and of the rivalry, to get the significance, and most casual gamers would miss that nuance. There is also a possibility that the games may promote physical activity, aligning with one of the IOC’s goals in its Olympic education materials teaching life skills through physical activity and improving physical literacy among youth.20 All of these games are “active video games” (AVGs), which require bodily movement to influence gameplay.21 One reviewer talked about the physical demand of some of the events in the first game, and an academic study comparing physical exertion in AVGs used M&S as its “anecdotally-determined high-activity video game.”22 Meanwhile, research study results on the of physical activity provided by AVGs vary greatly, with the most optimistic suggesting they amounted to short bouts of moderate-level physical activity. Further, those that involve upper-arm-only movements, like the M&S series games, provide less benefit.23 In addition, there is a growing body of literature on injuries related to AVGs, with one case report specifically ref- erencing a torn Achilles tendon while playing M&S (despite, as just noted, this being an upper-arm- only game).24 Realistically, and thinking more critically, this game series is an exercise in marketing and brand- ing the Olympic Games. Players are clearly encouraged to associate the ideas of fun and enjoyment with the Olympics. These are enjoyable ways to spend hours of time, all while having Olympic sym- bols like the five rings and competition venues foregrounded. The capability of playing with Miis in the game environment only serves to increase the identification of players, through their avatars. The videogame developers’ intentions to make these family-oriented games that attract a youthful audi- ence, also matches with the direction that much of the marketing from the IOC itself took in the late Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 73

2000s and early 2010s.25 Suggesting that some of this is very conscious, all of the games carefully included ways of providing Olympic-related information in the mini-games or rewards systems. While this is the product of a licensee separated from the IOC’s own activities,26 it aligns with aspects of Olympic education programs, where in part the focus is on providing “Olympic knowledge” for children – information on the Games, and related facts and figures.27 Beyond simply encouraging positive associations with the Olympics, and much like critics assert happens in many Olympic education initiatives, the M&S videogames go some way towards school- ing their young target audience in a consumptive lifestyle. 28 The latter two games include reward sys- tems where players can exchange tokens to customize their Miis under the “Shopping” (2010) or “Bonus Mode” features (2012). While such in-game rewards features are common in videogames,29 it is notable that performance and success in Olympic competition in the M&S games leads to an exchange process that allows the crafting of a consumer identity, at least for the . Such is practi- cally the definition of a consumer lifestyle, and all is naturalized within the games. For the children I observed playing, customizing their Miis through spending what passed for currency in the games became the sole reason for playing over an extended time, suggesting that the rewards operate as a potentially powerful socialization tool. As Maguire and colleagues suggested of Olympic advertising in the mid-2000s, in this, “the IOC’s raison d’etre seems to be the promotion of consumerism, not the values claimed to be part of Olympism.”30 On the most basic level, the existence of the M&S franchise indicates how far the Olympic Games have become commodified. We have two leading companies from the multi-billion dollar videogame industry taking some of their most commercialized and fetishized characters and combin- ing them with the Olympics into a product bought by literally millions of people. The Olympics, as a form of sports entertainment, become something bought and sold, a physical and symbolic commod- ity unto itself. While this has already occurred with traditional forms of media, it suggests that newer media forms offer the potential of bringing commodification and commercialization to greater pro- portions, and potentially into households that may not even be interested in the Olympics Games themselves. As discussed above, this all goes beyond just good business and smart marketing. The M&S games demonstrate the commodification of the Olympic Games, at the same time as internal aspects of the videogames promote a consumptive lifestyle. As seen in the Mario and Sonic game franchise, the Olympic Games are enmeshed in what Michael Real predicted in 1996 would become a “virtual circle of commodity values and fetishes.”31 Traditional Olympic values, if they ever really existed, are subsumed to, or more accurately, put to the service of, corporate relationships, economic structures, and consumerist ideologies. And all of this is delivered, kid-gloved, through playing with the Olym- pic rings, a smiling hedgehog, and a plumber with a comical mustache.

Endnotes

1 Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Sega, 2007); Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Sega, 2010); Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Sega, 2011), and Mario and Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games (Nintendo, 2013). According to interviews, the franchise was developed by Sega’s sports-related creative team, rather than the , as would be typical with these characters. For example, an interview with Perrin Kaplan (Nintendo America VP of Marketing & Corporate affairs) and Scott Steinberg (Sega America VP of Marketing): Tor Thors- Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 74

en, “Q&A: Sega, Nintendo on the First Sonic-Mario Game,” Gamespot, March 29, 2007; http://www.gamespot.com/ar- ticles/qanda-sega-nintendo-on-the-first-sonic-mario-game/1100-6168338/. 2 There is a vast body of literature on media and the Olympic Games. For example, a SportDiscus database search for peer-reviewed journal articles in English, with the specific terms “women,” “Olympic,” and “media,” returned 66 hits. Andrew C. Billings has extensively studied US Olympic broadcasting. See his Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television (New York: Routledge, 2008). There is also a solid body of scholarship on the commercialization of the Olympics. A now-classic book-length work with an extensive history of Olympic commercialization is: Robert K. Bar- ney, Stephen R. Wenn and Scott G. Martyn, Selling the Five Rings: The International Olympic Committee and the Rise of Olympic Commercialism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2002). More critically, Helen Lenskyj has called it an “Olympic Industry” rather than an Olympic movement. For an analysis of the issues, see her Inside the Olympic In- dustry: Power, Politics, and Activism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000). 3 One scholar who has done extensive work on sports videogames, generally taking an audience research perspective, is Garry Crawford. See Garry Crawford and Victoria K. Gosling, “More Than a Game: Sports Themed Video Games and Player Narratives,” Sociology of Sport Journal 26 (2009), 50-66; Garry Crawford, “The Cult of Champ Man: The Cultures and Pleasures of Championship Manager/Football Manager Gamers,” Information, Communication & Society 9 (2006), 496-514; Garry Crawford, “Digital Gaming, Sport and Gender,” Leisure Studies 24 (2004), 259-270. The idea of “genres” in videogames is quite problematic, as this turns to other forms of media for descriptors, and games often blur generic boundaries. Further, there is debate over whether videogame genres are based on the narratives presented or on game play (a “narrative vs. ludology” debate with scholars). See Thomas H. Apperley, “Genre and Game Studies: Toward a Critical Approach to Video Game Genres,” Simulation & Gaming 37, no. 1, (2006), 6-23; David A. Clearwater, “What Defines ? Thinking about Genre Study after the Great Divide,” Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association 5, no, 8 (2011), 29-49; http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/67/105. Still, a “sports genre” is fairly easy to identify and use as a general category, as in Jayne Gackenbach and John Bown, “Video Game Presence as a Function of Genre,” Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association 5, no, 8 (2011), 10-11; http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/69/104. 4 Videogames are more interactive than traditional media forms like radio or television, and as such, players tend to have a more immersive experience. See Alison McMahan, “Immersion, Engagement and Presence,” in: The Video Game The- ory Reader, second ed., eds. Mark J.P. Wolf and Bernard Perron (New York: Routledge, 2003), 67-86. For a critical look at this in the sports game context, see Darcy Cree Plymire, “Remediating Football for the Posthuman Future: Embodiment and Subjectivity in Sports Video Games,” Sociology of Sport Journal 29 (2009), 17-30. 5 All numbers on game sales in this paper come from the web-site VGChartz, which has a searchable database of sales figures: http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/. On the split between the videogame companies, the IOC and ISM, see Da- mian Imwood, “Mario and Sonic will be Part of Video-Game Deal for 2010 Games,” The Province, 8 February 2009; David Richards, “Mario and Sonic to Race 100M,” Times Online, 28 March 2007. Archived at: http://www.webcita- tion.org/5q9LS6L9d. Typical licensing arrangements with the IOC see companies pay a royalty fee of 10-15%: Vassil Girginov and Jim Parry, The Olympic Games Explained (London: Routledge, 2005), 111. 6 Simon Engelfeldt-Nielsen, Jonas Heide Smith and Susana Pajares Tosca, Understanding Video Games: The Essential In- troduction, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2013), 9-11. 7 This paper does not include the most recent game, Mario and Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games, because I did not have access to a Wii U, the only console for which this game is available. 8 The number of Mario games is from a count on “Nintendo’s Official Home for Mario,” http://mario.nintendo.com/. Ac- cessed Aug. 1, 2014. There are a number of good popular histories on the videogames industry. For an overview, see Harold Goldberg, All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Popular Culture (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2011). Jeff Ryan’s book focuses specifically on Nintendo and the Mario character’s place in cor- porate history and popular culture. Ryan, : How Nintendo Conquered America (New York: Portfolio/Pen- guin, 2011). This was based on a key earlier work: David Scheff, Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured your Dollars, and Enslaved your Children (New York: Random House, 1993). A popular history that focuses more on Sega, including the major battles between the company’s American and Japanese branches and its ri- valry with Nintendo, is Blake J. Harris, : Sega, Nintendo and the Battle that Defined a Generation (New York: Itbooks, 2014). 9 Ryan, Super Mario, 203-206. 10 This comment is based on an extensive online search for information. The earliest official game the author could find was in 1992, Olympic Gold by third party developer US Gold, for the . Showing how far back Olympic videogames go, I serendipitously found, at a second hand game dealer in Fredericton, New Brunswick, a 1978 game entitled Video Olympics, produced by for the , one of the earliest mass-marketed game systems. 11 John Gaudioi, “Athletes play video games as Olympics go virtual,” Reuters, 7 August 2008; http://www.reuters.com/ar- ticle/2008/08/07/us-videogames-olympics-idUSN8729423320080807. On the popularity of simulation Olympic games in Europe, see aninterview with Sean Ratcliffe, VP of Marketing at Sega of America: John Gaudiosi, “Sega Shows off Next Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 75

Big Olympics Game, Targets Wii and DS,” Venture Beat, April 6 2009; http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/06/sega-shows- off-next-big-olympics-game-and-targets-wiidsi/. 12 Goldberg, All Your Base, 285-287; Ryan, Super Mario, 240-246. 13 In all games, visible facilities like athletics stadiums and ski jumps appeared visually quite close to the real-world venues, which is impressive given that the videogames came out a year in advance of the actual Olympic Games. For example, in the 2012 game, 11 of the 31 actual London venues appeared: Andy Robinson, “Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games: Can Lightening Strike Thrice?” CVG: Computer and Video Games, 16 May 2011; http://www.com- puterandvideogames.com/301489/previews/mario-sonic-at-the-london-2012-olympic-games-can-success-strike- thrice/. 14 Most players construct their Miis to look uncannily like themselves, which increases immersion and identification with the game play. Ryan, Super Mario, 243. 15 For a sample of reviews of various games, which include the comments noted, see Matt Bozon, “Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Review,” IGN, November 6 2007. Archived at: http://web.archive.org/web/20080704164537/http:// wii.ign.com/articles/833/833014p1.html; James Newton, “Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games Review,” Nin- tendo Life, 16 October 2009; http://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/2009/10/mario_and_sonic_at_the_olympic _winter_games_wii; Thomas East, “Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympics: Will Live the Dream?” Nintendo Magazine, 16 May 2011; http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/26281/mario-sonic-at-the-london-2012-olym- pics--wii-3ds/. 16 As of August 1, 2014, Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games has sold only 390,000 copies. This may indicate that the popularity of the series has waned. However, poor sales of the Wii U console may be to blame. Ac- cording to an article in UK industry magazine gamesTM, only 6.16 million Wii U’s have sold between its launch in No- vember 2012 and May 2014, easily making it Nintendo’s poorest selling console ever; only 29.37 million software units (all games combined) have been sold. See “Nintend’oh,” gamesTM 149, no. 14 (July 2014), 66-72. 17 Several industry interviews in 2007 reference this conversation. For example, Sega Europe President and COO Mike Hayes said, “Speaking to the IOC…they really pushed home the spirit of sport for everyone, and their wanting to get young people into the Olympics. So rather than doing a simulation we thought we had some great characters that young people love and are very iconic. The idea started there, and then we thought it would be perfect if Nintendo could bring Mario into it so we talked to Nintendo and they agreed it was a great idea. So it was actually from the Olympics that this was born.” Yuji Naka, “Mario and Sonic Interview Pt. 1,” CVG: Computer and Video Gaming, 29 March, 2007. Archived at: http://web.archive.org/web/20070406191929/http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=161056. Similar comments were made by Hayes in Rob Burman and Matt Casamassina, “Mario and Sonic Together at Last,” IGN, 28 March 2007; http://ca.ign.com/articles/2007/03/28/mario-and-sonic-together-at-last. 18 Hayes, quoted in another interview: “Under the banner of the Olympics, we wanted to emphasize the ethics of co-op- eration, which are so important to the event, and we thought bringing together past rivals Mario and Sonic was a perfect way to highlight the importance of co-operation. We really wanted to recreate the spirit of the Olympics in a videog- ame.” Rob Burman, “Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Interview,” IGN, 28 March 2007; http://ca.ign.com/articles/ 2007/03/29/mario-sonic-at-the-olympic-games-interview. ISM Chairman and COO Raymond Goldsmith was widely cit- ed as saying, “The Olympic Games represent the true spirit of competition and passion. Bringing together intensely com- petitive and fun characters like Mario and Sonic in an Olympic setting helps showcase the sports of the Olympics in a new and compelling way.” Sega, “Sega and Nintendo Join Forces for Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.” Press release, March 28, 2007. 19 For example, in advance of the release of M&SW in 2009, James Newton wrote, “A few years ago, the unthinkable hap- pened – Sega announced that Mario and Sonic were to put aside their 16-bit rivalry and join forces in an officially li- cenced Olympic game. Clocks ran backwards, dogs barked uncontrollably in the streets, and the whole world lay in danger…when Sega announced the follow-up to be based on the Winter Olympic Games, everyone accepted it like the 1990s never happened. Despite this seemingly unstable universal balance, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games is proof that, like peanut butter and jam, some unnatural combinations can be outstanding.” Newton, “Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games Review.” 20 Under the “Joy of Effort” section in in recent educational materials it is stated that, “Young people develop and practise physical, behavioural and intellectual skills by challenging themselves and each other in physical activities, movement, games and sport.” Further, physical literacy comes under the value of “Balance between body, will and mind” See Dean- na Binder, Teaching Values: An Olympic Education Toolkit (Lausanne, Switzerland: IOC Commission for Culture & Olympic Education, 2007), 13. 21 For an overview of “active video games” see Lisa Witherspoon & John P. Manning, “Active Gaming: The Future of Play?” American Journal of Play 4, no. 4 (2012), 464-487. On comparisons to real sports, see Lisa M. Barnett, Nicola D. Rod- gers, Lisa Hamm & Jo Salmon, “Parents’ and Children’s Views on Whether Active Video Games are a Substitute for the ‘Real Thing’,” Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise & Health 6 (2014), 366-381. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 76

22 Dan Hsu stated: “Call me a wimp, but some racing contests are too physically demanding, leaving me out of breath and hoping that my deodorant is holding up. But it feels good to sweat during a videogame, and the physicality makes the victories all the more exciting.” Andrew Fitch, Brooks Huber, and Dan Hsu, “Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games,” Electronic Gaming Monthly, no. 223 (December 2007), 66. The research study was Leah C. Stroud, William E. Ammon- ette, & Terry L. Dupler, “Metabolic Response of Upper-Body Accelerometer-Controlled Video Games in Adults,” Applied Physiology, Nutrition & Metabolism 35 (2010), 643-649. 23 There is too large a body of scientific literature on AVGs or “exer-gaming” to cite here. Interested readers would do well to consult the following systematic reviews and meta-analyses (from which I culled my information), cited chronologi- cally: Amanda J. Daley, “Can Contribute to Improving Physical Activity Levels and Health Outcomes in Chil- dren?” Pediatrics 124, (2009), 763-771; Elaine Biddiss & Jennifer Irwin, “Active Video Games to Promote Physical Activity in Children and Youth: A Systematic Review,” Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine 40, (2010), 664-672; Wei Peng, Jih-Hsuan Lin, & Julia Crouse, “Is Playing Exergames Really Exercising: A Meta-Analysis of Energy Expenditure in Active Video Games,” Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking 14 (2011), 681-688; Wei Peng, Julia C. Crouse, & Jih-Hsuan Lin, “Using Active Video Games for Physical Activity Promotion: A Systematic Review of the Cur- rent Research,” Health Education & Behavior 40, no. 2 (2012), 171-192. There are also proposals that AVGS and other sports games can improve cognitive capacities. See Rolf Kretschmann, “Developing Competencies by Playing Digital Sports-Games,” US-China Education Review 7, no. 2 (2010), 67-75. 24 Rohit Singh, Gopikanthan Manoharan, Thomas Steven Moores, & Amit Patel, “Nintendo Wii Related Achilles Tendon Rupture: First Reported Case and Literature Review of Motion Sensing Video Game Injuries,” BMJ Case Reports,14 May 2014; doi:10.1136/bcr-2013-202657. Other medical reports on Wii injuries include Aneel Bhangu, Michael Lwin, & Richard Dias, “Wimbledon or Bust: Nintendo Wii Related Rupture of the Extensor Pollicis Longus Tendon,” Journal of Hand Surgery European Volume 34 (2009), 399-400; Ches Jones & Bart Hammig, “Injuries Associated with Interactive Game Consoles: Preliminary Data,” Physician and Sportsmedicine 37 (2009), 138-140; A.C. Peek, T. Ibrahim, H. Abu- nasra, D. Waller, & R. Natarajan, “White-out from a Wii: Traumatic Haemothorax Sustained Playing Nintendo Wii,” An- nals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England 90 (2008), W9-W10; doi 10.1308/147870808X303100; Richard J. Robinson, Dominic A. Barron, Andrew J. Grainger & Ramakrishnan Venkatesh, “Wii Knee,” Emergency Radiology 15 (2008), 255-257; Dorothy Sparks, Daniel Chase & Lisa Coughlin, “Wii have a Problem: A Review of Self-Reported Wii Related Injuries,” Informatics in Primary Care 17 (2009), 55-57. Videogame theorists suggest that the Wii, especially when played with others, encourages “gestural excess,” or movements beyond those necessary, which helps explain the traumatic injuries. See Patrick Crogan, “The Nintendo Wii, Virtualisation and Gestural Analogics,” Culture Machine 11 (2010), 82-101; www.culturemachine.net; Bart Simon, “Wii are out of Control: Bodies, Game Screens and the Produc- tion of Gestural Excess,” Loading… Journal of the Canadian Games Studies Association 3, no. 4 (2009); http://jour- nals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/65/59. 25 Joseph Maguire, Sarah Bernard, Katie Butler, & Peter Golding, “‘Celebrate Humanity’ or ‘Consumers?’: A Critical Evalu- ation of a Brand in Motion,” Social Identities 14, no. 1 (2008), 74-75. 26 As Brett Hutchins and Janine Mikosza suggest, new media forms can present the IOC with a “Janus-faced” character, whereby they offer additional exposure but challenge the IOC’s capacity to control the message. Hutchings & Mikosza, “The Web 2.0 Olympics: Athlete Blogging, Social Networking and Policy Contradictions at the 2008 Beijing Games,” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media 16 (2010), 281. 27 Roland Naul, “Didactic Approaches to Teaching Olympic Education,” in: The Olympics: A Critical Reader, ed. Vassil Girginov (London, Routledge, 2010), 405-406. For criticism of this approach, see Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, “Olympic Ed- ucation Inc.: Colonizing Children’s Minds?” in: Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium for Olympic Re- search, eds. Robert K. Barney et al (London, ON: ICOS, 2008), 151. 28 Lenskyj, “Olympic Education Inc.,” 152-155; Tara Magdalinski, Kimberley S. Schimmel & Timothy J.L. Chandler, “Re- capturing Olympic : The Corporate Invasion of the Classroom,” in: The Political Economy of Sport, eds. John Nauright and Kimberley S. Schimmel (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 47-49; Mark Devitt, “Olympic Ed- ucation: Gold Medal for Propoganda?” in: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Symposium for Olympic Research, eds. Janice Forsyth and Michael K. Heine (London, ON: ICOS, 2012), 51-55. 29 Alison Gazzard, “Unlocking the Gameworld: The Rewards of Space and Time in Videogames,” Game Studies: The In- ternational Journal of Computer Game Research 11, no. 1 (2011); http://gamestudies.org/1101/articles/gazzard_alison. 30 Joseph Maguire, Sarah Bernard, Katie Butler, & Peter Golding, “Olympism and Consumption: An Analysis of Advertising in the British Media Coverage of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games,” Sociology of Sport Journal 25 (2008), 180. 31 Michael Real, “The Postmodern Olympics: Technology and the Commodification of the Olympic Movement,” Quest 48 (1996), 16.