I have a theory that in the world of video games, it is not yet 1983. It isn't 1983 but it may soon be, maybe later this year, maybe some time next year.
I concocted this theory while Kotaku managing editor Brian Crecente was taking his eyes off the road from El Paso to Denver least week long enough to IM-argue with me about "Wii Fit" and whether the game is a) a marketing innovation or b) a game design innovation.
He wound up sharing his side of things at Kotaku and mentioned that he and I disagreed ever so slightly. He mostly sees a marketing breakthrough. I see that, but I see an undeniable design achievement.
"Wii Fit" gives me reason to believe that 1983 is coming.
So what happened in 1983?
In that year, the New York Times published another pair of its weekly lists of best-selling books. These lists are the industry standard, as important to the book industry as the NPDs are to video games. One list showed the top fiction books, the other showed the top non-fiction. A recent Times article re-printed the February 28. 1983 non-fiction list and pointed out what was then undeniable: the most popular sorts of non-fiction books that people buy aren't about war or sports or politics. They are about making yourself better. They're about self-help. Advice.
The number one non-fiction book of the 2/28/83 Times list was "Jane Fonda's Workout Book."
That 1983 list, typical of its day, is dominated by exercise books and money-management books and other tomes that you would buy to find hope for your life and improvement.
By 1984, self-help books were so popular that the Times had to give them their own list. That way books about war and sports and politics could show up on the non-fiction list again.
"In video games, it's not yet 1983. Self-help games don't dominate." |
In video games, it's not yet 1983. Self-help games don't dominate. Why? It could be that they don't have a lot of potential. Games that teach typing are cute, but how massive are they? Workout programs like "Yourself Fitness" and "EyeToy: Kinetic" didn't break through to the masses. But maybe those games were just precursors. Maybe self-help games don't dominate because the format is still coming into its own.
Maybe self-help games simply don't dominate yet. Maybe the only thing holding back the genre is more companies like Nintendo churning them out.
That could change. And the change seems like it has begun.
"Brain Age," the DS hit of a couple of years ago, was a self-help game. You bought the game hoping it would either improve you or at least make you feel like you were doing something that would help you improve yourself. It's a feel-better game that makes you feel like a different kind of winner than one who wins boss battles or laps cars on a racetrack. It's a self-improver. "Wii Fit" fits that description too.
People who read the New York Times in 1983 knew this already: people like products that make them feel better about themselves.
" People like products that make them feel better about themselves." |
I argued to Crecente last week that "Wii Fit" represents the possible design innovation that finally found the right way to do self-help in an interactive medium. In our IM exchange, I wrote: "My point is that the genre of self-help -- which I'm saying 'Wii Fit' and 'Brain Age' belong to -- is monstrously successful and is innately appealing to a massive audience. It may prove to be an historical oddity that in gaming's first 30 years there were just about no 'self-help' games. Nintendo then started making some and -- voila!"
I suggested that if Nintendo could figure out the appropriate peripheral and software design they could probably profit big with a money management Wii title: "Wii Save Money," perhaps?
Crecente muddied my thesis, writing about the relative costs of self-help books vs. game hardware and software. We talked about exercise equipment some, basically agreeing that "Wii Fit" could just as likely be the world's latest ab-blasting exercise gizmo.
I like my self-help theory, though. I think it has some potential. And I think we could be heading toward a 1983, with a gaming sales chart heavily populated with games designed to make you feel better about yourself. In just a few years, will the NPD firm have to create a separate self-help bestseller list apart from the fiction gone? Lest "Gears of War 4" get pushed off the list in favor of "Wii Fit: Abs Edition" and "The Purpose-Driven Life: The Game"?
Think I'm on a thin limb with this one? A day after Crecente and I had this chat, Ubisoft announced a DS game designed to help smokers quit smoking. It's based, naturally, off of a self-help book series.
Was I that spot-on? Does Crecente owe me a prize?
It might be 1983 sooner than we realize.
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