My name is Peter Willington, and ladies? I hate to break your hearts but I have kissed Justin Bieber. Not only that, but the YouTube smash told me that, from then on, he’d be “busy fighting off the boys”. What a sweetheart.
I can add this accolade of smooching the Canadian pop star to my long list of other fake life achievements gained through interactive entertainment, including: driving a Toyota Celica at over a hundred miles per hour down a desert road, single-handedly bringing down a dictatorship with just a handgun and performing a rock concert to thousands of people. In the world of video games I’m James Bond, albeit a James Bond that’s planted a smacker on the soft, downy cheek of Justin Bieber.
How have I done this then? You’re an avid gamer – and perhaps a secret Belieber – so why haven’t you been informed about an official Justin Bieber video game?
Well it’s because one doesn’t really exist, the one I’ve been tinkering with is an unofficial and totally stupid iPhone app made by a company called Pajenco LLC. Their other work to date has included Talking Sex Teacher, You’re Fired Button, Mech Warrior (note the copyright-avoiding space included to make it two words) and Funny Farm Animals. In other words: a bunch of rip-off shite.
Still, they did make the app that’s brought up this opinion piece – it’s called Kiss Justin Bieber – you can find it here and watch my video demonstration of it running below;
As you’ll have seen in the video portion of this piece, it’s basically just a soundboard with a picture of Justin Bieber that crudely animates his mouth in such a fashion that he looks as if he’s grinding his perfect teeth.
Yet it’s not the product itself that I find interesting. It’s what the product offers up as a concept that is most compelling as a larger thought experiment.
See, I play a good number of iPhone games in my line of work. I don’t often “review them” as such, but I like to keep up with the rapidly evolving, distinctly disruptive mobile platforms that are changing the very core of this industry. And there’s one thing that’s disrupted it like no other: its pricing models.
If you’ve kept your head buried in the sand for the last five years – or just wilfully dismissed the platform as nothing but casual games – then you might not have noticed that games are now a lot more ubiquitous and cheap to access. It’s been great, it’s forced giant publishers of traditional titles to rethink their strategy when it comes to the term “value”, but more importantly it’s democratised games to the point that everyone can afford to play them – or at least a selection of them.
Who reading this hasn’t played a version of Angry Birds? Who reading this knows anyone who hasn’t at least /heard/ of Angry Birds?
But more than that, the 69p (and free) price points have taken a lot of the myth out of games, a lot of the spectacle and misplaced reverence. Suddenly interactive entertainment is disposable again, like it was in the Atari 2600 days. Anyone can make them, they’re cheap to access and if you don’t like what you’ve bought who cares, it only set you back the price of a Double Decker, and it probably lasted longer anyway.
So we’re now in a situation where games and apps can be more than experiences that require a certain amount of investment – chronologically, emotionally or financially. They can be frivolous, and ridiculous, and exist to do one “thing” very well. They can be amusements again.
And that’s the key word: amusements. I want you to keep this word in your head for a bit, because what I’m about to write gets a little tricky.
My belief is that, without consciously doing so, the form has created a third type of software to be found on the App Store or Android’s marketplace, and we’re not really paying it much attention. We tend to think that there’s two types of software. The first kind is functional: office apps, TV streaming apps, social media apps. The second are closer to what we might call games: everything from Angry Birds to My Star to Tilt To Live.
That’s fair isn’t it? That covers everything, right?
Well not quite. There’s another type of application that doesn’t fit into either category. They’re not “games”, as they don’t have rule sets or win conditions, but they don’t serve a functional purpose, there’s no situation in which you’d find them useful in the true definition of the word.
[drop]The content that falls under this category includes “finger scanners” that don’t actually work, prank apps you use to scare your mates, image compilations of women in lingerie, sound boards of TV stars you (or more likely your embarrassing Uncle) whip out in the pub to repeat a clichéd catchphrase over and over. Novelty, schadenfreude, titillation and hilarity – none of these applications are games, and they certainly don’t serve some useful function, but they are definitely for entertainment. They are amusements.There’s that word again. You know I think that we can just go ahead and label this category as “amusements”. Are we happy with that definition? Okay, let’s continue.
The last space in which we regularly found amusements, before the iPhone and other mobile devices, was the amusement arcades. The one in Winchelsea (near Rye) was a favourite of mine when I was growing up, filled with jaw-droppingly beautiful games, dodgy food and rife with scum and villainy. For all these reasons it was an exciting place to be, but what added to this feeling were all of the cheap little thrills one could find there.
When I dropped tuppence into the Penny Pusher I felt like a gambling man, moreso when I dropped a whole twenty pence into the large machine with robotic horses that simulated the races at the Grand National. I think it might have even been called Grand National. When I’d had enough of gambling, I went shooting. I hunted animals on a machine not much more sophisticated than the Seeburg Ray-O-Lite, their electro-mechanical bodies dropping as I fired a realistic looking rifle at them. When I was done there, I had my future told to me, then I was a race car driver, then I was a jet pilot, then I was a boxer, then I was… well usually that was about the time we had to go back to the beachside bungalow we’d rented for the week.
The point is that all of these diversions aren’t really games as such. I suppose it’s possible to win at gambling, but the outcome isn’t in your control, it’s just a little thrill. I wasn’t given a score after I’d shot those poor animals, the activity just shut itself down after a certain amount of time. When I went on the dodgems I wasn’t competing against anyone, I just liked bumping into people. They were amusements, in the amusement arcade.
Are you starting to see the similarity between the amusements of old and these new amusements on your iDevice? They’re one and the same, the difference being that tastes have changed and “the arcade” is no longer a physical space – now it’s the App Store.
[drop2]Bringing it back to The Bieb, Kiss Justin Bieber is one such app that falls into our category of amusements. For the minuscule entry cost of 69p – a price comparable to the price of a single credit in the arcades – one of Justin’s fans can, for a few moments, imagine that they are actually kissing their pop idol, and he is actually saying something directly to them when they do. There is the unspoken agreement between human being and slab of metal and glass that, just temporarily, allows for imagination to take over from reason, a brief window to fantasise.And that’s what you and I did when we shot ducks or gambled on horses. We paid our money to create a bubble of fantasy around us and transport us away from the dreary British summers, away and out into the open range or the bustling horse track.
We were pilots, we were soldiers, we were high rollers, and now, with the help of our mobiles, we can be Justin Bieber’s lover.
Awayze
Wtf. This article is like a A Level English essay and on shitty Beiber.
tonycawley
How would you know what aN A level English essay looks like? Surely you can’t have done A level English if you think its “a A level English essay”.
Amphlett
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeow! ;-_)
tonycawley
This comment of mine was meant to be amusing and sarcastic but came across as arrogant and shitty. Apologies for that, I must learn to make better use of winky smileys!
Forrest_01
I presume you don’t mean a smiley that resembles a penis in some way by the term ‘winky smiley’?? :P
Youles
I particularly enjoyed your capital “N”, always happens when you’re correcting someone *checks comment* ;)
tonycawley
Youles, i put the capital n in there on purpose to highlight the fact it shouldn’t be there.
Forrest, I suggest you choose a more adult name for your penis than winky, that’s what my 2 year old son uses!
How about pork soldier?
Youles
You mean, to highlight that is should be there? :p
Origami Killer
Both of you have just failed there.
tonycawley
Yep, fail. To highlight the fact that was a missing letter. I give up!
Youles
Lol. Mine was deliberate Origami, er, obviously. That’ll teach me for being a smart-arse ;)
Forrest_01
I don’t see the problem – The winky goes in the foo foo & that’s the sign that then prompts the fairies bring you a baby (dunno where this whole stork thing came from! *tuts*).
I know that’s correct as my mummy told me. So there.
teflon
Don’t worry, TonyC, just like your own comment and walk away.
tonycawley
I feel I’ve started a tradition with liking my own comments so I have to carry it on now!
InternationalGamer
Well… if we’re on English…
*it’s
Peter Chapman
Funny, smart and mildly arousing. Well played, Willington.
Nocure-fd
If they made a “Hold-Beibers-head-underwater-until-he-stops-struggling” app, I think they’d make more money.
LTG Davey
LOL, love how indepth this article is. Brilliant Monday reading.
AG2297
Crazy and creepy video, just how I like them, and good article. I have a few of these “amusement” apps on my phone but I’ve yet to see one similar to this one. I’ve obviously not been looking in the right places!
bunimomike
There’s a word I want to say but have to refrain from. Meh! Damned decent of me too.
An-dz
When i see things like that app acctually existing, i dont want to live on this planet anymore.
hazelam
i think i just threw up in my mouth a little.
http://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/2010/10/7/0f30c672-52b2-497d-9cba-370b606fcb98.jpg
^_^
Sympozium
I have seen what can be unseen….
The Lone Steven
Okay, who hacked into Xero’s account and wrote this article in order to destroy his reputation? Was it you Peter? Lewis? Kris!? ;)
I’m going to go and get drunk as i’m out of mind bleach in an attempt to rid myself of the knowledge that this exists. Or getting hammered. *hits self in the head with a hammer.* Oh god, there is kiss JB then there could be a shag JB app. *vomits and pulls his eyes out as well as setting himself on fire*
SH Number 7/Mini-Lipscombe
How long until Justin Beiber’s people sue the game maker, they tried to do it with Joustin’ Beaver.
E8_BALL_
I thought I clicked on TSA, not The Twighlight Zone website.