A Follow-Up Thought

The anime aspect of these Japanese offerings sparks another interesting thought... do you even need actors or actresses? In the Japanese versions we need them only for voices... but the early games didn't even need that... they were text based. If you are turned off by the "anime" then consider that there have been a flury of films lately in which many characters are not even physical in reality. Movies like Pixar's creations or SquareSoft's Final Fantasy dispose of both anime and actors at the same time. The virtual pop star is a long lived Japanese fantasy as well. I believe there are actually a few in Japan now... Idoru as William Gibson calls them in his book of the same title (a decent read especially if you're already familiar with his world.)

But the concept goes back further... as far back as Sharon Apple from Macross Plus, or Max Headroom from the eighties. I was recently discussing the RIAA's and the MPAA's preditory copyright pursuits with a friend and floating my theory that the real issue at hand is the networks which are now by-passing hollywood as the gateway to stardon. You no longer need a big record label to get your music out there and you don't need a big movie studio to produce a block-buster film. There are otehr channels available and you can see by looking at the Detroit Techno super-star Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman) or films like Blair Witch Project, which have to be picked up retrospectively by the big studios. It comes down to market control. Or as the much neglected Manuel De Landa calls it anti-markets. The big media companies simply control the flow of talent into the market. They spend millions promting their Brittney Spearses and as long as she is the only mildly talented, sexy schoolgirl, teenboy fantasy on the market she'll do well. But that's all she has going for her. Her music (like much big-five production) is just so-so. The record companies rip-off the performers and pursue pirates to openly recoup the millions of dollars they spend on promotion. It has nothing to do with the actual value of the music. Like the diamond market, supply is kept in check to inflate profits. Big record companies simply buy up performers and contract them exclusively with no intention of releasing any of their music until the market is ready for them.

Now, the virtual actor/musician is a real armageddon for these companies... once anyone can produce a mildly talented pop-star and put them to work (for free) in works of their own creation... the entire media industry is dead. So there's more to it that copyrights and intellectual property... it's about choking off the homegrown media industry. The RIAA has already been guilty of sueing people over perfectly legal files... the mere threat of legal action suffocates even a legal exchange fo music between people. SO the only channel available is the big-five and their illegal price-fixing alliances with the CD stores. Same with Hollywood, re-editing movies is completely possible in your home. The mere thought that some living-room-film-editor might concoct a version of a multi-million dollar fiasco that is more popular has got to seriously undermine the clout of hollywood's monopoly. Just like the radio and TV people got the FCC to tyranically control who can broadcast over the air, the RIAA and MPAA are trying to legistlate who can produce/sell/distribute music and direct/edit/distribute movies. They are addicted to their one-way media consumption scheme. The novel games I discussed below open that scheme up alot. They allow the consumer control over the product... a feature the MPAA and RIAA are violently opposed to in any form.

As my friend Chris said, "soon there will not be any mega-actors, only mega-studios." He's probably right... it's only a matter of time before we don't need actors and actresses for movies... We may soon be able to even pick what "actress" or "actor" we want in a particular role when we begin a movie. I think we'll see this trend towards more control over our entertainment media continue over the next several years even as the big media companies legistlate to oppose it.