Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud by Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman

 

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in cryptocurrencies. I have a general awareness of what it is and how the blockchain works (sort of). I’ll admit that I’ve never really understood the purpose of crypto—sure, I understand its ostensible purpose as being a deregulated market that allows for private transactions or whatever, but it has often felt to me like just another kind of stock market controlled by the same tech billionaires that ruin everything else on the planet. So, I launched into Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud by cryptoskeptics Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman.

It’s hard to know how much of their argument feeds into my confirmation bias. Crypto enthusiasts are notorious for saying “do your own research.” Well, in my “research” of watching videos like Dan Olson’s “Line Goes Up – The Problem with NFTs”, I have very little faith in the alternative markets that pop up. The little Marxist in me knows that money of all kinds is only valuable through collective agreement and that the surplus value of labour is expressed through bills and coins. There’s not really an inherent difference if people opt to trade in alternative currencies, but McKenzie and Silverman present a compelling case for crypto not really being a currency at all. McKenzie writes that because “you put real money into them and you hope to make off of them through no work of your own” and that “under American law, that’s an investment contract. More precisely, it’s a security.” He refers to the 1946 Supreme Court decision that established the Howey Test for determining securities. It has four prongs: “an investment of money, in a common enterprise, with the expectation of profit, to be derived from the efforts of others. Check, check, check, and check.” Referring to Bitcoin in particular, McKenzie and Silverman make the case that it, and the “20,000 or so other cryptos ought to be classified as securities under American law.” In practice, it operates more like a stock, and a stock that seems rigged from the start.

One striking stat that McKenzie and Silverman return to, albeit an estimation, is the response Alex Mashinsky, former CEO of the Celsius Network, provided when they asked how much “real money” was in the crypto system. His answer was 10-15%. This supposedly trillion dollar industry, the book asserts, is set for a collapse akin to the subprime mortgage crisis—or the tulip mania bubble burst. Even before getting into the scam part, the authors make the argument that Bitcoin isn’t all that useful and that it’s wrong to buy into the notion that “If more people would just buy Bitcoin, eventually it will become a currency you can actually use.” They consider the functions of money like store of value and unit of account and say that Bitcoin “fails miserably’ because “the price jumps up and down like a rabbit on amphetamines, making it impossible to run a business using Bitcoin, or any other crypto, or hold onto it for any period of time with reasonable confidence it would retain its value.” The unpredictability is its downfall: “Could you use a cryptocurrency as a rudimentary form of money?” the authors ask and then answer, “I mean, sure, you could call a brick a soccer ball, but I wouldn’t recommend using it that way.”

The use-value of crypto currencies is thoroughly discounted, in part because the technology isn’t there to support it. The authors make the case that “the technology behind Bitcoin sucks. It doesn’t scale.” While they concede that Satoshi Nakamoto’s “solution to the double-spend problem was innovative, [it was] also clunky. The more miners who entered the competition, the more energy was used but the blocks were the same.” When they give the statistics, it does seem pretty bleak: “Bitcoin is able to handle only 5-7 transactions a second; it can never go above that” whereas “Visa can process 24, 000.” If more people bought into, for example, Bitcoin—the technology might not be able to handle it efficiently, anyway.

This is also an environmental crisis, as with all “new” and “cutting edge” technologies. Bitcoin uses tremendous amounts of energy: “the equivalent, in 2021, of Argentina. The entire country.” By contrast, “Visa and Mastercard use comparatively miniscule amounts of electricity to serve a customer base orders of magnitude greater. Bitcoin’s energy consumption is enormously wasteful and poses a massive environmental problem for the supposedly cutting edge technology and, really, for all of us.”

Potential practicality aside, most of the book is about the criminal potential of cryptocurrencies. The authors give some account of the systemic issues with crypto (its unreal consumption of resources, its propensity to be used for money laundering, and so on). Aside from just having bad actors, the whole industry seems to operate through misinformation and backdoor deals that benefit the people at the top. The top 1% whales own the vast majority of all crypto, 90% of Bitcoin has already been mined, and so on. Cryptocoin creators also seem to have a habit of double-dipping and being invested in or having deals with crypto exchange markets. In one particularly harrowing anecdote, McKenzie recounts the story of two crypto enthusiasts’ disastrous experiences when their cryptoexchange crashed or otherwise became frozen at times when they were hoping to trade. As an aside, even at the best of times, average crypto transactions take about 8 minutes. One man lost an exorbitant amount of money; he knew he wanted to sell, but the system wasn’t responding and he sat in horror watching the price of his crypto plummet, not being able to divest. Meanwhile, another man was set to invest, but the flaws in the technology prevented his purchase, and he missed out on making (potentially) hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is, incidentally, if he even would have been able to cash out; McKenzie and Silverman point to the challenges of actually turning your crypto into actual funds when desired.

I’m not sure if the systemic nature of crypto’s fraud is fully established in the text. McKenzie and Silverman focus on particular case studies of cryptoscammers pretty frequently. Having the focus land so squarely on a couple of key players gives the impression that the bad apples are ruining the bunch. I don’t doubt that crypto is rotten to the core, but I think there might have been some more balance from the specific to the general in order to show how thoroughly rotten the scheme is. 

That said, the case studies are pretty compelling. Some of my favourite chapters profile particular crypto scam artists or offer extended interviews with them (cf. Alex Mashinsky interview above). There’s an ongoing saga with Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX cryptocurrency exchange. McKenzie offers a character study of the fraudster and replicates a series of bizarre and, frankly, pathetic text exchanges where Bankman-Fried is pleading to get McKenzie on his side, to like him. The wry humour of the book helps paint this portrait in an engaging way before documenting the ways that Bankman-Fried manipulated the market, donated vast sums of money to politicians, and so on, before getting charged with seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. 

There’s a human interest aspect of the book that might have been emphasized a little more thoroughly for the victims of crypto scams. McKenzie points out that everyone seems to accept being scammed as part of the deal and place the blame on themselves and their own research (or lack thereof). Throughout the book, McKenzie and Silverman point out the comparisons between crypto and gambling, noting in particular the ways in which “the house always wins.” In the final chapter, McKenzie notes that gambling is the addiction most likely to lead to suicide, which makes it particularly concerning that the rise of crypto enthusiasm was seen most among young men (already overrepresented in suicide statistics) during the Covid pandemic. The final chapter also documents a family that falls apart because its patriarch gets addicted to crypto and continually wanted to borrow money for the next big score—his son offered to pay all of his bills, but not give cash. The argument that followed during that phone call was the last time they spoke. 

We’ll continue to see how the cryptomarket develops. I gotta say, I’m not super optimistic.

Happy reading!

Erewhon Revisited by Samuel Butler

  Back in May, I read Erewhon by Samuel Butler, which is essentially a fictional travelogue where the main character documents the Erewhonian way of life. In the first volume, there are a number of treatises interspersed, documenting their beliefs regarding economics, life and death, religion, and so forth. Erewhon Revisited is much more straightforward as a novel; it documents the protagonist’s return to Erewhon and subsequent return home, where he tells his son everything that has happened. It seems rare that the sequel is so different from the original—here, we have more characters, more action, more of a complete narrative.

Here’s the premise in a nutshell: the protagonist returns to Erewhon, to find it much changed. He arrives to find himself amongst ominous statues and he encounters two strangers—Hanky and Panky. Their mannerisms reveal that he is ill-prepared: his dress is no longer the Erewhonian style; he hunts and eats partridges (which is against the law); he discovers that any foreigners are immediately thrown into the “Blue Pool” with no questions asked—murdered by drowning. Through a series of clever maneuvers, the protagonist, Higgs, tricks Hanky and Panky into believing that he is the ranger authority over the preserve and encourages them to eat the partridges, too, rendering them equally complicit. When Higgs arrives to town, he finds that the Erewhonian culture now revolves around a religion called Sunchildism. As it turns out, at the end of the first book (twenty years earlier) when he departed Erewhon in a hot air balloon with his stolen bride, it prompted a revolution in their attitudes and they now worship him, though Butler lampoons the veracity of religious conviction—the Erewhonians get his story wrong and there is no consensus on what he actually was ‘preaching.’ Conveniently, they are creating a new temple dedicated to him and, through a series of coincidences (including that Higgs had a long-lost son with his sister-in-law), he is in a position to declare himself the actual Sunchild. From there, there is a bunch of legalese rigamarole to bring the false prophets to justice and allow the Sunchild to escape. The book is somewhat of a thought experiment regarding the second coming of Jesus: what if Jesus were to return and try to correct the errors his worshippers have made since his departure?

Being from 1870s, the style of the book will likely present to modern readers as “stuffy”. The language is formal. The sentence structures are elaborate, replete with multiple subordinate clauses, sometimes stretching for multiple pages as the author, Samuel Butler, navigates the complexities of Erewhonian culture relative to others, and in particular, British society. (See what I did there?).

I don’t have a lot of thoughtful commentary about the book. The best I can say is that the novel is more engaging than its predecessor in that it is more story-driven. The pace is still on the slower side, which the narrator acknowledges around page 600, often going into more detail than I think is really necessary. The suspense before the temple dedication is pretty fun, but it gets overdrawn when in the lead-up there is a full diagram of the temple with a full description of the different areas of the temple and where everyone was seated. Most of those details weren’t necessary for the drama of the scene and served mainly to deflate it.

I also have a few minor gripes about the sequencing of the book. More than once, there is a dramatic moment that is narrated in reverse: we are told the outcome and then we see the events that led there. It’s kind of similar to Lord of the Rings in that sense: the suspense gets sucked out when we know in advance that Gandalf escaped the Balrog, for example. There’s something to be said for not burying the lead, but there’s something more to be said for letting the story take its course.

Overall, the book (and the duology) is alright. I think a more thorough study of the text in an academic setting would provide some more layers to appreciate the text. I think the satire of the text would shine through a little more if I knew the ins and outs of British politics at the time. Instead, I’ll just live in ignorance and console myself with the fact that I’ve read a minor classic.

Happy reading!

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga

  I often think about the role of statistics in inciting people to feel sympathy and take action. The anonymity of numbers, unfortunately, disguises the profoundly horror of some aspects of human existence. It often feels like hundreds or thousands of people die and are absorbed into their status as a statistic. If we know someone, though, how can we quantify the loss of them? Such sorrow is impossible to fathom.

I also think about a line from the poem “Dreamwood” by Adrienne Rich that reads, in part, “she would recognize that poetry / isn’t revolution but a way of knowing / why it must come.” I wonder about that, too. Do words actually incite change? It feels increasingly unlikely as we see unquantifiable amounts of ink spilled to fight against politicians that daily make the world a worse place and seem undeterred by the looming ridicule on their epitaphs.

Tanya Talaga’s Seven Fallen Feathers is the same kind of knowing: a humanizing knowing. For years, this book was required reading for teenagers and teachers studying Indigenous issues—with good reason. It’s informative with respect to issues that came up in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including the horrors of residential schools, the dismantling of families through biased adoption practices, the failures of law enforcement and legal proceedings, and so forth. The book is specifically focused, though, on telling the stories of real people. Talaga offers a thorough account of the tragic deaths of Indigenous students in Thunder Bay. The victims, though, are actually humanized in a way rare to nonfiction. Beyond just telling us their names, means of death, culprits responsible, and so forth, we get a sense of their interests, their friendships, their passions.

In turn, Seven Fallen Feathers is the kind of book that inspires us to see things differently, to see abstract issues as tangible. It’s the kind of book that inspires a revolution in thinking and proves instructive in empathy. There are moments of such profound devastation that the idea of blindly accepting injustices becomes beyond ludicrous. The deaths of the children feel personal, and Talaga’s account of the suicide attempts of an adult who cared for these students and lost everything else wring the heart at every level.

Talaga’s gifts as a writer carry the stories to a new level of resonance. She is journalistic in nature, but offers a narrative spin. Seven Fallen Feathers reads almost novelistically. The pacing of the events feels carefully crafted around story beats and the characterization of real people is wrought in fine detail. The language of the book is given such care and it reads beautifully. It has the engaging tone of a true crime podcast, but deals with systemic issues and maintains a deep focus on the people most deeply affected.

The book is compelling in every regard. It shows compassion for the community, offers a critical eye to systems that reinforce injustice, and provides the young people who lost their lives with the dignity and respect that they deserve. From a narrative standpoint, the book works. From a nonfiction informative standpoint, the book works. As a political act, the book works.

Now let’s do the work. Happy reading.

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander is essential reading. It’s the only mandatory minimum sentence I’ll provide here.

If you’re looking to understand the history of incarceration in the United States, this book gives a thorough account of how we got here. Alexander gives an excellent overview of how slavery took shape in the United States, how policing emerged from that context, how poor Whites were turned against poor Blacks and leveraged a modicum of advantage that created the context for ongoing racism, how Jim Crow laws morphed slavery into a new form, and how the carceral prison system is a direct extension of the racist policies and climate that exist in the United States. It’s profoundly informative.

I think we can (almost) all agree that the prison system is highly problematic and needs reform / abolition. The New Jim Crow challenges many assumptions society holds about the prison system in the United States, even reforms that we (White people) believe to be progressive. Alexander offers counter-readings that expose the impact of prison reform practices on Black lives. For instance, even in the preface, Alexander discusses the idea of house arrest. Many people hail it is as being a more humane approach to punishment—surely superior to a prison cell. Yet, when we rely on technology to police, even the slightest problem can have severe consequences for Black prisoners. The “well-intentioned advocates” of technological solutions that advocate for monitors and algorithmic judgements neglect that the algorithms are already biased and that constant surveillance does not mean freedom. Consider also that ankle monitors have a series of problems: 1) the zone in which you’re able to travel may preclude you from having a job, seeing your family, raising your children, and so on. 2) The private GPS tracking company that provides the ankle monitor may charge you up to three hundred dollars a month for the “service” and 3) they are prone to malfunction, which may alert police to come to you immediately and bring you back to jail or deport you for breaking your conditions. We also know how much encounters between Black citizens and the police can escalate, which creates a new risk every time the GPS signal cuts out. Considering these challenges really illuminated for me the extent to which our alternatives to prison are often ill-advised or ill-considered from a specifically White lens.

We also cannot talk about modern prisons without discussing the War on Drugs. The anti-drug legislation that exists has a racial bias that targeted users of crack cocaine (as opposed to powder cocaine), which had different historical and racial contexts where Black citizens were more likely to use crack, while powder cocaine was for White people. [As an aside, she notes how it’s only when White people start using particular drugs that the conversation changes towards decriminalization or legalization—or even towards discussing the drug as a public health concern, rather than a concern with crime]. Alexander notes how only one senator commented on how the focus on crack was a scapegoat for other kinds of societal ills, arguing, “if we blame crime on crack, our politicians are off the hook. Forgotten are the failed schools, the maligned welfare programs, the desolate neighbourhoods, the wasted years. Only crack is to blame. One is tempted to think that if crack did not exist, someone somewhere would have received a federal grant to develop it.” It’s a poignant criticism and points to the trend we see consistently in discussing social ills. People talk about the fentanyl epidemic now and the increase in drug use—but how often do we talk about the root causes of those issues?

I’d like to focus a bit more on the notion of policy, since it becomes increasingly clear that there is a disconnect between policy and the context of peoples’ lived realities. That understanding is thoroughly explored in Alexander’s book and one case in particular struck me as significant. In 1988, the year I was born, there was a new Anti-Drug Abuse Act that was passed and created more punitive consequences for drug crime. For instance, it
“authorized public housing authorities to evict any tenant who allows any form of drug-related criminal activity on or near public housing premises.” When we think about where drug crime comes from, we can imagine the economic context of aspiring dealers and frequent users. To think that people who are already struggling could be evicted is a harsh sentence, but think also of some of the language used here: what does it mean for a tenant to “allow” any form of “drug-related” criminal activity “on or near” public housing premises? The vagueness of the language permits evictions that may not be justified. Consider, for instance, a tenant whose fifteen year old son, unbeknownst to her, agrees to lend car keys to a drug dealer so that he can drive ten blocks to sell. Did she allow this to happen? Is loaning car keys drug-related? Is ten blocks near the premises? These ambiguities permit selective evictions—and who will bear the brunt of them, I wonder?

Worse, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act “eliminated many federal benefits, including student loans, for anyone convicted of a drug offense.” Drug crimes are the result of desperation. Taking away opportunities further perpetuates the problems and renders it more likely that Black men will end up in prison. The act expanded the use of the death penalty for drug crimes and increased the mandatory minimum for drug offences, even for people with no previous criminal convictions (5 years for possession of cocaine with no evidence of intent to sell). Previously, the mandatory minimum for possessing any type of drug was one year.

The “tough on crime” discourse that emerged at the time failed to target the societal conditions that created crime and instead punished people unnecessarily. It’s kind of like how if we took all the money that went into policing homelessness, we could literally just give people homes. Alexander offers a number of anecdotes about “tough on crime” mentalities that are as horrific as they are depressing. For instance, if you’re okay with the death penalty, consider whether it was just for Ricky Ray Rector, a Black man convicted of murder who was put to death but was so “mentally impaired” that he “had so little conception of what was about to happen to him that he asked for the dessert from his last meal to be saved for him until the morning.” I find that absolutely devastating and Alexander follows it up with a quote from Bill Clinton gloating that he could not be considered “soft on crime.” Why is that something we aspire to? Alexander’s juxtaposition of the two moments is laced with tragedy and a grim poetics.

Any time you hear people discussing crime, it would behove you to act like a three year old and keep asking why and not stop.

“I’m tough on crime.”

“Why?”

“Because these criminals are putting people in danger.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re selling drugs to little kids.”

“Why?”

“Because they can make a profit and don’t care.”

“Why?”

“Because…”

I’d keep that conversation going, but I don’t know how act tough on crime enough. Essentially, what it will come down to is that policies, laws, and their enforcement preclude people from living full lives. Surely it’s clear that crime is a response to inadequate housing, inadequate social services, inadequate mental health services, inadequate employment opportunities, and so forth. There’s a history for crime, and Alexander persuasive argues that that history is bound up with racism.

Some objectors will suggest that crime is “race-neutral”, but The New Jim Crow exposes these race-neutral necessities as false. For instance, people might argue that Black people are more prone to use and sell drugs when, in fact, that is not true, but rather reflects a cycle of racist policies and perceptions. Alexander notes that people have “differential access to private space” and that “influences the likelihood that criminal behaviour will be detected.” She gives the example of how wealthy people selling drugs are likely doing so in a private location, like inside a home, while poor people tend to have to share space and will go outside in order to conduct their exchanges. So, police catch crime in concentrated areas of the poor where drug enforcement is more easily achieved. Then, the statistics show more crime in that area so they continue going there, meaning they catch more people, and the cycle repeats.

Similarly, potential jurists cannot be excluded based on race, but supposedly race-neutral language can be used to exclude Black jurors. For instance, fashion choices stereotypical to Black males might be excluded as untrustworthy or undesirable. Someone may not like the look of someone’s hair. They don’t say Black, but that’s the underlying message. So even when cases go to trial, there is such little chance that one’s peers will truly be there to assess the case.

One thing we often forget is that incarcerated people do not exist in a vacuum. They have families, children. They have friends and communities that suffer when they are isolated from one another. When people are forcibly removed from their families, everyone suffers. Try that “why?” question out the next time some racist says that Black dads are never there for their kids. Why aren’t they there? Where are they? Why are they in prison? Why did they allegedly commit the crime? The New Jim Crow also blew my mind in its discussion of parole. One very common condition of parole is that you cannot associate with anybody that has a felony conviction. This means that when you go back to your high-poverty neighbourhood, if there are other people who have been convicted, you cannot even go out for groceries without getting a parole violation. One drug offence can mean that you are prohibited from all kinds of interaction—and that happenstance may have you violating the rules of parole and being sent back to jail. White people do not have the same challenges when finding a community after parole. Mass incarceration reproduces segregation. Alexander notes that people who might have escaped or transformed their communities instead find themselves “in a closed circuit of perpetual marginality, circulating between ghetto and prison.”

Politically, it’s worth noting that convicted people cannot vote. The convicted cannot voice their convictions, as it were. This note that felons are unable to vote disproportionately affects Black citizens, and indeed was initially designed to ensure an all-White electorate. Supposedly race-neutral barriers to voting have sprung up in all kinds of forms: a poll tax, a literacy test, a requirement not to have ever been convicted—all measures that are contextually targeted towards Black folk. This mass incarceration also seems to contribute to the trend of re-electing people who are “tough on crime”—-if the people who are mass-incarcerated could vote, we might actually see some reform or abolition of the prison system in lieu of more proactive social policies.

Alexander breaks down at every level how the prison system is designed with an anti-Black bias. From the focus of the legislation, to the enactment of it and the policing which follows, to the selection of jury members, to the extent of punishments, to our public discourse around crime: all of these are contributing factors to a profoundly racist system. In part of the book, she even discusses how “criminal” is a re-coding of “Black.” As people recognized that they could not be overtly racist, they had to change the language to a dog whistle other White people would understand.

The book is incisive, persuasive, informative, and all good things nonfiction should be. It opened my eyes to angles I previously hadn’t considered and provides the historical context essential for weighing in on any issues related to crime and punishment.

Read it. Spread the word. Make change.

The Ultimate History of Video Games Volume 1 by Steven L. Kent

If you read the full title of the Steven L. Kent’s book, you’ll get a sense of its sprawling scope: The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon – The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. Actually, the title is somewhat misleading because the discussion predates even Pong, going back to carnival games and the burgeoning coin-op market. It then progresses through the history of new technologies, gaming companies, and so on, largely pinned around the release of new gaming systems and the response the public had.

The title is also a little misleading in that, really, it ought to be called the penultimate history of video games, given that after 600 pages, we just get to the release of Nintendo 64, Sony Playstation 2, and Sega Dreamcast. Despite this book only going until about the year 2000, I have to say: it was more than enough.

In fact, the book makes me wonder about my commitment to capital-H History against what I would say is journalism. History, as presented here, offers a lengthy fact sheet but with, what I would argue, is not much of an ‘angle.’ There are lengthy sections that talk about what games were released, what the games were about, how many units they sold, and so on. I had a touch of ‘the nostalgias’ when it would refer to games that I played and enjoyed—the masterpieces of Final Fantasy III or Super Mario RPG, for example—but much of the time I felt like I was reading a game catalogue. Essentially, I needed more of why do these things matter? What’s the narrative thread that makes it compelling? What’s the hook? It’s a book that really highlights the difference between what I might refer to as ‘straight history’ against cultural criticism, philosophy, theory, or, as I mentioned, journalism. 

One vein that would be well-worth more mining is something that Kent glosses over, gives only a passing comment. Perhaps it’s because early games were seen as forms of gambling, but the Yazuka were involved in the game industry. Kent notes that one clan of the Japanese mafia “tried to take over Konami, the company that made Frogger and Contra. When the owner of the company appealed to a friend in a rival clan for help, he touched off a war and had to go into hiding. When Nakamura investigated the counterfeit Breakout machines, he discovered that a Yakuza clan had manufactured them. It was a dangerous situation.” That, to me, comes as such a surprise—if the investigative journalism were to make it possible, a whole book just about that could be an incredible, riveting book.

Some of the most interesting, entertaining moments of the text are offered as throwaway bits of humour. Most notably, the exchanges between programmers and their bosses I found really compelling for what they said about the work culture of the video game industry. One of the bosses recounts the challenges of working with programmers in the early days of gaming, since they would show up for work, do something great, and then disappear for a few days. In one anecdote, a developer gives the following anecdote, which resonates with me for obvious reasons:

I understood that this was a very talented breed of people. I remember one guy came in; he was stoned out of his mind, he just wanted to read poetry to me, and I sat with him for four hours because he was one of our top programmers, just to let him feel I understood him and I cared about him. At the end he said, “You know, I really appreciate what you’ve done for me.” 

That programmer’s eccentrism is a delight, since it blends two of my core interests. In recounting the development of the first Final Fantasy game, Kent notes that creator Hironobu Sakaguchi had intended to leave the video game industry. Final Fantasy was to be his exit (of course, before it sold massively well and roped him back in). I loved the interaction between him and is boss that Sakaguchi recounts as follows:

[At the time] The only person you had to go to was the president of the company, and he didn’t really understand games that well. Selling him on the concept of an RPG wasn’t that hard. I just went up and said, “I want to do an RPG.” He said, “Is that good? Is that interesting?” and I said, “Yeah. It’s fun.” So, he said, “Okay.”

The blasé approach of the boss is a delight. The simplicity of their interaction is great, and I have to say the audiobook delivers the lines “Is that good? Is that interesting?” in just a perfect tone. The ignorance of the boss towards what an RPG is funny, but appropriate, given that RPGs hadn’t gotten huge yet. Actually, the whole story of how Final Fantasy came to exist is pretty interesting, since they started with the hardware and then decided how to structure the game (rather than having an idea for the game and then building around the hardware).

Kent’s history, though, is at its most interesting when he discusses the conflicts and legal battles that ensued as the industry developed. There were some pretty shady tactics in the early games industry. For instance, Atari established its own competition to corner more of the coin-op machine market. They asked a neighbour to start the company, gave them their #2 guy in everything, gave them designs to get started, and so on. Atari members were on the corporate board of the competition they established in an elaborate ruse.

There are two core legal battles that Kent references throughout the book that stand out as significant historical moments: issues over copyright and issues over video game violence. In 1988, Atari lawyers illegally obtained a reproduction of the TenNES program by going to the copyright office and signing a false affidavit where they claimed to need access to defend themselves against an infringement suit Nintendo hit them with. The suit, though, was “entirely fictional.” That then gave them the ability to develop ways around their security features. I can’t believe that they were so ballsy about it. I kind of love the duplicitousness. There was also quite a bit about proprietary programs and intellectual property. There were discussions of the limitations of form, when drawings become more human than animal figurations, when patents apply if the user’s input is required. All of those legal fights are interesting in their own right, which again, might warrant further attention in a deep-dive book.

The other legal case is as you might expect. The debates about video game violence have been raging on for years and especially, Kent notes, following the massacre at Columbine. The conspiratorial nature of the case is compelling. Sega emerged into the video game scene with a more in-your-face 90s radical attitude, which meant video games with more violence, like Mortal Kombat. Sega was also doing very well financially, and so when lawsuits about video game violence emerged, there were rumours that Nintendo orchestrated—or at least encouraged—the hearings to damage Sega’s “runaway sales”,  since Nintendo is more family-friendly and could gain an edge there. Just as a moment of irony, I’ll mention here that the same company that was manufacturing games based on Bible stories was also manufacturing pornographic ones, so the ethics of the industry are hard to pin-point. For all the moralism, there’s always money to be made.

The section on video game violence also made me reconsider time. One woman testified about how games that were more mature still had toys that were advertised towards children. It’s a reasonable moment of hypocrisy to call out, actually, and the discussion of toys made me think about how time has collapsed at either end. Young children play games targeted towards older players (for me: Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and Resident Evil were probably in this category), and older players collect toys that are geared towards children. It’s just an interesting way to consider the human experience. Maybe we’re seeing that ‘age’ has ended.

As you can see, there are some interesting moments in the history, but as I tell my students: there needs to be a more specific angle to make it truly compelling. By the end of the 600 page book, I was already long-ready to move on. In addition, the style of the book rarely justifies its length. In some ways, it’s like reading an extensive Wikipedia page. So, even though the history of video games post 2001 would likely be far more compelling, I think I’ve had quite enough of Kent’s brand of history for now. Maybe in ten years we’ll see where we’re at.

Happy reading; happy new year.