Age of the Geek

A new generation of outrage
     I am an adult.
     I am an adult.
     Sure, I may have spent a fair chunk of my weekend reading comic books, playing video games and watching old Disney cartoons, but I also pay my bills, do my taxes and am generally capable of making decisions for myself.
     So why is Nintendo suddenly treating me like a child?
     It’s a long story. First, some history.
     When Nintendo rejuvenated the video game industry following the crash of 1983, they did so by introducing the Nintendo Entertainment System under the guise of a children’s toy, which was the only way North American retailers would take a risk on the system. So while the Japanese Famicom hosted games tailored to a range of audiences, the American NES was marketed primarily at children.
     Thus began Nintendo’s obsession with their “family friendly” image and the company’s long and sordid history of censorship.
     As Japanese games were brought to North America, they were edited to make sure nothing could be considered too offensive. Religious references: Gone. Profanity: Cleaned up. Sexuality: Covered like an arctic nun. Violence: Well, violence is OK. It is America after all. Shooting up endless waves of enemies with a variety of guns is fine so long as there’s no blood.
     Enter: “Mortal Kombat.”
     Nintendo began questioning their strict adherence to their family-friendly image in 1993 following the home console ports of “Mortal Kombat.” The controversial fighting game pushed the limits of violence and gore and became a litmus test for how the industry would treat their markets.
     Sega, already marketing itself as the cooler, edgier, alternative to the family friendly Nintendo, allowed “Mortal Kombat’s” pixilated blood and violent finishing moves to be ported to the Genesis version of the game. Granted, it was only accessible by inputting a cheat code, but that was a minor obstacle.
     Nintendo, on the other hand, refused to risk their wholesome image. The Super NES version of “Mortal Kombat” replaced blood with ‘sweat’ and fatalities with comparatively tame finishing moves.
     The free market spoke, and they spoke loudly. The Sega Genesis version of “Mortal Kombat” outsold Nintendo’s by a wide margin, definitively proving what direction the gaming market wanted to go. The children of the 1980s became the teenagers of the 1990s and they didn’t want to be patronized anymore.
     By the time “Mortal Kombat II” came around, neither company dared cut any of the game’s brutal death scenes. Emboldened by the newly established ESRB, which rated games similarly to movies, Nintendo eased up on some of their restrictions, trusting that parents would be capable of making their own decisions about which games to buy their children.
     Which is not to say they abandoned their censorship practices entirely, but the practice certainly died down over the years.
     However, lately it seems that censorship is coming back into fashion.
     “Bravely Default” is a game designed to appeal to fans of old-fashioned turn-based RPGs, which are a rarity today. It brings back the nostalgia of turn-based battles and random encounters, but the North American version of the game also brings back the longstanding tradition of editing any outfit that displays female skin below the neck or above the knee.
     The game’s soon-to-be released sequel, “Bravely Second,” not only continues this puritanical practice, but also changes an entire class of character. In a stunning display of missing the point, Nintendo and Square-Enix have changed the Native American inspired ‘Tomahawk’ class into a cowboy-themed ‘Hawkeye’ class. Because nothing says cultural sensitivity like erasing the existence of Native Americans and replacing them with western gunslingers.
     Even more egregious is the recent release of “Fire Emblem Fates,” a game that has set a new standard for poor localization. Entire conversations between the game’s characters have been removed or altered, removing anything that might raise the story’s emotional complexity above that of an episode of “Sesame Street.”
     These kind of decisions made a bit of sense in the 80s and 90s. Gamers didn’t like it, but they made sense. Back then the average gamer wasn’t Nintendo’s customer. Their overbearing parents were.
     That’s no longer true. The largest demographic in gaming today are adults. Nintendo no longer needs to worry about convincing parents to let kids buy their games. Particularly since their bigger concern should be convincing kids to put down their smart phones and tablets long enough to give console gaming a chance.
     So what’s the deal then? Why is Nintendo censoring games whose primary market is almost exclusively adults?
     Well, in place of angry soccer moms, now we have Twitter. Today we live in an age where a half-dozen people who decided they want to get offended by something can start a hashtag and, with the aid of a gaming press industry desperate for attention, spark a nationwide controversy over things nobody that actually plays games cares about.
     And if there is one thing Nintendo hates, it’s controversy. Even all these years later they reflexively react against anything that might damage their family-friendly image. If that means cutting anything that could be deemed too much for the delicate sensibilities of the West, so be it.
     Back in the 80s and 90s, many Japanese games never made it to the American market because adapting them was considered more trouble than it would be worth. We’ve come a long way since then and now it’s all but expected that most games see a worldwide release.
     However, outrage culture is sending us backwards, regressing an industry that gamers have spent decades trying to advance. Already some developers are again deciding that the American market is more trouble than it’s worth, forgoing North American releases of games that somebody with a social media account and too much free time might consider to be “problematic.”
     It’s a problem. One that isn’t likely to be resolved until Nintendo gets in touch with the modern gaming market. Which, based on their history, won’t be until around 2023.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and hopes by 2023 we finally have some news about the new Zelda game for Wii-U.