Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - Who are you? ... Nintendo and the identity of political games

my affiliations

Ian Bogost - videogame theory, criticism, design

about me

contact

Water Cooler Games

Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.

You are reading an archived version of this article. The original URL was (loading...)

Who are you? ... Nintendo and the identity of political games

by Ian Bogost November 17, 2003

categories: Console & PC Games , Political Games

This isn't really what we have in mind when we talk about Political Games, but Nintendo has been running a promotional campaign for Mario Party 5 in which Mario runs for president. The official game site ressembles a political campaign site (in a certain way). Mario's platform is simple: More Minigames for All.

The Mario party (as it were) is part of Nintendo's elaborate new advertising campaign, who are you. The campaign represents well-known Nintendo character heads grafted onto news images, art, film, sculpture, and other cultural artifacts. It's something like Apple Think Different meets Found Art.

There are some really fascinating specimens from who are you do-it-yourselfers, including the Wario/Saddam Hussein, Luigi/Mona Lisa, and a cast of Nintendo faves in The Last Supper. Nintendo offers a nice Flash tool on their who are you website for constructing your own, but these fan-created spreads are much more interesting. I'll explain why.

I found myself fascinated with it as I stumbled upon a Mario Party print ad late last week. I was at the doctor's office, and I'd thumbed through just about every periodical in the waiting room before picking up the Nickelodeon magazine.

The mag featured one of Nintendo's full-page who are you spreads, with Mario taped over the oval office desk in the White House. The ad copy reads:

Taxes? Yawn. Foreign policy? Bigger yawn. Forget politics and join the party with Mario Party 5. Over 60 new mini-games make this party all fun and no politics. Mario Party 5. Only for Nintendo GameCube.

I found myself wondering, is Nintendo just trying to get at adults and parents who might buy this game and play it with their Nick mag readers? Or perhaps gift it for the holidays? At first, it seemed only to reinfoce the games as fun claims we've discussed here and elsewhere. Games are apolitical, thanks a lot Nintendo.

But as I began to learn more about the campaign and saw what people had done with the concept, I've begun to think that the campaign itself is at least as politically charged as other game mod art. What does the juxtaposition of friendly Nintendo characters on political events and high art show about the political power of game artifacts? Whether or not Nintendo had this outcome in mind, doesn't it show show how games are not just leisure experiences that stand in stark opposition to the real world, but rather that games occupy a valuable position at the limits of the world of play and the world of cultural activity?

Comments (6)

I just saw a TV ad from this campaign last night. I found it to be strange; my initial reaction was similar to the amused confusion Americans (or perhaps non-Japanese) sometimes get when they see slightly off-kilter media / products from Japan, translated into English. But in this case, I assume the ads were made by an American company (one would think).

doesn't it show show how games are not just leisure experiences that stand in stark opposition to the real world, but rather that games occupy a valuable position at the limits of the world of play and the world of cultural activity?

I suppose so; but that deep thought didn't occur to me when I saw the ad. :-) I found the ad to be a strange, unsuccessful conjoining of games and real world issues — not to say it can't be done of course, just that they did it less cleanly than they could have.

andrewstern on November 18, 2003 3:40 PM

I'm sure Nintendo didn't intend the campaign to play in the liminal space of game/world, and I think you're right that the success of the ads themselves is dubious.

However, if you look at what ordinary folks have created with the who are you "framework" Nintendo provided, I think this is more successful.

For example, I thought the conjoined Wario/Saddam (I think it's Saddam, anyway) does make a "cleaner" political statement.

ibogost on November 18, 2003 3:58 PM

I'd say that rather than this being an indicator of how integral and relevant video games are to the real world, it's the opposite: in rejecting completely some of the most important things in our world, politics, Nintendo only reinforces the concept of video games as a leisure activity unrelated to anything else. The attitude seems to be: "Serious things? No way. I'm gonna go play video games," which just widens the gap between them and reality. Bah.

Ozymandias on November 24, 2003 4:04 AM

I agree that that's what the main campaign does. But I still think the user-created who are you ads subvert Nintendo's message that games are apolitical.

ibogost on November 25, 2003 12:58 AM

Hmm... what political statement does it make to put Wario's head on Saddam's body?

Ozymandias on November 26, 2003 12:11 AM

Here's one possible interpretation: it's an attempt to frame our understanding of Saddam. Wario is, after all, the "Mario gone bad," and framing Saddam as the "dark" of a "light" force both reinforces and calls into question the idea that our conflict with Saddam is a stable good/evil diad, as our government would like us to believe.

I agree that it's not the best example of political speech, but I'm stilll encouraged to look at it as some kind of political speech.

ibogost on November 26, 2003 3:37 AM