We were designed for community.
The Earth is a complex matrix of people groups, cultures and tastes. Whether it’s a mainstream novel or an abstract sculpture from a virtual unknown artist, you will find a certain amount of people, followers or fans. We were created with desires and personal gravitations to certain types of expressions. When we arrive at this destination that our desires lead us to, we find community.
Whether big or small, community is inevitable. Whether big or small, community is vital to our betterment as people and it would be a shame for us to convince ourselves that art is all about our individuality in some wayward self-absorbed vacuum.
Art is created to not only be expressed, but to be shared with others.
No company understands that more than Nintendo. In a gaming industry where playing online and communicating remotely via headset is the accepted notion of new “community,” Nintendo released the Wii in 2006, a gaming platform that not only redefined how games are played, but reintroduced the in-person social aspect of enjoying games.
The Nintendo Wii gaming console
In case you’re not familiar with the Wii phenomenon – the hook is that the system eschews the traditional too-many-buttons-for-normal-people controller in favor of a remote-like wand, or “Wii-mote”, that tracks actual movement and is a pointing device. So, in Wii Sports, you can bowl by literally making bowling motions. You can play baseball by literally swinging the Wii-mote like a baseball bat. You can play golf by literally swinging the Wii-mote like a golf club. Games built specifically for the Wii platform are molding themselves around these sort of real life mimicries.
And just like that mainstream novel or the niche sculpture, people of all ages and gaming IQs are gravitating to the Wii, creating a new type of interactive community in homes. The Wii controls are intuitive no matter who you are. Many of the games tailored for it promote cooperative play.
Despite not being as graphically capable as a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360, and despite not embracing an online infrastructure as modern as Sony or Microsoft, the Wii has completely dominated the market, leaving the other two current home consoles in the dust.
The beauty of the Wii may not even be the Wii itself, but rather the togetherness it creates in its wake. Sure, there are individual games across several platforms that have true beauty and reflect modern significance in culture, but the Wii itself as a game console is a launching pad for the building blocks of that beauty: relationship.
Not only is there feedback between one player and the screen, but when three of your friends or family play with you, there is a mutual, communal enjoyment of experience. There is a point of reference for the elation and fun you’re experiencing. Just like that book or sculpture, these new communities are rallying behind a game system.
Board games, although still around in great number, have largely been replaced by video games. The sad part is that before the advent of even online communities, video games were largely an individual experience. So it’s very possible the Wii fills the hole left by the death of the board game.
Regardless, if you still don’t believe a video game can promote something as intricate and vital as community and quality time, try tracking down a Nintendo Wii, play a few games of Wii Bowling with your friends and family and get back to me.