4 ms·

I know less about popular music of a century ago. But in literature, at least, the market for fiction has shrunk enormously, and most people no longer read anyt

I know less about popular music of a century ago. But in literature, at least, the market for fiction has shrunk enormously, and most people no longer read anything so challenging as they used to. Worse, the market for challenging videogames is diminishing rapidly, as well. Decent simulation or strategy games get hardly any press. My cofounder (incidentally, the creator of the Tonk Hawk Pro Skater franchise), describes it as due to a market reality. There are more people out there who want largely prepackaged entertainment. There are vastly more avid Guitar Hero players than guitarists, or skateboard game playing people than skateboarders. I think it's kind of sad. I just hope that not every domain of experience will become trivialized in simulation, in future.

nostrademons 18y ago
And yet J.K. Rowling became one of the richest women in England by writing a book. I think it's not so much that the market for fiction is shrinking, I think it's that it's becoming more hit-driven. It used to be that reading was a solitary pursuit, and you checked a book out because it looked interesting on a library shelf (I still do this, but I'm one of the few folks I know of that do). Now, most people read books because their friends do, and they want to read what their friends are reading. So popular books become more popular, while unpopular books get no sales or readership. This also increases the drive towards universally-applicable themes (a book that flies over the heads of 99% of the population isn't going to get word-of-mouth), which is why you see them as being less challenging. Same goes for games. When I first started playing MM0RPGs in 1993, it was impossible to find an average person on the street that played them. Now, half my friends are addicted to WoW. Video games are a social enterprise, so they need to be a lowest-common-denominator. If you want text-only RPGs or Civilization 4, they're still out there. But if you want to play with your friends, you have to put up with your friends' varying skill levels.
- meredydd 18y ago
  And yet J.K. Rowling became one of the richest women in England by writing a book. More specifically, a children's book. Written engagingly, but with little by way of moral ambiguity or challenge to the reader. And yet this book became suddenly popular, and took over the adult charts as well. If there were ever a literary example of Guitar Hero over learning to play an instrument, this is it. If you ask me, your example is evidence in favour of DaniFong's argument rather than against it.
  - unalone 18y ago
    And yet. And yet Harry Potter says that Voldemort isn't the only evil, that the Ministry that Harry's expecting to take care of him is just as awful in that it hides facts to raise morale. And yet, part of the moral of the book is that if you fight for what's right, there's a chance you're killed for your beliefs. And yet, the father-figure is revealed in the end to be a racist and a bigot and partly a coward. Some of the villains go unpunished. Some innocent people are tortured and killed. The moral of Harry Potter might be that good wins in the end, yeah, but it absolutely offers ambiguity. Never with Harry, but with other people. And that's fine, literarily speaking: it makes Harry and Voldemort into foils, into pure good and pure evil, and from there you can debate the exact nature of good and evil. The story's deeper than it lets on because it's so well written (for the most part) that you can ignore a lot of what's going on because it puts itself very subtly into the background. Furthermore, it ended a lot of the publication limits on what constitutes kid's literature. Suddenly the stories don't have to all end happily ever after, lengthy series with big books are acceptable, and heavily political and religious themes are allowed. That's big: it let kid's lit writers have a lot more respect for their work.
    - meredydd 18y ago
      And yet. And yet Harry Potter says that Voldemort isn't the only evil, that the Ministry... I almost put this point into my original comment, because I anticipated this response: Go back and read the first two books. They contain no hints of this sort of thing. It was only after the series became a runaway success that Rowling started to beef up the storyline with such "adult" topics. (And even these themes are fairly bolted-on to a world still fundamentally dominated by Absolute Good and Absolute Evil - or, at least, they started out that way). My argument is that the introduction of these themes, and the retconning of a fairly simplistic world into something more ambiguous, resemble the rereleasing of the original books with "adult covers". They were an after-the-fact response to the way that a children's story became massively popular in the adult world. (Which isn't to say that the books aren't engagingly written, or fun to read. And video games are fun to play - I'm with Randall Munroe on people who look down on those having fun just because they are insufficiently highbrow. But I simply disagree with your argument that the popularity of the original Harry Potter books represents the rise of challenging mental stimulation.)
- DaniFong 18y ago
  "This also increases the drive towards universally-applicable themes [...], which is why you see them as being less challenging." I doubt this. The Sorrows of Young Werther is about unrequited love, after all. I think it is the emotional, moral, intellectual and psychological content of literature that challenges. Not the theme. Pride and prejudice is considered the epitome of the romance novel by many, after all. 55% of the novels in America are sold in the genre. And here's what the Romance Writers of America say about the genre: "the main plot of a romance novel must revolve around the two people as they develop romantic love for each other and work to build a relationship together. Both the conflict and the climax of the novel should be directly related to that core theme of developing a romantic relationship, although the novel can also contain subplots that do not specifically relate to the main characters' romantic love. Furthermore, a romance novel must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Others, including Leslie Gelbman, a president of the Berkley Group, use a more shortened definition, that a romance must make the "romantic relationship between the hero and the heroine ... the core of the book." In general, romance novels reward characters who are good people and penalize those who are evil, and a couple who fights for and believes in their relationship will likely be rewarded with unconditional love." [1] In this way, reality is sanitized for mass consumption. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_novel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_novel
unalone 18y ago
But isn't that always the case? In the 1300s, very few people were composers of great music, or writers of great plays. Very few people wanted great music or great plays. That's nothing new: it's necessary for high culture to always appeal to a significantly slimmer portion of society, because it requires an effort on the part of the experiencer. I'd argue that now more people are in high culture than ever before because, for the first time in history, when I wanted to learn about old music I could research critics and torrent vast swathes of music and listen to three albums a day and develop a sort of standard for what I like. That was never possible before.
- DaniFong 18y ago
  No, I don't think it's always been the case, though you're definitely right that we've advanced beyond the 1300s here. I think that, quite generally, there are periods in which the art, on it own merit, breaks through and speaks to a broader audience, and in those periods the best works are often the most popular. Afterward, they are aped by successive imitators, relying on formulas, or production value, rather than having something to say. That said, I do think that the internet has strongly influenced and improved music as an art form. The indie revolution probably wouldn't have had nearly the effect without it. I think that works in film are advance too, though quite independently of the major Hollywood productions.
  - unalone 18y ago
    Okay. I'll agree with that. I'm really hoping we're approaching a moment where video games reach that peak. Hell, I'm hoping when it happens a decade from now I'm the one doing it. Things ebb and flow, and I think right now video games are too clumsy to be at that peak. Films are at an "eh" moment right now. The next breakthrough will be something like the rock movement was in music: once tools are cheap enough that you can shoot something that looks good for almost no money, there'll be the rise of some explosive new talents we won't have anticipated.

nostrademons 18y ago

And yet J.K. Rowling became one of the richest women in England by writing a book. I think it's not so much that the market for fiction is shrinking, I think it's that it's becoming more hit-driven. It used to be that reading was a solitary pursuit, and you checked a book out because it looked interesting on a library shelf (I still do this, but I'm one of the few folks I know of that do). Now, most people read books because their friends do, and they want to read what their friends are reading. So popular books become more popular, while unpopular books get no sales or readership. This also increases the drive towards universally-applicable themes (a book that flies over the heads of 99% of the population isn't going to get word-of-mouth), which is why you see them as being less challenging. Same goes for games. When I first started playing MM0RPGs in 1993, it was impossible to find an average person on the street that played them. Now, half my friends are addicted to WoW. Video games are a social enterprise, so they need to be a lowest-common-denominator. If you want text-only RPGs or Civilization 4, they're still out there. But if you want to play with your friends, you have to put up with your friends' varying skill levels.

meredydd 18y ago
And yet J.K. Rowling became one of the richest women in England by writing a book. More specifically, a children's book. Written engagingly, but with little by way of moral ambiguity or challenge to the reader. And yet this book became suddenly popular, and took over the adult charts as well. If there were ever a literary example of Guitar Hero over learning to play an instrument, this is it. If you ask me, your example is evidence in favour of DaniFong's argument rather than against it.
- unalone 18y ago
  And yet. And yet Harry Potter says that Voldemort isn't the only evil, that the Ministry that Harry's expecting to take care of him is just as awful in that it hides facts to raise morale. And yet, part of the moral of the book is that if you fight for what's right, there's a chance you're killed for your beliefs. And yet, the father-figure is revealed in the end to be a racist and a bigot and partly a coward. Some of the villains go unpunished. Some innocent people are tortured and killed. The moral of Harry Potter might be that good wins in the end, yeah, but it absolutely offers ambiguity. Never with Harry, but with other people. And that's fine, literarily speaking: it makes Harry and Voldemort into foils, into pure good and pure evil, and from there you can debate the exact nature of good and evil. The story's deeper than it lets on because it's so well written (for the most part) that you can ignore a lot of what's going on because it puts itself very subtly into the background. Furthermore, it ended a lot of the publication limits on what constitutes kid's literature. Suddenly the stories don't have to all end happily ever after, lengthy series with big books are acceptable, and heavily political and religious themes are allowed. That's big: it let kid's lit writers have a lot more respect for their work.
  - meredydd 18y ago
    And yet. And yet Harry Potter says that Voldemort isn't the only evil, that the Ministry... I almost put this point into my original comment, because I anticipated this response: Go back and read the first two books. They contain no hints of this sort of thing. It was only after the series became a runaway success that Rowling started to beef up the storyline with such "adult" topics. (And even these themes are fairly bolted-on to a world still fundamentally dominated by Absolute Good and Absolute Evil - or, at least, they started out that way). My argument is that the introduction of these themes, and the retconning of a fairly simplistic world into something more ambiguous, resemble the rereleasing of the original books with "adult covers". They were an after-the-fact response to the way that a children's story became massively popular in the adult world. (Which isn't to say that the books aren't engagingly written, or fun to read. And video games are fun to play - I'm with Randall Munroe on people who look down on those having fun just because they are insufficiently highbrow. But I simply disagree with your argument that the popularity of the original Harry Potter books represents the rise of challenging mental stimulation.)
DaniFong 18y ago
"This also increases the drive towards universally-applicable themes [...], which is why you see them as being less challenging." I doubt this. The Sorrows of Young Werther is about unrequited love, after all. I think it is the emotional, moral, intellectual and psychological content of literature that challenges. Not the theme. Pride and prejudice is considered the epitome of the romance novel by many, after all. 55% of the novels in America are sold in the genre. And here's what the Romance Writers of America say about the genre: "the main plot of a romance novel must revolve around the two people as they develop romantic love for each other and work to build a relationship together. Both the conflict and the climax of the novel should be directly related to that core theme of developing a romantic relationship, although the novel can also contain subplots that do not specifically relate to the main characters' romantic love. Furthermore, a romance novel must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Others, including Leslie Gelbman, a president of the Berkley Group, use a more shortened definition, that a romance must make the "romantic relationship between the hero and the heroine ... the core of the book." In general, romance novels reward characters who are good people and penalize those who are evil, and a couple who fights for and believes in their relationship will likely be rewarded with unconditional love." [1] In this way, reality is sanitized for mass consumption. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_novel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_novel

unalone 18y ago

But isn't that always the case? In the 1300s, very few people were composers of great music, or writers of great plays. Very few people wanted great music or great plays. That's nothing new: it's necessary for high culture to always appeal to a significantly slimmer portion of society, because it requires an effort on the part of the experiencer. I'd argue that now more people are in high culture than ever before because, for the first time in history, when I wanted to learn about old music I could research critics and torrent vast swathes of music and listen to three albums a day and develop a sort of standard for what I like. That was never possible before.

DaniFong 18y ago
No, I don't think it's always been the case, though you're definitely right that we've advanced beyond the 1300s here. I think that, quite generally, there are periods in which the art, on it own merit, breaks through and speaks to a broader audience, and in those periods the best works are often the most popular. Afterward, they are aped by successive imitators, relying on formulas, or production value, rather than having something to say. That said, I do think that the internet has strongly influenced and improved music as an art form. The indie revolution probably wouldn't have had nearly the effect without it. I think that works in film are advance too, though quite independently of the major Hollywood productions.
- unalone 18y ago
  Okay. I'll agree with that. I'm really hoping we're approaching a moment where video games reach that peak. Hell, I'm hoping when it happens a decade from now I'm the one doing it. Things ebb and flow, and I think right now video games are too clumsy to be at that peak. Films are at an "eh" moment right now. The next breakthrough will be something like the rock movement was in music: once tools are cheap enough that you can shoot something that looks good for almost no money, there'll be the rise of some explosive new talents we won't have anticipated.