Nintendo's New World Order, Mckenzie Wark. World
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Catharine Lumby is a lecturer in journalism WOHlD1 II I Ill ' I A l I If l I f C I II l l Ill P I • A I lAHT l I I I A I A I f I atthe Sydney Institute ofTe chnology. Chris McAuliffe is a lecturer in art history Publisher: Ashley Crawford at Melbourne University. Editor: Ray Edgar ~ Adrian Martin is cinema writer for World Art. His Art Director: Terence Hogan first boo k, Phantasms: dreams and drives in popular Advertising I Marketing Manager: culture, will be pub lished by McPhee Gribble in 1994_ Francesca Valmorbida McKenzie Wark lectures in cultural studies at the Associate Photographic Editor: Martin Kantor University of Sydney. His first book, Logic Bombs: Proofreaders: Stephanie Holt, Bernadette Keys Living with Global Media Events is to be publishe d Group Director: Geoffrey King by Indiana University Press, Autumn , 1994. 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It was supposed to be called Monkey /(ong but, due to has conquered a good part of the teen universe. He doesn't a glitch in the fax transmission, the New York office read it as sing, doesn't act, and mostly just jwnps up and down, yet Donkey J(ong and had the American packaging made up he's a cult figw·e to millions around the world. His name is accordingly. Being cheaper to change the opening screen of the Mario, and he's the star of Nintendo video games such as game itself than all that printed matter, Donkey /(ong was Super Mario Bros and Super Nfarioland 2: Six Golden Coins. launched upon the world- sans donkeys. Like Batman and Bart Simpson, Mario is a multi-format marketing At a time when most arcade games were primitive shoot'em-up success story- from hell. His image is used to sell style killing machines, Donkey /(ong was different. underwear, toys, fruit juice and the 'Nintendo Cereal The player's - and Mario's- task was to rescue a System'. Unlil'e Bart and Batman, Mario began life in Mario and Sonic Fay Wray character from a Kongish monster by a Japanese video game rather than in a comic, TV or jumping, dodging and climbing through a barrage movie. He signals two possible changes in the of barrels, ramps and ladders. The wacky elements · direction of pop media marketing. One is the are spreading of fantasy and humour added to the platform genre godzillaring of the pop media landscape by Japanese game, high-jumped it into a new league. It helped iconography. The other is the possible eclipse of the games industry cross over from the arcade to broadcast television and cinema as the dominant the more varied and engaging genres for domestic media forms. like rival strains terminals. Meanwhile, the technology is migrating into the It was not quite the first game to diverge from visual arts domain, blurring the bounds between simulated mass-murder as an amusement. Game installation, cinema and visual art. For artists who designer Toru Iwatani claims that his hit game Pac take as their subject the information landscape within of virus across Man was meant to appeal to female players. "I used which we live, work and dream, video style promises four different colours mostly to please the women to revolutionise the graphic language of art in much who play - I thought they would like the pretty the same way as Pop's appropriation of Hollywood the information colow·s." Mario does not go much fwther than Pac and Madison Avenue did in the '60s. Which ever way Nfan in bridging the gap between the video game you slice it, video games are now central to popular world and the female psyche. Most video games audio-visual aesthetics, and only likely to become offer the player a male point of view and more so. Move over Jeff Koons! landscape. stereotypically masculine things to do, as Marsha aria has ushered in a new cycle in mass Kinder points out in Playing With Power. The media marketing, where the games move to the front line games allow kids to familiarise themselves with computers, but Min pop fashion, and cinema becomes an after market. Sales they also impart very traditional ideas about gender roles, not to of Super Mario Bros 3 exceeded the box office takings of the mention being a primer in junk consumerism. movie ET. Not surprisingly, this second development meets "Video games are the first example of a computer technology with a certain subliminal fear and loathing in the West, that is having a socialising effect on the next generation on a mass where new media are treated ambivalently as harmless fun scale, and even on a world-wide basis," says Patricia Greenfield in fit only for children and as lethal brain-smack for Mind and Media. Children socialised with television and film are impressionable young minds. By comparison, Japanese more used to dealing with dynamic visual change." At some things, popular cultw·e appears, to Westerners at least, to be more tolerant it seems, ow· kids are destined to be smarter than us. Just wait till of such developments. As Australian video artist Peter Callas says, they master the new high speed 3-D graphics of Nintendo's FX media teclmology appears as a territory to inhabit rather than an chip, launched with the Star Fox game last February. evil force to fear in Japan. This difference in cultural ground may in ith 80 per cent of the market, Nintendo still has the lead over part account for the relatively advanced state of Japanese video rivals Sega and Atari, although Sega is catching up fast. Last game culture. Wfinancial year Sega posted group earnings of ¥416 billion (up Mario first appeared in a seminal Nintendo game called Donkey 68 per cent) compared to Nintendo's ¥635 billion (up 13 per cent). W 0 R L D A R T 81 Still, Nintendo's turn-over is greater than they become our dreaming within. The either the Sony or Nissan corporations.