Tag: Nintendo

Preserving The History of Video Games

Preserving The History of Video Games

Here’s a very interesting piece about the International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG), a group seeking to preserve the history of video games.

A dress code was once strictly enforced when playing video games
A dress code was once strictly enforced when playing video games

You may be saying “Hey, that’s not that hard. Games are like..you know, collectable and what not”, but you’d be somewhat wrong. In an increasingly digital market, some video games run the risk of being lost to the ages. THE AGES.

That’s where the hardworking men and women of the ICHEG come in; they’re preserving, recording, and watching as video game history unfolds.

So what does preserving the history of video games even mean? Collecting a bunch of old arcade cabinets? Having a physical copy of every game ever made? Sure. A little of column A, a little of Column B. As the article points out, sheer collection isn’t enough; in fact, most collectors of old machines don’t realize that by having an old arcade collecting dust in their basement isn’t particularly good for the machine. That’s why groups like the ICHEG are collecting games in a manner closer to art museums collecting art. Preserving for the future and for personal use.

Gaming exists as a medium that could potentially see its history disappear, as cartridges and machines that games are on weren’t made to last 20+ years.  For example, kids born in the 80s and 90s are only gradually learning that their Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow, Gold/Silver’s batteries can die and erase all of their memory(NOT MY LEVEL 100 GRIMER!)

At the ICHEG, It’s more than mere collection of the games themselves, the groups seeks to maintain the theories and thoughts that went into games that made gaming history.

“This is part of our larger mission,” Dyson says. “We want to preserve design materials and media, as well as the physical products. We have Will Wright’s notes on The Sims and Spore, we have Roberta and Ken Williams’ notes on Phantasmagoria, we have a decade’s worth of notes from Ralph Baer.”

Dyson says all of these materials serve a larger purpose, to not only have a digital archive of games and related media, but the design and theory behind the entire medium as well. The ICHEG is working to have all of the notes, schematics and design documents available online to the public.

Cool. Similarly, they’re seeking to create 10-15 minute videos of all of the games they archive, to keep digital footage of what the game is about. These “sparknotes” of the games will keep an archive for future generations to at least see what “50:Cent Bullet Proof” was all about (Spoiler Alert: Shooting and Rap).

But there are bigger issues that the group is dealing with, especially given the gradual increase of downloadable games: with many developers releasing digital copies only, once the hardware they’re released on becomes outdated there will be little to no physical trace of them in the future. That’s an issue, and a big concern of people who oppose the gradual shift towards DRM. Even before DRM became an issue, certain games are were so scarcely distributed that very few copies exist of the games at all. What will become of these lost games?

Don’t believe me? Let me give you an example from a very prominent franchise. I give you the case study of, Legend of Zelda: The Ancient Stone Tablets.

Not many people know about this  game, or the other BS Zelda games that were released in a similar time frame. I’m using this one as an example, as it’s really the only “new” addition to the franchise that does not have a physical copy of the game.

Broadcasted to Stalleaview owners (A Japanese downloadable entertainment service) in 1997, the game was very much like a playable TV show with live broadcasting of voices and commentary. It was essentially a second quest to the SNES title “A Link To The Past”, but complete with a brand new storyline and new dungeon layouts.  Players could download the episode and play it in an allotted time frame, or wait for it re-air at a later date. Already sounds complicated, right? Well, the game was only re-aired a few times, which was already more times than most Stalleaview games. No physical copy of the game exists (aside from maybe somewhere in the depths of Nintendo’s archives) and the only current way to play the game is through emulation. However, even in emulation much of the music and commentary have been completely lost. Looking into such games will only lead you to want to write angry letters to Nintendo pleating for them to release more than the same 10 games on their downloadable services.

Now there may be some better games to display this point, but I just enjoy talking about this one (Link To The Past is my favorite game). Anyways, cases like this goes to show a problem: when piracy and emulation are the only means to play certain video games, what does that say for video game preservation? Whatever it says, it’s not good.

Video Game preservation is a big issue, as without proper preservation it’s one of the first mediums that we may see completely lose a lot of its history. If Video games are to stand as an justified art form and medium, it needs a rich documentation and preservation of its history.  It’s not only up to the ICHEG, it’s up to us all:

“We want to help raise awareness inside and outside of the industry,” Dyson says. “We want to stress the importance of video games and the need to preserve them. And we don’t have an endgame, an end time in all of this.”

Sorry for the geek out. I just find the ICHEG’s work really fascinating and important. Where do I sign up to be an intern?

Go check out the ICHEG’s Website!

More about LOZ: The Ancient Tablets

Is Nintendo Being More Gender Inclusive?

With E3 having wrapped up last week, we’re now left with the empty void of having to now wait for many of the games announced to actually come out. Of course there were a lot of headlines: Microsoft announcing ridiculous restrictions on their console, Sony relentlessly attacking Microsoft for their restrictions on their console, and then Microsoft reversing their decision on said restrictions. Fun stuff. Perhaps the least provocative at E3 was Nintendo, who chose not to do a formal E3 conference, but instead a Nintendo direct released online. While I could go on and on about what they did or didn’t announce, I’ll spare you the rant. However, one interesting thing to come out of Nintendo this year is the number of female protagonists in their showing this year.

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Of the games Nintendo Highlighted this year, most of the games featured female protagonists, or at least playable female characters. This comes as more of surprise, as many of the games with female protagonists are series that have traditionally had male protagonists only. Does this mean Nintendo is being more gender inclusive in their games? Have they heard the pleas of female gamers and well known female gaming critics like Anita Sarkeesian? Is the world going mad? SHOULD I SELL ALL MY VIDEO GAMES FOR CANNED BEANS?

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at some of the games Nintendo previewed this year.

Super Mario World 3D

The newest Super Mario game to be announced, Super Mario World 3D features Princess Peach as a main playable character. This is the first time she has been playable in a mainline Mario platformer since the American Super Mario 2 on the NES in 1987, which was only a fluke because the game it was sprite swapped with “Doki Doki Panic” had a female character! Of course the game also features Mario and friends in Cat suits clawing around and meowing like cats, so…maybe they thought Peach would fit right in? The amount of furry drawings will be horrendous.

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

Returning to the franchise after being absent from Donkey Kong platformers since Donkey Kong County 3 in 1996 is Dixie Kong. She joins Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong on their second outing from Retro studios.  Fans of DKC will already know what Dixie can bring to the table, as she was the starring character in both Country 2 and 3. As long as we don’t see that creepy Baby character that occupanied Dixie in DKC3, I’ll be happy. Also, I think there’s a healthy chance we’ll see her show her face in the newest Smash Brothers.

 

Pikmin 3

One of the bigger surprises is the inclusion of a female character in Nintendo’s Pikmin 3, which will release later this summer. Up until this point the franchise had only focused on Captain Olimar (and later joined by Louie) as he charted an unknown land were he assigns tasks based on the color of the pikmin’s skin. Brittany, seen in pink,  joins Alph and Charlie on the Pikmin planet for some adventure and countless death of Pikmin at the hands of other larger animals. We’ll see how she fares in a few weeks.

Beyond these main titles, many of their other games showed look to include playable female characters, including Mario Kart Wii U, The Wonderful 101, and Super Smash Brothers X.

So there you have it. Is Nintendo turning a new leaf on their perspective on female gamers?  Either way, it’s refreshing. As many analysts and gamers pointed out, companies such as Microsoft showed no games with female protagonists this E3, so Nintendo really is out in front this year. This is kind of new for Nintendo, as Nintendo has historically been a much more old fashioned kind of developer. Yes, they have had franchises with female leads (Metroid, Drill Dozer), but for their most popular franchises like Mario and Zelda they have typically relied upon female characters that are stereotypes or cliches. Perhaps with the advent of the Wii’s popularity in recent year they now know they can no longer ignore the population of female gamers.

Conflict Minerals: Should Gamers Care?

This is an issue I didn’t know too much about until recently. I promise to try and not be preachy and only focus on the facts. More aware gamers probably can already imagine that many of their favorite consoles or games come from low-wage factories or sweatshops in foreign countries, but where the minerals that actually go into their consoles come from is a whole other step beyond that many gamers might not know. Bear with me on this one, I admit that I am not too knowledgeable on this subject (Most subjects, really) and there are countless better sources for this subject, but I thought I would share as I learn.

This issue has been getting more news recently as “Walk Free”, an anti-slavery movement, has targeted targeted Nintendo to release their policy on conflict minerals. But of course this isn’t a new issue, there has been wars waged over these conflict minerals in Africa, specifically The Democratic Republic of Congo, for years. The Playstation wars, as they were nicknamed, were/are wars waged in Africa for over a decade  over precious minerals that are used in many common electrical devices like phones, laptops, and, of course, Video game consoles. The mineral in question is Coltran, a mineral that when refined can be used to make the powder tantalum, a common product in electronics. To make matters worse, many of the miners and retrievers of these conflict minerals have been found out to be prisoners of war and children, which is at the heart of Walk Free’s movement. With so many deaths and acts against humanity surrounding these minerals consumer began to question what was in their products.

The United State has adopted a policy of encouraging American companies to not use mineral sources originating from the DRC, and recent studies have show that American companies have complied. Bringing the issue to the attention of the had an impact, as most large electronic manufacturers released policies against the usage of conflict minerals. Sony addressed issues of Conflict Minerals in their products, and their official statement on their website says

Sony shares the concern that conflict minerals might be used in the electronics industry supply chain and is taking steps to eliminate conflict minerals from the supply chain. It is Sony policy to refrain from purchasing any products, parts and materials that are known to contain conflict minerals. Suppliers are also expected to ensure that products, parts and materials delivered to Sony do not contain conflict minerals. Sony is currently formulating an appropriate framework and measures to implement this policy.
Recognizing that these issues are common across the electronics industry, Sony is also participating in the creation of an industry-wide framework, an effort spearheaded by the EICC/GeSI, to improve traceability of minerals and ensure responsible sourcing.

However, other big developers, namely the big N, have not released as formal statements or policy regard conflict minerals. In late 2012 Nintendo stated publicly

“Nintendo’s CSR Procurement Guidelines provide specific directions to our production partners regarding socially responsible procurement practices. We implemented these guidelines based on relevant laws, international standards and guidelines that focus on protecting human rights, ensuring workplace safety, promoting corporate ethics, and safeguarding the environment. These guidelines include provisions on avoiding the use of conflict minerals and the importance of investigating the source of raw materials.”

However, unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo has yet to release specific details of their policies regarding conflict minerals, which has caused groups like Walk Free to urge them to do so.sad-mario-nintendo-loss  Whether Nintendo will release such detailed reports in unknown, but it certainly is an issue that has plagued the gaming industry for sometime. With a whole new generation of consoles on there way, activist groups like Walk Free have their eyes on big companies like Nintendo and Sony more than ever. In making our companies socially responsible we take a step towards ensuring better practices world wide, but certainly to end conflict over minerals and the usage of forced labor will require far more than companies enacting policies.

That’s all back story that a good portion of gamers probably don’t know. Should they? Or should we just have faith in our gaming companies to enact policies that are fair? Should we even be bothered if these minerals are in our video games? There’s no easy answers for questions like these, as the balance between cheap consumer goods and fair treatment across the globe is joined together. Many Americans choose to ignore or remain ignorant of where their goods come from, and often with viable reasons. It’s not an easy situation with black and white answers, and I certainly don’t claim to have any answers. However, certainly by knowing the issues and being better informed we become better individuals and better consumer of games.

I hope this was worthwhile, even if you already knew all of this information. I learned some stuff, so I’m content.

Here are some links for further information:

Walk Free’s “Slavery is not a game campaign”

Raise Hope for the Congo

Animal Crossing: Life Lessons

I’ve been playing a lot of animal crossing. I mean, more than is healthy to play. Something about being in debt to a raccoon just seems so much more fun than being in debt to a university. During one particular long play session reality and the game began to blend into one; no longer could I tell if it was my soulless eyed character or I who was selling butterflies to a poodle and writing berating letters to a cat for constantly asking me to do trivial chores. It was then that I took an unbridled look at the world of Animal crossing; I saw it for what it was, and how it compared to the dull world that I actually inhabited. Upon waking from my haze a day had passed and I found myself in a dog kennel requesting a haircut and a song. I quickly raced home to transcribe what I had learned from the experience, and so this is what I bring to you today: Life lessons from Animal Crossing.

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DEBT MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND

The first thing you learn upon entering the animal crossing world is that nothing comes for free. Before you have time to ask the questions “Where am I?”, “Why did I come to this place with absolutely no money and motive?” and ‘WHERE IS MY SOUL!?” you’re immediately thrust into a contract with one Tom Nook. You better get used to this Raccoon, because he owns you. Everything you do in your town goes through the Nook family (So much for being Mayor). If the above box art wanted to be anymore accurate to the game, there would be a large translucent Tom Nook in the sky laughing manically while looking down upon the town that crumbles at his whim.  Tom Nook has what you need: somewhere to live and the tools required to live. He starts small of course, giving you a measly single room home with room for little more than a bed and a light, but he plays on your own greed, roping you into contracts for bigger and grander houses until you’re his slave. It’s then that your  play time is consumed by fishing and bug catching just to pay back your immense debt to the Nook family.

This sound silly, but that is animal crossing in a nutshell: a cutesy debt simulator fueled by the labor of fishing. If you had to learn one lesson from Animal Crossing it’s that life is about owing others. But hey, that’s not a bad lessons to learn, especially if you’re young. Animal Crossing in some ways teaches fiscal responsibility to children. While Bells are certainly easier to come by than dollars, at least Animal Crossing is teaching kids that they’ll have to work for their money. Is it instilling a strong work ethic? No, probably not, but at least it’s an ethic. It’s only if we start seeing the next generation of kids become really into pawning anything and everything that we should  be concerned.

WANT BIGGER AND BETTER

Of course Animal Crossing also plays on the heart of capitalism, acquiring more wealth and possessions, but it’s all so adorable and silly that you forget that you’re essentially doing what you’re doing in the real world (Most likely minus the fishing). Multiple stores, new items everyday, and a year wide system of changing aspects makes your town an ever changing world, so it’s inevitable that you’re house’s design will go through multiple make overs. Making your house bigger and better is the essential goal of Animal Crossing, and with the addition of wi-fi play you’re no longer doing it for yourself. You can visit and compete with players around the world to see who has the most elaborate and coolest towns.  The most recent title, New Leaf, even lets you live out the fantasy of being a looter in someone’s town. That said, it’s fun. Unlike in the real world, Animal Crossing has a lot more immediate gratification than the real world- You like that cactus with a happy face but don’t have the Bells to buy it? Go fish for 20 minutes. It takes all the mundane parts of accumulation speeds them up and makes them less boring.

You can also be somewhat charitable in the world of animal crossing by donating items to your local museum, but the Owl who runs it is an ingrate who sleeps all day.

Kindness is Key

Although you have ulterior motives in your town, the game very much rewards kindness. Whether your helping out your neighbor by finding him a peach or making your town’s satisfaction higher by composing a new town melody, a big theme in the game is to make others happy. It shows, as the world of Animal crossing is a harmonious world where all types of animals live together under one town. The alligator resident isn’t ripping into the cat resident and there are no major fights over property: it’s a nice world. These acts of kindness make for a good lesson: be nice and play nice, and maybe you’ll be rewarded. Sure, you can also be a terrible villager and axe all of the trees and let your town go to ruin, but that would make for a pretty dull gameplay experience.

However, we don’t know much about what goes on beyond the walls of your town. Perhaps constant war? Famine and disease? Maybe your town is a controlled society in a larger world devastated by war? For more conspiracies about the Animal Crossing world, please read my book “Animal Crossing: The Lies of Tom Nook”.

Other quick lessons:

  • The land provides, and what the land provides will make bank.
  • Animals are sometimes really petty.
  • Not Saving is like committing an unspeakable crime.
  • New fossils appear in the ground every day.
  • Animals are living breathing things that should be treated as such. Not bugs or fish though; capture them and put them in cages.
  • Fishing is the most valuable skill ever.

So there you have it, some life lessons from the world of Animal Crossing. Take them as you like, whether its to your normal life or to your life in your Animal Crossing town. Perhaps one day, when games and virtual reality become one,  we’ll be able to owe Tom Nook huge amounts of money for real. Wouldn’t that be paradise….

Lessons on the Social World: Pokemon

“I want to be the very best, that no one ever was!”

It’s not all links and sadness here at the Sociology of Video Games, there’s also deep personal analysis about what Pokemon means to me. No, that’s not true either. However, I did think it would be fun and worthwhile to take the opportunity to examine some popular video game franchises for their messages about the social world. What better place to start than 2nd most popular gaming franchise of all time: Little Masters.

..No, wait. Sorry. That’s the Iphone’s bastard ripoff. I mean of course:


Pokemon is by far one of the definitive games of the 90s, with it being one of the best selling and most popular franchises of all time. 15 years (That makes me feel old) later and the franchise is still white hot, like that Misty’s Sweet short shorts (or Brocks..awesome vest. For the ladies..). For any kid growing up in the last decade, Pokemon may have played an important part in developing their frame of mind when viewing various aspects of the social world. But what are these messages and lessons about social world that Pokemon is teaching our kids? Are they good messages? Is pokemon only teaching our kids to trap animals in balls, and only let them out once and awhile to fight other animals? This isn’t a PETA analysis of Pokemon, but let’s play: Here are some themes and concepts Pokemon is teaching kids all over the world.

Capitalism!

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One of the more predominant themes that seem to be underlying the Pokemon is Capitalism. Now obviously the game isn’t teaching kids to accumulate wealth (Though there’s a lot of exchange of cash for kids battling bugs in the forest), but the goal of the Pokemon world isn’t that far from the goal of capitalism: Be the best, have the most.  Now, one could theoretically go through the game without acquiring a lot of pokemon, but the game inevitably pushes you to catch multiple pokemon to succeed. That’s not a bad message, as it certainly teaches kids to be fiscally motivated (An issue we saw was lacking in games aimed at female gamers: See below)), but it also makes living creatures essentially into commodities. So..That’s bad. Not to mention you’re essentially an intern for Professor Oak; doing all his work for him while you get paid peanuts.

But like Capitalism, there’s never an end accumulation. With new games come new pokemon and the world is seemingly always expanding. Can one really catch them all? Yes…until there’s more. Gamefreak is teaching us to never be satisfied with what you’ve caught. Being Goal oriented isn’t bad though…most of the time.

Once you start thinking of monetary values in Pokemon, you probably will need to take a break from the franchise.

Competition!

“I came when I heard you defeated The Elite Four” – Professor Oak

Like the theme that I still hum to myself to get me pumped up for any event ever, the goal of pokemon is to be the very best. Pokemon is all about competition. Every battle is teaching kids to outwit, overpower, and outdo their opponents. There can only be one pokemon master and if you’re not him or her, ya suck.

There’s not much you do in the Pokemon world that isn’t a means to an end: You raise a pokemon for it to be stronger, you trade with your friends to acquire what you need, and battling is the only worthwhile way to be the best. But hey, that’s not necessarily bad- some competition is healthy, and games like Pokemon build confidence and challenge kids to think about their actions. Kids today can become in powered by video games; if you’re the pokemon master in the Pokemon world, adding and subtracting fractions aint shit.

Social Stratification!

Ok. Ok. You may think is stupid, but Pokemon certainly has a caste system. Not all Pokemon are created equal my friend. In a world filled with thousands of Pidgeys and only a handful of Zapdos, there clearly some Pokemon that are better than others. Now some might argue with me and say “IT’S HOW U TRAIN THEM. MY LEVEL 100 PIDGEY IS THE BEST”, and I’m not going to pretend to know the stat balancing factors in the games, but it’s pretty clear that some pokemon are overpowered. In fact, most multiplayer/tournament rules prohibit certain Pokemon from being used because they are considered overpowered.  Yes, it’s silly: Any video game you play will have some characters that are stronger than others, but does that lessen the message at all? Who knows. But certainly the game makes kids think of classifications and place certain pokemon in classes accordingly: These pokemon are strong, these are weak. Likewise, the very nature of game classifies pokemon into types- Fire, water, dragon, bug, etc. But hey, classifications help children learn, so it’s not all that bad.

It’s only when you start making Pokemon HM Slaves that you’re crossing the line and making a pokemon a second class citizen.

You Gotta be Social!

tradin’ jigglypuffs n shit

Pokemon was created to be a social game, even back when the gameboy wasn’t the most social things. Most gameboy connector cables were bought specifically for Pokemon, in fact how many mulitplayer games on the gameboy can you even think of? Yeah, ok I can think of quite a few. That said, Pokemon makes you be social, because without being social you can’t fulfill the one main task of the game: catching them all. Version exclusive pokemon and Pokemon that only were available through trading ensured that you were interacting with at least one other game. Gamefreak brilliantly made two versions of the game so that players had to either own both, or trade with someone else. Even if you owned both versions of the game (Which many of us did) you still had to have two gameboys to connect (which many of us did), so really the most efficient and cost effective way to obtain all the pokemon is to have friends. Recent Pokemon games have enabled players to go online and trade, battle, and interact with people all over the world, so Pokemon has really become a global community.

Why there hasn’t been a Pokemon MMO is ridiculous. Nintendo, you monsters. (Official MMOs. Sorry fan mades)

Other Quick Social lessons Pokemon has to Teach

  • All Animals, regardless of power, control over time and space, or size, can be shoved into a single ball after a series of attacks and coaxing.
  • We should probably check other parts of the world before we claim there’s only 151 of them.
  • Some animals are more racially insensitive than others
  • As a child, you’re very safe going out into the world on your own as long as you have some sort of animal at your side.
  • Don’t ever walk into tall grass. Things will attack you.
  • If someone attacks you and beats you, you’ll just black out and wind up in a hospital in the last city you visited.
  • Healthcare is free, but bottled waters are wicked expensive.
  • The world is kind of based on you, and people will more or less stand in the same place forever- even after you have interacted with them.
  • Sailing alongside islands makes crazy things happen.

So that’s that. There’s more Pokemon has to say about the social world, but I’ll leave it at this. Does Pokemon actually convey these messages that I brought up? Maybe, but no one is really being shaped all that much by the games in the manner. In the end, they’re just fun games with tons of replay value and things to do. Just make sure your starters a good one. Charmander for life.

Please let me know if you enjoyed this article by either liking, sharing or commenting. I may do some more in the future. Who knows. Who cares.

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Nintendo Patching Gay Marriage “Bug” in Popular Japanese Game

Nintendo Patching Gay Marriage “Bug” in Popular Japanese Game

Oh boy. This is a strange one. This week Nintendo released a patch for their popular life simulator 3DS title “Tomodachi Collection” that fixes  bug that allows for same-sex relationships. Tomodachi is a Japanese life simulator title for the 3DS in which players can use their Wii/3DS Created Miis to interact, fall in love, and socialize with other characters (Think Animal Crossing or the Sims). The patch supposedly fixes a bug in the game that allows for two male Miis to fall in love, get married, and even have kids. I use the word bug, because it seems that Nintendo did not initially intend for same-sex couples in this game at all ( In fact, the bug does not work for 2 female Miis). The bug only works when a Mii is transferred over using the 3DS’ Mii Transfer system.

It’s only strange if you haven’t seen the movie “Junior”

The patch, according to Nintendo, fixes “Human relations that become strange”. What Nintendo deems strange is unknown, as there’s plenty of relationships that become strange without having anything to do with same-sex coupling (It’s highly unlikely that the game will fix the hundreds of Hitler Miis out there hooking up with Miis of elderly women).

So we have to ask the question: Is patching the game to not allow same-sex relationships the right thing to do? It’s a tough one, especially for Nintendo. Tomodachi Collection wouldn’t be the first life simulator to allow for same-sex relationships, as games like “The Sims” have already allowed for Same-sex sims to fall in love, get married, and even do the nasty together. That said, Tomodachi Collection is a game primarily aimed at kids (Although it’s odd that a life simulator is aimed at a group of people whom, you know, just started life) and having two males conceive a baby together is less than natural (Granted, no more odd than consuming a leaf and turning into a raccoon that can fly). Although one could make the argument that they could simply fix the males getting pregnant aspect and not the relationship aspect. But should they? Nintendo never intended to take a stance on the issue to begin with, and patching the game does not necessarily mean that they are taking a stance. Nintendo isn’t exactly the company you expect to be shaking things up, so it’s only natural for them to be playing it safe with this. Then again, many fans of the game are already disappointed that the game has been patched, eliminating their ability to choose their relationships in the game.

Nintendo is certainly taking the cautious route with this one, but we have to ask: “should our game developers be promoting progressive social issues and social causes?”. Video games are a great tool of socialization, and in making games with progressive social issues is certainly one way of slowing inching towards social change. Perhaps games like Tomodachi Collection can be tools of change.

Then again, Nintendo hasn’t even developed a perfect system for me to play with my friends over the internet, do I really want to them taking the reigns on social issues that don’t have to do with Turtle/lizard creatures being second class citizens? Probably not.