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Code, Nintendo’s Super Mario and Digital Legality

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International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The rise of technology in controlling and performing legal processes has created a new digital legality, signalling a transformation of law from an analog paper-based interpretative activity to an autonomous system governed by the rigidity and speed of code. This emerging digital legality converts life and living to data to be processed and catalogued. This process is exemplified and normalised within video games making them important cultural artefacts through which to identify the features and anxieties of digital legality. While video games have so far gone unrepresented in cultural legal theory, this article uses the iconic video game franchise of Super Mario to unlock the emerging features and anxieties of digital legality as involving rigidity, speed and the normalisation of self as data.

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Notes

  1. See for example [99]. Naomi Mezey argues that legal narratives in popular culture are perpetually consumed to assuage the audience’s fear of the relationship that law holds to violence. See: [56].

  2. See Smith [87] for a discussion on social order and player interaction in MMORPGs; See White [106] for admin/user roles in administering justice throughout the LambdaMOO debacle in which a user sent a series of explicit messages to other players describing violent sexual acts. For more on the LambdaMOO incident see [107].

  3. Scott Beattie has written on the legalities of paper and pencil Role Playing Games (RPG). Regrettably, it distances the insights from these forms of gaming from video games [4: 478].

  4. Mario began as ‘Jumpman’ in the Donkey Kong [17] arcade game before getting his own arcade game 2 years later, Mario Bros. [48].

  5. Pokémon Red [70] and Pokémon Blue debuted in 1996 on Nintendo Gameboy; new versions have continued to be made with the latest title being Pokémon Omega Ruby [69] and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire [68] on Nintendo 3DS. The Legend of Zelda [38] was first released in 1986, the most recent game is The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds [39] for Nintendo 3DS.

  6. Super Mario World [91] on Super Nintendo Entertainment System, New Super Mario Bros. [60] for Nintendo DS, New Super Mario Bros Wii [63] for Wii; New Super Mario Bros. 2 [61] for 3DS and New Super Mario Bros. U [62] for Wii U.

  7. The newest releases of the more notable spin-off series are: Mario Kart 8 [49] for Wii U; Mario Party: Island Tour [50] for Nintendo 3DS; Mario and Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games [47] for Wii U.

  8. We do note Maarten Henket’s concern with postulating a distinction between digital and analog for legal information [31: 288]. However, we persist with the distinction. We accept Henket’s statement that information that was created through analog processes (music, writing on paper) can be reproduced within digital systems. It is the inclusion of the terms ‘created’ and ‘reproduced’ that allow us to perceive legitimacy to the distinction. The analog and the digital have different processes of creation and reproduction. It is these conditions of materiality that we are focusing on, rather than Henket’s concern to demonstrate the possibilities for digital legality.

  9. The brilliant satirical game, The Stanley Parable [109] pokes fun at the player’s inability to jump with an achievement aptly called ‘You can’t jump’ which requires the player to press the space bar (default jump button on PC games) several hundred times despite the fact that this button does absolutely nothing in-game.

  10. See [14] for an excellent demonstration of this bug.

  11. Sonic first appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog [88] for the Sega Mega Drive in 1991. Like Mario Sonic has gone on to found a franchise comprising 2D and 3D platformers and racing games.

  12. On red light cameras see [57].

  13. The term ‘button mashing’ is a colloquialism that gamers use to describe a style of game play. Generally, it refers to a gamer who presses buttons mindlessly without any understanding of how the game is properly played with the hope that the right combination of buttons will magically be pressed and the game furthered.

  14. ‘Noob’ is a gaming term derived from ‘newbie’ used to describe an unskilled video gamer. It is usually used in a derogative manner. A noob is a player who is not only not very good but often has an inflated opinion of their own expertise. See [100].

  15. See the discussion of personality types and their use of social media in Wagstaff and Tranter [104: 172–176].

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  1. Griffith Law School, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, 4222, Australia

    Ashley Pearson

  2. Griffith Law School and Socio-legal Research Centre, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, 4222, Australia

    Kieran Tranter

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Pearson, A., Tranter, K. Code, Nintendo’s Super Mario and Digital Legality. Int J Semiot Law 28, 825–842 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-015-9417-x

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