You don't need me to recap the past few weeks of Pokemon Go news. Let's face it, everyone's writing about it, because it's good for the clicksies. Even so, that cynical barb aside, it is a massive story - Pokemon Go is singlehandedly reversing Nintendo's fortunes, and, I suspect, pointing the way forward for gaming.
Now get this: the thing you have to know about me is that I'm always right. It's terrifying how right I am. Literally; I lay awake at night screaming in fear.
I've never been wrong about anything, and Pokemon Go might be the thing that I have been the most right about. And I was right about it in the face of all the so-called experts and games journos backing another horse altogether.
Specifically, a bad, blind horse, whose minge had been bunged up with a kettle. Nobody wants to ride a horse like that, but nooooo... they were all "Oh, this horse is the future of horsing around!", while the rest of us were standing there all like "Er... what? Have you seen what's up its minge?"
"Cup of hot water (or whatever this is), anyone?"
Now get this: the thing you have to know about me is that I'm always right. It's terrifying how right I am. Literally; I lay awake at night screaming in fear.
I've never been wrong about anything, and Pokemon Go might be the thing that I have been the most right about. And I was right about it in the face of all the so-called experts and games journos backing another horse altogether.
Specifically, a bad, blind horse, whose minge had been bunged up with a kettle. Nobody wants to ride a horse like that, but nooooo... they were all "Oh, this horse is the future of horsing around!", while the rest of us were standing there all like "Er... what? Have you seen what's up its minge?"
"Cup of hot water (or whatever this is), anyone?"
And here is what I was right about this time: in most of my many, many rants at the expense of virtual reality, I've argued that augmented reality is the future of the gaming realities. And now, in the wake of Pokemon Go's absurd success, we're seeing that happen. An augmented reality app has become the biggest phenomenon in gaming since... well, I dunno. There's never been anything like Pokemon Go. Ever.
It's the gaming phenomenon to end all phenomena - one that's actually encouraging people to leave their homes, and stare at their screens al fresco, while potentially interacting with others who are doing the same. That's nothing short of a miracle.
But wait! I'm not here merely to parp my own horn - much as I enjoy doing so. I'm here to parp your horn too. And I actually don't even know what that means.
It's the gaming phenomenon to end all phenomena - one that's actually encouraging people to leave their homes, and stare at their screens al fresco, while potentially interacting with others who are doing the same. That's nothing short of a miracle.
But wait! I'm not here merely to parp my own horn - much as I enjoy doing so. I'm here to parp your horn too. And I actually don't even know what that means.
DOWNSIDE GO
The downside of Pokemon Go's absurd success is that we're now going to be assaulted with a glut of me-too games, all of them jostling for a slice of that lucrative sausage.
You just wait. This time next year there'll be dozens of them, by which point Nintendo will have ironed out the bugs in Go, rendering the existence of the dopplegangers even more pointless.
The thing about Pokemon Go is that it isn't the most advanced game ever, it isn't the best looking, it isn't terrifically complicated. It's simple and accessible to all, and uses existing, proven, technology in a way that feels fresh and clever. You know: a bit like Nintendo managed with the Wii.
And - frustrating all of us who would love a new Nintendo console that can compete with its competitors byte for byte - it's a confirmation that their philosophy works. At least, for them. God knows what the NX is going to be, but I doubt it's going to be exactly what any of "us" expect or have asked for.
See, being a gamer is a bit like being a North Londoner. We forget that beyond the M25 there's the rest of the country, and they don't necessarily think like we do.
We've a blinkered, narrow view of the world. We live in a fishbowl, and though we might get a sense that there's something more beyond the glass, that's the immediate reality we're dealing with, and - oooh! The hand is feeding us!
That was proven in the EU referendum. And it's proven when most gamers talk about Nintendo. When Nintendo stubbornly refuses to behave in the way we think it should. And we'd better get used to it, because after Pokemon Go, and the more modest success of Miitomo, there's a lot more of that idiosyncratic behaviour on the way.
Heck, they're already promising a "new kind" of Mario game - and we can only speculate what that might be. Running around the streets headbutting breezeblocks and stamping on turtles?
The downside of Pokemon Go's absurd success is that we're now going to be assaulted with a glut of me-too games, all of them jostling for a slice of that lucrative sausage.
You just wait. This time next year there'll be dozens of them, by which point Nintendo will have ironed out the bugs in Go, rendering the existence of the dopplegangers even more pointless.
The thing about Pokemon Go is that it isn't the most advanced game ever, it isn't the best looking, it isn't terrifically complicated. It's simple and accessible to all, and uses existing, proven, technology in a way that feels fresh and clever. You know: a bit like Nintendo managed with the Wii.
And - frustrating all of us who would love a new Nintendo console that can compete with its competitors byte for byte - it's a confirmation that their philosophy works. At least, for them. God knows what the NX is going to be, but I doubt it's going to be exactly what any of "us" expect or have asked for.
See, being a gamer is a bit like being a North Londoner. We forget that beyond the M25 there's the rest of the country, and they don't necessarily think like we do.
We've a blinkered, narrow view of the world. We live in a fishbowl, and though we might get a sense that there's something more beyond the glass, that's the immediate reality we're dealing with, and - oooh! The hand is feeding us!
That was proven in the EU referendum. And it's proven when most gamers talk about Nintendo. When Nintendo stubbornly refuses to behave in the way we think it should. And we'd better get used to it, because after Pokemon Go, and the more modest success of Miitomo, there's a lot more of that idiosyncratic behaviour on the way.
Heck, they're already promising a "new kind" of Mario game - and we can only speculate what that might be. Running around the streets headbutting breezeblocks and stamping on turtles?
NINTENDO VR?
The biggest priority for Nintendo is speaking to an audience that is otherwise underserved.
An audience that isn't wooed and distracted by the technology and graphics like "we" all are. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Virtual Reality is never going to be a mass-market proposition. Some in the industry need to wake up to that.
Nobody outside of gaming - people who aren't games developers, or games journalists, or early adopters, or people on forums, or people who comment on games websites, or people who buy new games on the day they come out - will care.
Virtual Reality is a deeply off-putting concept, as cool as we might all think it is. For it to become a gaming format in its own right it needs to have the support of millions upon millions of gamers - to justify the development expense, to justify making games for it.
I have never been convinced that such an audience is there, and I'm not convinced VR will ever be anything beyond a novelty. Even PlayStation VR - the best chance virtual reality has of taking off as a mass-market proposition - gets my alarm beeping. I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I think its future doesn't lie in gaming... but in medicine, in business, in the corporate world.
And, again, for me it all cycles round to the fact that if we want to be able to see and predict and understand and talk to a broader section of society, we have to be able to look beyond what's right in front of us. Those people we see and interact with, those shops we shop at, the things we buy ourselves, our choice of TV shows and movies, and who we follow on Twitter... that's not the world. That's a tiny sliver of the world, a distorted view of a greater whole.
And that narrow thinking seems to be killing us as a planet. We've forgotten that - while we might not all think and feel the same way about things - underneath it every single one of us has the same basic needs.
The biggest priority for Nintendo is speaking to an audience that is otherwise underserved.
An audience that isn't wooed and distracted by the technology and graphics like "we" all are. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Virtual Reality is never going to be a mass-market proposition. Some in the industry need to wake up to that.
Nobody outside of gaming - people who aren't games developers, or games journalists, or early adopters, or people on forums, or people who comment on games websites, or people who buy new games on the day they come out - will care.
Virtual Reality is a deeply off-putting concept, as cool as we might all think it is. For it to become a gaming format in its own right it needs to have the support of millions upon millions of gamers - to justify the development expense, to justify making games for it.
I have never been convinced that such an audience is there, and I'm not convinced VR will ever be anything beyond a novelty. Even PlayStation VR - the best chance virtual reality has of taking off as a mass-market proposition - gets my alarm beeping. I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I think its future doesn't lie in gaming... but in medicine, in business, in the corporate world.
And, again, for me it all cycles round to the fact that if we want to be able to see and predict and understand and talk to a broader section of society, we have to be able to look beyond what's right in front of us. Those people we see and interact with, those shops we shop at, the things we buy ourselves, our choice of TV shows and movies, and who we follow on Twitter... that's not the world. That's a tiny sliver of the world, a distorted view of a greater whole.
And that narrow thinking seems to be killing us as a planet. We've forgotten that - while we might not all think and feel the same way about things - underneath it every single one of us has the same basic needs.
WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
And while I'm musing on all this, it ties back into stuff that happened on Twitter over the last couple of days.
You know: with Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones receiving racial and misogynistic abuse for her role in the movie, and Milo Yiannopoulos, the self-styled "Most dangerous faggot in the world" and a supporter of Gamergate, being banned from the service for his own small part in that abuse.
I think Yiannopoulos is a loathsome, hateful specimen, but censoring him feels like a mistake. It plays into the hands of him and his supporters, stokes up talk of a left-wing conspiracy, and clamping down on free speech.
Plus, it seems absurd when he was merely being the oily, snide, underhand shit he usually is - and there were those who were behaving in a far more abusive way, who haven't been banned. All Twitter - and those who were demanding the suspension of Yiannopoulos - have succeeded in doing is turning him into a martyr, a victim.
CULTURE CLUB
This culture war that's raging on multiple fronts - in Gamergate, in Trump, in Black Lives Matter, in our own country with Brexit, and elsewhere - stems from us not understanding one another, because we're viewing the world through our own pinprick glory holes.
We only entertain perspectives which conform to how we already believe the world is. That's why those of us who are a bit on the liberal side, a bit too North London, were so shocked when the country as a whole voted to leave the EU.
Hate speech, racism, misogyny, should never be tolerated - and what happened to Leslie Jones was despicable - but it's a symptom of something deeper, something that I don't understand because, on the whole, things are fine for me. But sometimes I despair because the left can be as inflexible as the right, and play into their hands. There's no looking at a bigger picture, no self-awareness. Just knee-jerk, rigid, conformity to one world view.
Trump has only come this far because he speaks to a disaffected populace, and has positioned himself as the one politician who'll listen to them. Similarly, Yiannopoulos speaks for these people, gives them voice in his columns, or in speeches. And does so in a way that only confirms their fears, and anxiety, and strengthens their hatred - and doesn't do anything to address or solve the issues at the heart of it all.
And Trump and people like Yiannopoulos are able to do that, because there's nobody else doing it. Nobody is even trying. We're all just staring at the walls of our own little boxes, repeating our own mantras, with our fingers in our ears.
You can't just tell these people they're wrong, and take away what they believe are their rights - because you're denying what they feel. They're all in their own enclaves, surrounded by voices which echo their view of the world, while the rest of us try to hammer down their walls, shouting about how wrong they are. This strategy isn't going to work. It doesn't make the world a nicer, safer place. It entrenches positions. If it continues unchecked like this it's going to screw us all.
We have to start looking past the ends of our own nose.
THE DIVISION
The world feels more divided than I can ever remember. Divided along political, social, religious and racial grounds - at a time when, not so long ago, I believed we'd be moving closer together as a species and a global community.
We've slipped backwards, and I don't currently see a way to unpick all the damage that has been done. It feels like we're building towards something. A pressure that, once upon a time, would have been released by a World War, or similar cataclysm.
The various factions are waging war while wearing sensory-depriving VR helmets playing the same messages over and over.
No wonder the rest of us are out trying to catch pretend monsters.
And while I'm musing on all this, it ties back into stuff that happened on Twitter over the last couple of days.
You know: with Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones receiving racial and misogynistic abuse for her role in the movie, and Milo Yiannopoulos, the self-styled "Most dangerous faggot in the world" and a supporter of Gamergate, being banned from the service for his own small part in that abuse.
I think Yiannopoulos is a loathsome, hateful specimen, but censoring him feels like a mistake. It plays into the hands of him and his supporters, stokes up talk of a left-wing conspiracy, and clamping down on free speech.
Plus, it seems absurd when he was merely being the oily, snide, underhand shit he usually is - and there were those who were behaving in a far more abusive way, who haven't been banned. All Twitter - and those who were demanding the suspension of Yiannopoulos - have succeeded in doing is turning him into a martyr, a victim.
CULTURE CLUB
This culture war that's raging on multiple fronts - in Gamergate, in Trump, in Black Lives Matter, in our own country with Brexit, and elsewhere - stems from us not understanding one another, because we're viewing the world through our own pinprick glory holes.
We only entertain perspectives which conform to how we already believe the world is. That's why those of us who are a bit on the liberal side, a bit too North London, were so shocked when the country as a whole voted to leave the EU.
Hate speech, racism, misogyny, should never be tolerated - and what happened to Leslie Jones was despicable - but it's a symptom of something deeper, something that I don't understand because, on the whole, things are fine for me. But sometimes I despair because the left can be as inflexible as the right, and play into their hands. There's no looking at a bigger picture, no self-awareness. Just knee-jerk, rigid, conformity to one world view.
Trump has only come this far because he speaks to a disaffected populace, and has positioned himself as the one politician who'll listen to them. Similarly, Yiannopoulos speaks for these people, gives them voice in his columns, or in speeches. And does so in a way that only confirms their fears, and anxiety, and strengthens their hatred - and doesn't do anything to address or solve the issues at the heart of it all.
And Trump and people like Yiannopoulos are able to do that, because there's nobody else doing it. Nobody is even trying. We're all just staring at the walls of our own little boxes, repeating our own mantras, with our fingers in our ears.
You can't just tell these people they're wrong, and take away what they believe are their rights - because you're denying what they feel. They're all in their own enclaves, surrounded by voices which echo their view of the world, while the rest of us try to hammer down their walls, shouting about how wrong they are. This strategy isn't going to work. It doesn't make the world a nicer, safer place. It entrenches positions. If it continues unchecked like this it's going to screw us all.
We have to start looking past the ends of our own nose.
THE DIVISION
The world feels more divided than I can ever remember. Divided along political, social, religious and racial grounds - at a time when, not so long ago, I believed we'd be moving closer together as a species and a global community.
We've slipped backwards, and I don't currently see a way to unpick all the damage that has been done. It feels like we're building towards something. A pressure that, once upon a time, would have been released by a World War, or similar cataclysm.
The various factions are waging war while wearing sensory-depriving VR helmets playing the same messages over and over.
No wonder the rest of us are out trying to catch pretend monsters.
RSS Feed
