Where has the time gone, Mario?

In 1985, Nintendo developed and published Super Mario Bros., a game that went on to affect many youngsters’ childhoods and change the video game world forever (its impact can still be seen today on the Wii, as the franchise is as strong as ever). You all know it—a left to right, 2-D game of exemplary proportions. And by “exemplary proportions”, I pretty much mean “simple, basic, and fun as hell”. The granddaddy of all video games (at least to this 80’s child), Super Mario Bros. blew Pong out of the water and repainted gaming with bright colors and intricate worlds…at least for the time. While reading Andrew Hinton’s “We Live Here: Third Places and the Information Architecture of the Future”, I couldn’t stop thinking about my favorite little Italian plumber and asking myself: “How did we get here?”

I consider myself to be pretty with it. I’m a MySpace-r and I’m on Facebook; I enjoy fan forums and other Wiki-phenomena; and I also own a Wii. Despite all this, and even being fully aware of online gaming capabilities and the new-found abilities of the X-box 360, PS3, and Nintendo’s Wii, I was still shocked and amazed by taking a step back and really discovering just how far video games can reach. I’ve never played Quake or World of Warcraft, though I always understood them to be an up-and-coming genre of gaming. I havn’t even played an online game through my Wii yet because I’m still stuck downloading Super Mario Bros. and the original Zelda off of the Virtual Console.

Hinton’s description of the Quake began with a few of the conditions id Software had created in order to ensure Quake’s massive appeal. Hinton writes that they created “A game with open standards that allowed anyone to create new maps and game modifications, an open language (called QuakeC) that turned anybody with rudimentary C programming knowledge into an immediate game hacker, and a function that allowed users’ game servers to automatically update location and status at id Software’s central directory, so that any Quake player on the Internet could browse for a quick pickup game.”

Even Mario would be amazed….and probably overwhelmed!

As Hinton continues, “The truly amazing phenomenon, however, is the rapid growth of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs),” and he is absolutely right. “Multiplayer” online games were simply not enough anymore. Now, online gaming would be created to support hundreds and thousands of players, instantly and simultaneously, allowing all players to utilize a “massively shared world as a digital representation of yourself or a role-played character”.

Hinton’s point is interesting: “Game environments serve as useful prototypes for the future of conventional networked software design, both in the literal sense of learning from particular design patterns and in the more oblique sense of game architecture as archtype.” If the technology is here, and we are capable of such in-depth, online social interaction (or “experiences”) then why not? Onward to the future!

However, as I read B.J. Pine and J.H. Gilmore’s “Welcome to the Experience Economy”, I started thinking. Gamers don’t want to just move left to right on the screen in simple, two-dimensional ways. They want to be a part of a larger world. Something they can affect, control, manipulate, and much, much more. They wanted the experience, and not just the simple hour of escapism. This really has turned into a way of life.

As Pine and Gilmore explain, our economy is at a state of “experience”, where consumers want to feel something interesting and unique. Memories they will never forget and experiences that will remain in their brains for days and years to come. Commodities, goods, and services were discussed including the decline of goods and commodities once the service industry boomed; and more recently, the decline of the service industry now that the experience economy has hit us. Walt Disney had it right: Theme parks, experiences, and lodging your brand name into the heads of your “guests”. Hershey Park and the Rainforest Cafe were also great examples. Going out to eat. Boring. Riding a normal roller coaster. Simply not good enough. As Pine and Gilmore imply, we all know where the money is really at: Exploding fountains of chocolate and the shrill screams of baboons during a mock-thunderstorm. I know that’s what I want to hear as I’m chewing on a dry, overcooked burger!

I was sincerely taken aback by Pine and Gilmore’s writing. It was extremely interesting to read, and extremely true, though I don’t think many people really think about the types of marketing involved and the types of interactive experiences that are necessary in order to truly captivate an audience’s attention and make money on a product or service. The more interactive and the more out-of-your-element the “experience” can be, the more positively our society will react.

Seriously…do we all have major A.D.D or what?

I stand by what I said before. Onward to the future! Pro-technology! Log on to World of Warcraft and Second Life and blow things up, have a business meeting, or do whatever it is you do in that world. It’s just that sometimes I long for the days when everybody was simply stomping on Goombas and throwing fireballs at Bowser.