David Sheff is an American author and journalist. His book Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children broke new ground upon its 1993 launch.
It also has the title suffix Nintendo’s Battle to Dominate Video Games in other territories. In England, for example, where we picked up a free copy of the work in 1999. It was included with an issue of Arcade magazine.
It was an early investigative journalism work to take the gaming industry seriously. And it’s a properly riveting account of Nintendo’s rise to the international stage. Game over? Not on your nelly!
Game Over: David Sheff’s Dive Into Nintendo’s Rise to International Success
“The kanji characters he chose to make up the name of his new company—nin-ten-do—could be understood as ‘Leave luck to heaven,’ or ‘Deep in the mind we have to do whatever we have to do.'”
Our gaming journey began in the late ’80s when our parents bought us a Nintendo Entertainment System. Some of our earliest memories from around 1988 are of playing the original Super Mario Bros. (first launched in 1985).
Gaming back then was thought of poorly by most people. Sheff notes that right in the opening paragraph of the first chapter.
“Most people think video games are kids’ stuff, and it is true that in Super Mario Bros. 3, mushrooms give super strength, enemies have names such as Morton Koopa, Jr., and a pudgy, suspendered hero jumps on the heads of Little Goombas. Yet behind Super Mario Bros 3., a video game on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), is a business that is very grown-up indeed. In America alone, revenues for that one game have topped $500 million; in the field of entertainment, only the movie ET has grossed more.”
Back in the early 1990s when Sheff was piecing together Game Over, Nintendo and Sega were doing battle on a business front with the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive (Sega Genesis).
This book largely focuses on Nintendo’s remarkable business ascendency during the 1980s. But the arrival of Sonic is addressed in chapter 12 at the close of the work.
Prior to that is a remarkable, sometimes strange, rise from a Japanese game developer to gaming behemoth. One that totally dominated the industry for much of the ’80s. Since then Nintendo has had a few lulls, but as of early 2024 it’s still a huge player in gaming. Its Nintendo Switch a colossal success.
So, how did Nintendo rise from a humble manufacturer of playing cards in Nippon to an iconic behemoth beloved by millions? This is what Sheff most compellingly reveals.
Sheff’s Insights on Nintendo’s Mega Eighties
Two names stand out from the history of Nintendo: Hiroshi Yamauchi (1927-2013) and Shigeru Miyamoto. The former, with clinical efficiency, launched the company up the global ranks with shrewd decision making.
Yamauchi made the decision to hire creative genius “Shigsy” Miyamoto in the late ’70s, who has since gone on to create an incredible body of work.
Miyamoto is, arguably, the single most important person in the history of video games. Who’s to argue with a creative genius behind series such as:
- Super Mario
- Donkey Kong
- The Legend of Zelda
- Metroid
- Pikmin
Back in the late ’80s, he oversaw landmark gaming titles such as the legendary legendary Super Mario Bros 3., which had an enormous impact on the industry.
Nintendo’s global success wasn’t easy, though, and that’s one of the most fascinating parts of Sheff’s work. The carious insights into the business wranglings to capture a big part of the North American market.
Some of the failed arcade games, lawsuits, and bizarre espionage-styled battles for video game rights. Plus, Yamauchi’s brutal way of dealing with third-party developers.
It’s all in this work. At the time, it was an unknown world.
Nintendo’s long history is now readily available for anyone to read on Wikipedia, but back in 1993 this mysterious company from the East was just that—very enigmatic. As was, for many people, the world of video games.
What David Sheff did is shed light on it all. To provide sense to the business and hobby that, for many an adult watching on, will have seemed very strange indeed.
To draw readers in, there are two core stories that are very dramatic.
These are very adult stories, too, one involving an alleged copyright infringement. The other a battle for a game that went on to dominate the world in 1989.
Sheff tells these tales brilliantly. We had no idea about these when we first read the book in 1999. And even now, they make for a thrilling espionage style read.
The Dramatic Tale of Universal vs Nintendo in the Donkey Kong Saga
Despite the high-quality and popularity of Nintendo’s early games, Miyamoto’s arcade game Donkey Kong inadvertently courted the attention of a major film studio.
Nintendo of America’s first president, Minoru Arakawa, was central to Nintendo’s business goals at this point. He’d hired lawyer Howard Lincoln to help manage the shift into this new market.
But in April 1982, Nintendo’s goals took a bit of a hit. Universal Studios claimed Donkey Kong infringed their King Kong rights.
“Just as Nintendo of America was finally succeeding, here was a threat from one of the most litigious, hostile men in the entertainment business. Sid Sheinberg, MCA’s indomitable president, second in that organization only to chairman and CEO Lew Wasserman, was an attorney who was known to work, as one colleague put it, ‘like a python, strangling his prey before devouring it.”
Lincoln was crucial at this point as he had nerves of steel. He refused to be intimidated by Sheinberg, despite Sheinberg’s aggressive approach at a meeting suggesting all Nintendo could do was acquiesce with demands.
However, Lincoln was having none of that.
“[Arakawa] looked at Howard Lincoln, who had been charming Sheinberg and Hadl with stories of video games and fishing, and watched the attorney transform. ‘It’s real simple,’ he said, eyeballing the MCA chief. ‘We have done a lot of research on this thing, looked at it from top to bottom, and we feel that there is no infringement.’ Firmly, coldly, he said, ‘We have no intention of settling.'”
Sheinberg was furious and told Lincoln he was making a mistake, adding this humdinger into the mix.
“I view litigation as a profit center.”
Those words would come back to haunt him during the trial, with the judge noting Sheinberg’s arrogance. As, subsequently, in one of the most bizarre lawsuits of the ’80s, it transpired Universal didn’t have any rights at all.
King Kong is in the public domain (you can read about this weird incident further at Universal City Studios, Inc. v Nintendo Co. Ltd.).
Other such tales populate the book, making it a fascinating account of a business hitting the international stage.
Nintendo is a household name. Its status in the industry legendary—finding out how it achieved that is quite something.
The Equally Dramatic Battle for the Tetris Rights
https://youtu.be/NhwNTo_Yr3k?si=588Um5jhhFoS-eBb
The chapter which really stands out for us is Nintendo and American Henk Rogers’ often remarkable negotiations with the Russian government for the Tetris rights.
It was the late ’80s and they were up against the might (and considerable girth) of Robert Maxwell, but Rogers and Nintendo battled through to land one of the must iconic business deals in history.
The battle took place after 1986, so you’ve got the Chernobyl disaster and its aftereffects to think of whilst that all played out (as in, the country was in a mess with the disaster contributing significantly to the end of the Soviet Union).
Sheff’s insights on the negotiations for the Tetris rights were revelatory. Even now, most people won’t think of Tetris as having this darkly weird backstory from the Soviet Union era of Russia.
Arakawa saw a prototype of the Game Boy in 1987.
Tetris was live at that point as a game in various markets, but the situation became incredibly confused. Many businesses claimed to have the rights and had (illegally, as it turns out) released versions of Tetris on various home computers and consoles.
Alexey Pajitnov had created the game in 1984 on this basis.
“There is a theory in psychology that humans can process seven things (plus or minus two) at once: seven digits, seven shapes, seven concepts. It is the reason most people can remember seven-digit phone numbers but have difficulty beyond that. It so happened that seven different configurations of the four squares were possible. Seven ‘Tetris’ shapes, Pajitnov reasoned, could be memorized and instantly recognized, and the reaction to any one of them could be almost visceral, reflexive.”
This story is so complicated it plays out over two large chapters. We highly recommend getting Game Over just to read through the intricacies.
Obviously, Henk Rogers and Nintendo got the rights.
The Game Boy and Tetris were a match made in heaven and both became worldwide phenomenons. But the story of how the Japanese gaming behemoth got there is genuinely remarkable.
The Tetris 2023 Film
To note, the battle for Tetris was turned into a largely inaccurate 2023 film on AppleTV called Tetris. Although it has a funky soundtrack, at least, and we found it entertaining.
The film doesn’t take itself seriously and exaggerates the real-life events.
Some gamers may have an issue with that, but if you want the serious story then there was a Channel 4 documentary in 2001 you can find that tells the real story (it’s called Tetris: From Russia With Love—the full documentary is further above).
As for the film, if you go into it with the right frame of mind you’ll enjoy it.
Notes on Arcade’s Game Over Introduction
This was a curiosity in May 1999, but Arcade magazine provided a free copy of Game Over (the one you can see pictured at the top of this review).
At the time, video game magazines were an essential source of gaming information. We read the double whammy of the brilliant N64 Magazine mixed in with the occasional all-format magazine purchased (such as GamesMaster).
But we also read, every day, the equally brilliant Digitiser (a Teletext-based publication). This all-format mag courted regularly controversy with a mixture of surreal humour and honest opinions.
Arcade was one of a huge variety of gaming mags around the late ’90s here in the UK. We occasionally bought it. It ran from December 1998 to October 2000 before closing its doors.
An introduction to Game Over, written by editor Neil West, is telling of the time. It notes immediately:
“Game Over was written in 1993. Since this time the videogames industry has both grown and changed dramatically. The record-breaking popularity of PlayStation has led to Sony emerging as a force to rival Nintendo. Indeed, many business analysts conclude that Nintendo’s days as the game industry’s 900lb gorilla are over …
Besides, while it may be the case that Nintendo 64 has lost in battle to PlayStation, the war between Nintendo and Sony is far from over.”
This very much summed up the mentality of the time, as some gaming magazines liked to have a bit of a dig at Nintendo for losing its undisputed No.1 status over the industry.
And the feeling in 1999 was the PlayStation was cool and Nintendo would disappear to become a game developer.
That’s not happened, of course, as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all continue to develop unique hardware. And they contribute magnificent things to the games industry, in one way or another.
But it’s interesting to note Nintendo’s progress since 1999.
Despite a hiccup with the Wii U, and seemingly a big sect of the gamer baser wanting to see the Japanese developer fail, with the Wii and Nintendo Switch it has hit new heights. All despite separating itself away from Microsoft and Sony’s battle for most-power-games-console.
The last time Nintendo used a “these are the best graphics available” approach was with the N64 in 1996. Since then, it’s focussed on accessibility and hardware innovation. It’s worked a treat!
David Sheff’s Work After Game Over
These days, David Sheff is most famous for his 2008 book Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction. It’s a memoir about his son Nic’s drug addiction.
It was a huge critical and commercial success in America. It reached the top of the New York Times’ best sellers list and was included in many best books of 2008 awards.
There was a 2018 film adaptation starring Steve Carrell (in a serious role) as David Sheff, alongside Timothée Chalamet portraying his son.
Sheff continues to contribute to various American publications, plus more tech related books such as China Dawn: The Story of a Technology and Business Revolution (2002).
