HEAD BLOG

I’ve written about the possible dangers of Apple becoming the gatekeeper to entertainment. To me, the rise of the corporate State is a big, hairy and deeply scary shift in global politics. That one company can be the arbiter of morality above and beyond any nationally or internationally agreed laws is increasingly becoming a reality and shifting our sense of what democracy can acheive just at the very time when global democracy is moving within our reach.

This post isn’t, however, about politics. At least, not entirely.

It is about Apple and its attitude towards development and, more specifically about how ideas and innovation is fostered within the new one party State.

A post by the well respected Dan Grigsby of Mobile Orchard got me thinking. At first his claims of operating on the edge chimed with my sense of how creativity should work that great ideas are not born from control and order. but between the cracks; wild and wilful; the result of non-conformity.

That’s what want to believe. I want to believe that the approval system imposed by Apple is the antithesis of creativity and that it will end in a steady stream of stilted, unoriginal products that will ultimately turn people away from iTunes.

Only I don’t.

I don’t believe that at all.

I wish I did of course. I like the idea and I completely respect Mr Grigsby’s decision to quit iPhone development. It’s principled and therefore admirable. I like that a lot.

I just think it isn’t accurate. I think great ideas come from necessity. We all operate under some kind of structure imposed upon us. All of publishing works the same way; films, books, music – if you want to be heard then you generally have to follow the rules, even if breaking those rules is another one of the rules. Getting product in front of consumers takes money, even in these days of the long tail and the people who have the money are, by and large, interested in ROI and minimising risk. To them, innovation is useful only as a means to an ends.

Look at the studio system in Hollywood – great films still come out of that. Books are different but the economic pressures are no less (and increasing all the time). Games certainly operate under very strict control systems which companies such as Apple are merely emulating (ok, and strengthening).

Great things still happen. Great films, books, games – they all come out and on a regular basis. Ideas can’t be controlled no matter what systems gatekeeper companies such as Apple put in place. Ideas flow around such barriers.

Maybe there will be a corral of wild ideas for the iPhone. Maybe Apple will empower greater freedom for developers so they can experiment. I can’t see this happening if it threatens stability and control but maybe it will, in some form, happen.

If that happens it could be because all the real innovators have left to pursue other platforms. Most likely, however, it will be because it seems like a good idea.

Would gaming benefit by following United Artists and Image Comics in creating a publishing model that put power into the hands of the developer?

I’m not talking here about sharing resources for marketing or creating a high profile publishing brand that the consumer can look to as a mark of quality simply because it’s developer led, not entirely at any rate. I’m talking more about creating a publisher that can better nurture the production of better games through a business that values ideas above strategic loss and minimal risk.

When Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks used their collective power to break away from the studio system they discovered that there was more to making money from movies than just starring in them. Being loved is one thing but producing the quantity of movies it takes to run a successful business… well that’s something else entirely.

Especially when, as an artist, you actually care about quality.

In the hands of Duke Nukem creator 3D Realms it would be easy to see a “talent first” studio fail before it started. Sure Broussard no doubt believes in quality but the harsh economic drive that makes an artistic venture financially viable isn’t all that evident.

A new publisher would most likely be drawn from the development studios who hit the headlines (not so long ago this name call would have almost certainly included Infinity Ward but times change). Their proven success at making huge hits grants them godlike power in calling the shots.

But are they the right model to follow?

There are, after all, other developers who produce big hits that make the money but don’t get the critical acclaim of the games press. The likes of Ben 10 and Carnival Games spring to mind. The latter especially because it doesn’t have any grand brand or technical wizardry driving its success. Carnival is, it appears, just a game that the quiet gamer wants to buy. And buy. And buy again.

Surely, in this new publishing model we are creating, they would get a seat.

Of course it depends on what a coalition of developers want out of such a publisher. Individually they can probably all get more of the profits or call the shots on IP.

So maybe they would want to create a publisher of been there done that; of experience where the developer of Carnival can turn to the developer of Duke Nukem and say “forget about the tech, just make him dance.”

The tipping point for the e-book is here. Despite the grumblings over multitasking, webcams and closed systems the launch of the iPad is already making waves.

Amazon, once the pioneer in this market and the company who brought book buying into our homes, has taken the knock as many pioneers can: by being too focussed on a single business model. Books were their stock-in-trade and, surprisingly perhaps given their successful   expansion into the wider world of online retail, books is where they chose to stay.

Now, against the backlit elegance of the iPad, Amazon’s Kindle looks as dusty and old fashioned as the books it sought to replace. The lessons it has learnt and the markets it opened are there for all to see; especially brighter, more visionary companies like Apple.

Apple have just forced Amazon to concede its persistent and historic advantage, price. By switching places, by adopting the pricing freedom which Amazon once used to undermine that of iTunes, Apple have ensured the co-operation of the major publishers whilst starting off (before they’ve really even started) on the right foot, namely a profitable and sustainable pricing model. Apple want no loss-leaders of the sort which have hamstrung the likes of Microsoft, Sony and Amazon. The future path of publishing will, it seems, be found by avoiding the potholes of other content digitisation.

The not-so-secret cheers at the first signs of Apple’s success can be heard from newspaper offices to games programmers because, much as we all love the idea of free it’s not so great when you have something you have to sell.

Had Amazon understood that getting their over-the-air delivery model right would lead to people wanting more from the technology then perhaps they wouldn’t have been so eager to adopt the digital ink format that has limited their selling power to books. Think small may be a great maxim for makers of chips but Pandora’s box of online shopping was opened a long time ago and our expectations exceed current capabilities (seriously, where is my jetpack?). We don’t so much see capability as we do potential. So reading books=great, but I’d like to watch video, look up references and buy presents for the kids too.

The iPad (and whatever personalised devices come after) aren’t so much about whether you can work on them (one editor told me she would only buy one once she could edit on it, and I’m sure there will be an App for that) but how can spend our leisure time on it.

And so we come back to the e-book as the notion of leisure time ends where it started, with a good book in front of the fire.

Digital books will pay dividends for the casual market, not because the screen is easier on the eye (it isn’t) or because they are cheaper (they aren’t), but because they are convenient. Much as I might prefer the sensual feel of paper flicking across my thumb and much as I want to scream and rebel at the idea of Apple being the gatekeeper of our leisure time, restricting and dictating the content to fit with a single person’s idea of “brand values”, I can’t help but notice that I’m changing. I’m demanding more from my books even as I read them. Engrossed as I was in Late Night On Twisted River (John Irving, 2009) I found myself pausing at moments and reaching for Wikipedia just to probe the border between reality and imagination. Irving is a master of blurring this border and whilst I was happy to be carried along with bears and prostitutes I couldn’t help but wonder more about the man behind the deaths of so many beautiful, innocent children.

In short, I wanted more, not less from the experience of reading.

David Hewson recently posted a number of photographs on his blog. He also tweeted about them. The photographs were of the places he had researched for his latest novel (The Blue Demon, available now at Amazon). On his blog he demonstrates how he took them and also why.

At the back of her books, Jodi Picoult devotes a few pages to the book club concept. She poses a list of questions people might want to consider when discussing her book.

Chicken House point would-be readers of their books to a specific passage using the bold statement “Read it! Try page…”. It’s an expansion on the old marketing trick of relating a unique selling point to salespeople by which they can enthuse about a product. The marked passage encourages readers firstly  to pick up the book and then open it. If the passage is picked properly then that provides the last link in the chain that has us hooked.

We want more, not less, from our books. With e-books (or books, as I believe we will one day call them) this won’t change.

The challenge will be in ensuring the tipping point doesn’t send us all downhill.