Well, the August NPD gaming numbers are out and the usual hand-wringing begins. The focus of this month’s analysis is twofold: that the PS3 could not sell more than the 360, despite a price cut and Microsoft’s awful ‘red ring of death’ press; and secondly, the fact that the Wii pushed 425,000 units, even more than the money-printing DS.

The PS3 news I will leave to Sony to spin as they see fit. But as for the Wii: at the same time that I read these numbers, I was about to return to the stunning Bioshock demo, which is more impressive than most full games I’ve played. The acclaim for Bioshock has been universal, and I can understand why: the sense of atmosphere is astounding, and even the brief snippit of the game I’ve seen contains some clever, compelling writing.

This contrast – of the overwhelming success of the ‘casual’ Wii and the amazing achievement that is Bioshock – has got me thinking again about how the Wii might harm the state of gaming. As I’ve suggested before, the Wii’s populism is both its success and failure. By ‘aiming for the middle’, Nintendo have expanded the demographic of gaming exponentially, making the Wii so straightforward that my mum can play it. But in their pursuit of the mainstream, Nintendo have shifted emphasis in gaming from sophistication to accessibility, at a moment when gaming is poised to move from distraction to something resembling art.

To my mind, Bioshock throws a wrench into Nintendo’s plan, at least abstractly – the game’s insistence on pushing the limits of what gaming can do in terms of narrative, atmosphere and player freedom stands in stark contrast to Wii Sports. Yes, Wii Sports is fun and great at bringing generations together. But Bioshock forges an emotional connection with the player as it asks them to engage questions of political philosophy and bioethics while inventing novel ways to approach the game’s diegetic world.

So yes, it’s amazing that my 61 year old mother can play and love Wii Bowling; but celebrating the expansion of the gaming demographic at the expense of masterpieces like Bioshock is slowing the development of video games as a form and letting it continue to be simply a form of entertainment or distraction. While it’s true that there is nothing stopping someone making a game like Bioshock for the Wii (minus the glitzy UE3 graphics), Nintendo’s insistence on products like Wii Fit and party games means the economics of the industry will continue to move towards the casual. All the while, games that begin to approach film and literature in terms of their cultural relevance may fall by the wayside as market forces dictate that ease and accessibility become paramount. With gaming being the dominant cultural form of this generation, the focus on art that Bioshock delivers would be a terrible thing to sweep aside in the name of casual gaming.

I hope to post some more thoughts on Bioshock later, hoping to focus a bit on its political undertones – it’ll almost be like a literary review or something

A little while back, I invented/borrowed/stole the term ‘Web Capital’ to signify the online equivalent of cultural capital – essentially a set of markers that indicated one’s level of web savvy and success. I didn’t say it then, but I think what I was getting at was the relationship between a sort of online ‘cool factor’ and desire – that the more desirable something/someone seems, whether in terms of ‘coolness’, physical attractiveness or wealth/success/influence, the more likely you are to visit their web site and even buy something. As with cultural capital, the actual markers of status/wealth change, but their function doesn’t. About 2 months ago, a Pownce invite was like gold – now, nobody cares, which is very similar to the way a tan used to mean you were wealthy enough to go on vacation, but now simply means you can afford tanning cream.

And now, along comes Thotmarket, who might as well have just said “we’re taking this new-fangled ‘Web Capital’ idea and going totally literal with it!”. If you haven’t heard yet, Thotmarket is a virtual stock-market for websites; think of it like Digg, except with virtual dollars rather than a number of Diggs measuring success. The more people buy a given ‘stock’, the more its value goes up; it thus functions as a social bookmarking site. You can of course create your own Thot, as I did for SiW (go buy some shares!!!), or simply buy shares of people/companies/sites you like to measure/further their popularity.

What’s really neat about Thotmarket is the way it lays bare the connections between web popularity and desire/desirability, especially about how those things function in a social system like our own. We associate success with wealth; by linking web site popularity to a virtual stock market, Thotmarket seems to unintentionally do two things: first, it points to the way we associate economic success with cultural impact (i.e. box office receipts are indicators of a movie’s cultural influence as well as monetary success); and secondly, it suggests that all stock-markets are kind of irrational buying frenzies.

The overall effect though is pretty neat (if a little disturbing). Something about buying and selling shares resonates pretty strongly with our zeitgeist (too many movies from the 80′s?) and Thotmarket is definitely fun. Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.