A New Toy for the Road

 

In discussions about games as an art form, it is easy to underplay that it is primarily a form of screen-bound play for children of all ages.

June 5th will see the biggest event of the year, if not the decade, in the gaming world: Nintendo launches its new console, Switch 2. It is the direct successor to what, with over 150 million units sold, is approaching the best-selling console of all time. One question is whether Nintendo, with Mario Kart World as the launch game, can continue the trend or whether they are pricing themselves too high. In Norway, the console, with games, costs a whopping 7,500 kroner.

 

The launch videos online are flooded with comments about lowering the price. The price tag does not seem to be a deterrent, however, and demand seems to exceed supply. In Japan, millions have registered just to be entered into a draw to be able to pre-order. Among some game fans, there is also a desire for Nintendo to fail. Not only because the console is too expensive, but because the company represents what some gamers consider as preventing games from being taken seriously as a cultural expression: Nintendo primarily produces toys.

 

Innovation and iteration. As the world's oldest gaming company, Nintendo is still young. It started in 1889 with card games, and then toys. From the 70s until today, they have become the world leader in digital games. The company has a number of successes behind it, among the greatest by offering new ways to relate to game worlds. This includes motion sensors as a control mechanism in the Nintendo Wii console (2006), and so-called augmented reality in the mobile game Pokémon Go (2016). With the Switch 2, Nintendo has apparently moved from innovation to iteration.

 

Nintendo has not put artificial intelligence into its new console. And they have avoided what must be said to be an unsuccessful turn towards VR helmets that enclose and isolate. Instead, they have an approach to games as social meeting places. Nintendo was thus well equipped for people to play together in their own apartments, and Animal Crossing: New Horizon (2020) became one of the big talking points of the pandemic. When the virus locked people inside, young people could go on everyday visits and have birthday celebrations in the game. Switch 2 expands the possibilities for socializing through games, now you can easily look at and talk to each other while playing. So, it remains to be seen whether screen socialization is limited to the Zoom era, or whether the interest in digitally shared gaming experiences remains.

Toys for adults. Nintendo's continued popularity seems to pose a challenge to many who want digital games to be taken seriously as an art form. The company's approach to game design puts the classic qualities of meaningful cultural expression on the back burner. Rather than narrative, characters, and themes, its games are primarily about gameplay; in other words, what you do in the game. If the legitimacy of games is to come from cinematic qualities in an interactive package, then it's a bad fit that a large portion of the most successful games are simply about jumping, running, fighting, and exploring landscapes. 

One way to sidestep the issue is to insist that Nintendo primarily makes games for kids. But the main demographic for the previous console was twenty-somethings, with significant numbers playing well into their forties. In both price and size, the Switch 2 has grown considerably from its predecessor. All of this makes one general point clear: game consoles are toys for kids of all ages.

 

Why play? Play is often described as children's work. This idea makes play a matter of the future, where the seemingly purposeless in the present becomes training to become useful citizens of society. Philosopher Friedrich Schiller would oppose such a limiting attitude to play. Play is not something we abandon when we become adults, but a fundamental human driving force that gives us creativity and freedom.

 

The idea of ​​play as a driving force is continued by thinkers as diverse as biologist Dmitry Belyaev and cultural historian Johan Huizinga. The former made play a central part of human evolution. While other species abandon experimental play in childhood, the human species retains it into adulthood, which has made us social and adaptable. Huizinga's central idea was homo ludens, the playful human who lays the foundation for civilization. According to him, play functions as the underlying plastic material that is shaped into cultural institutions, from poetry to knowledge production, the legal system to warfare.

 

Today, play has long since migrated to digital surfaces. Play is not just a creative outlet, but a commercial product that exploits our human drive towards creative exploration of new experiences. And if such play is to prepare children as future citizens, it is for a life of screen-bound work as well as leisure.

Experimental driving. Digital games contain enormous variation. From multi-million dollar productions with cinematic ambitions, to independent developers' small experiments with what games can be. In critical reception, games, regardless of genre and ambitions, are assessed on how much fun they are. This is not primarily something game criticism should abandon in order to mature the art form. Rather, it says something central about games as an art form. Games do not have to resemble films to be considered an art form. As an art form, games offer exploration of action possibilities.

 

The important thing is what and how you act, and Mario Kart World is, as the title suggests, about go-kart driving. The potential in this action may not appear very great. The game can be interpreted as children's indoctrination in passenger car ownership and a meritocratic mentality that the best wins. However, such a reading would understate how experimental the Mario Kart games are in their treatment of what it means to drive and compete.

 

Along the way, players pick up a cartoon arsenal that makes the ride chaotic and unpredictable: turtle shells, octopuses, lightning strikes, carnivorous plants. If things go really badly, your luck can turn with a transformation into a giant bomb that automatically flies you to a better position. Mario Kart 8 (2014/2017) occasionally turned gravity upside down, so that you drove on walls and ceilings. New now is the ability to do tricks on one wheel on guardrails and power lines. If all this seems childish, that's exactly what this unique game can offer; a childish expansion of spatial movement horizon, a dizzying feeling of sliding on banana peels, tumbling around and coming out victorious from the situation.

 

 

 

Closed worlds. Ever since the first game, Super Mario Kart (1992), the series has consisted of courses where players drive around and around in an attempt to cross the finish line first. Mario Kart World also introduces a large landscape for the first time to explore at the pace you want. This is not innovation so much as Nintendo following the gaming trends of the time. It has become increasingly important to give players the freedom to choose what, when and how they want to perform actions.

 

At the launch of the previous game console, the big draw was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The game can be described as an open world or sandbox genre, the latter of which points to children's sandboxes. The creator of both Mario and Zelda, Shigeru Miyamoto, often uses the term miniature gardens for his games. Sandboxes and mini-gardens suggest the importance of framing for the feeling of freedom. For how open are digital sandboxes and miniature gardens really? Games pre-programme action options and lock players in. The worlds have become so vast, with so much to see and do, primarily for people to spend more and more time in them.

Never game-free. Nintendo's first big success came about when hardware developer Gunpei Yokoi observed bored businessmen on their commutes. They tried in vain to pass the time by typing on their calculators. How about letting the keystrokes control games instead, Yokoi thought, and created the Game & Watch (1980), the first game machines that could be easily taken on the subway.

 

With the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo merged handheld and desktop consoles to seamlessly switch between playing on the TV in the living room and on the go. A brilliant business idea, and at the same time a way to make games almost impossible to escape. At home or away, it's always possible to disappear into a miniature world. The sequel is coming soon – your new toy, a dizzying obsession with yet another sandbox you can't help but drive around in.

This text was originally pitched to the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet, and is translated here using google translate. Images from Nintendo.com.