Why Create Anything If It's All Been Done Before?

When I was a kid I used to cut comic strips out of the newspaper and keep them. I'd glue them to sheets of paper and create my own collection since I couldn't afford the printed books the strips were available in. My favorites were Garfield, Wizard of Id, Dennis the Menace, For Better or Worse, and, of course, Calvin and Hobbes. There were definitely more than that but those are the strips that stuck out.

Fast-forward almost 25 years and my long time desire to create a comic of my own meets inspiration in the form of watching my 9 year old nephew interact with my English Mastiff, Magnus. When I was a kid I was extremely curious. This led to some very peculiar situations, almost all getting me into some sort of trouble. The reflection of my past mixed with the present and thoughts about the future built up in my head to focus on a comic about a young boy, a mixture of my nephew and myself at his age, and his faithful sidekick, the family Mastiff. This is how AJ & Magnus began.

As I worked out the details with my husband and we planned the comic strip and characters, the thought that kept coming up is "is this Calvin and Hobbes?" and in my head I'd answer, it's definitely influenced by Calvin and Hobbes, just like it's influence by Peanuts and the other comics I grew up on. I even wrestled with changing the comic name just to shirk further similarities. Then, as I was writing strips I had to double check it wasn't something done before. This led to "what's fair game?" meaning this IS a comic strip about an 8 year old boy so scenes would take place in school, dealing with "kid" stuff, things that all happened in Calvin and Hobbes. If AJ is giving a report, is this too close? But how do we even make a story if we have to ignore every scene that ever happened in a Calvin and Hobbes strip? This internal battle went on for weeks when I finally told myself that I didn't care if people wanted to call this a Calvin and Hobbes rip-off because I know it's not. Everyone gets inspiration from many different sources. Even Calvin and Hobbes had specific ideas taken from Peanuts strips where you could see the influence Peanuts had. Don't believe me? Consider this:

Peanuts is a comic about children discussing matters much bigger than their age should allow with logic and wisdom of someone much older. Calvin is a child who considers and discusses matters much bigger than his age with logic and wisdom of someone much older. Then there are direct inspirations:

Children Use Cardboard Boxes in Creative Ways:

Inspiration and homage clearly, a demonstration of how creative people work and take ideas to spin off their own ideas.

For me, it's not about being an original, completely unique, never-been-done-before concept. Those are great when they happen, but this isn't that. AJ & Magnus is a very personal collection of characters whose lives are full of adventure and telling their stories provides entertainment. In a world where almost every idea has been done, don't let that stop you from putting your own work out there. Just remain true to your own purpose, keep it entertaining and just ignore the naysayers who want to write you off as a rip-off. There will always be people out there so unhappy with themselves they strive to make themselves feel better by trying to spread their misery to others. Just be polite and ignore them. That's not to say shrug off constructive criticism, just the stuff that's clearly being said to try and insult you.

I mean, think about this for a second; If we lived in a world where "similar" ideas weren't celebrated, everything ever influenced by something else wouldn't exist. You'd soon have only ONE TV show that features four friends hanging out together, ONE song about dancing, ONE video game about a lone hero saving the world, and ONE comic about a child and their pet. That's just silly.

In the end who cares if something is "kinda like" something else. It only matters what is you're putting out there is quality and accomplishes your intentions. For us, we aim to make people smile and when we reach people in this way, it makes up for all of the criticisms.

What if Nintendo Adopted a Subscription Model?

I've been a fan of Nintendo since the NES and video games in general since the first electronic tennis machine. Nintendo, unlike every other hardware creator excluding Sega, has built their success on a plethora of outstanding intellectual properties. These IPs serve as a testament to great gaming outshining less than outstanding consoles.

After the less than stellar success of the Game Cube, Nintendo struck gold with the Wii. It's simple to understand why: it was an all-in-one package toy for $250. The Wii included Wii Sports and this made the system ready-to-go out of box with minimal hidden costs (such as a second Wii Wand and Nunchuck controller). People, not just gamers, purchased the system as an entertainment package, not a gaming system. This means Nintendo sold a lot of Wii systems but additional non-Nintendo software struggled.

Unfortunately this trend only worsened on the Wii-U. It's no secret the system has been ignored largely by both the hard core and casual gaming players. Why? I think there are two primary reasons:

1) Forced "motion controls" turn away the hard core gamer. Nintendo forces motion controls into games that shouldn't require it and provides no option to switch to more "standard" controls. Tennis? Sure, swinging the remote like a racket fit, but in longer games with deeper gameplay such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, gesturing the Wii remote to use the sword attack instead of pressing a button becomes not only tedious but tiring since play sessions tend to be a lot longer. Nintendo needs to open up and allow people to play the games how they prefer, not force awkward controls that ultimately alienate their traditional hardcore fans.

2) Additional hardware and no "real" controllers for $50 more than the original Wii! Sure the Wii sold a lot of units and one can assume there are a lot of Wii remotes in households across America. But selling a game system with no included game, a "tablet" that only functions within 30' of the Wii U and no controllers, this is a hard sell. Sure, now you can find bundled-in games as Nintendo desperately tries to get their systems sold through the holidays but the perceived value is still just too little. The casual consumer doesn't see the value of a "tablet controller" or they simply view it as "complicated" and this alienates the audience who flocked to the simplicity of the Wii.

I think Nintendo is struggling too hard to focus on their hardware when they should be focusing on their vast library of games for the past 25+ years. What I would do, if I were empowered with such decision making abilities at Nintendo, is begin working immediately on structuring a monthly pay service that would give all subscribers unlimited access to every Nintendo game created for all systems through the Wii U. With a price point in the $10-20 a month range, the Wii-U would now have significant value. The games would feature "original" controls and Wii games that "forced" motion controls clunkily (Zelda) would allow an alternate "gamepad" configuration. But this subscription wouldn't just be for old games. This would allow Nintendo to release games to their audience for "free" as they're released! With each new game, the monthly subscription would continue to grow in value!

Now, with such a system in place, it'd be very simple to upgrade hardware. One of the best features of new game systems is backwards compatibility. This allows buyers to invest in new hardware with the safety net of their current game library keeping them occupied as the trickle of new games come in for the new system. If Nintendo adopted this monthly subscription  model, the user's profile would be logged into the new hardware and instantly plays everything it did before, but now with new software coming out to take advantage of the new hardware! It'd make upgrading systems painless and fun!

It's easy to get excited for this concept and I've not even gone into the possibility of adding leaderboards and gamer profile comparisons for all games supported! Playing Ocarina of Time with an online leaderboard for completion and quickest playthrough would breathe new life into what is already a near-perfect game experience!

Well, there's my two cents. A subscription model that'd make dollars. Lots of them.