Remix Culture, how Asian designers changed the game, part 14

 

This series started with me declaring how much I loved basketball. I was never any good at playing it, or any sport really, but I liked writing about it, and I really loved drawing fictional streetball characters. I’m still a huge fan of the game, and still get inspired when I see basketball art from various illustrators. I also talked about how Michael Lau came along at the end of the '90s, and turned me into a fan of urban vinyl art. I collected many of Lau's mini gardener figures before the trend took off. Many of my other favorite toys were streetball vinyl players. The Super-X line of fictional players inspired by actual NBA legends meant a lot to me. That collection from Dragon Models out of Hong Kong, and the Upper Deck All Star vinyl figures from the US were among my prized non-Lau figures.

NBA Street debuted in 2001, not long after the urban vinyl trend was started. Developed by EA BIG it brought together stylized character designs, streetball which had looser rules than pro basketball, and arcade game play. There hadn't been anything that had captured the frenetic pace of the game since NBA Jam from a decade earlier. There were several reasons why NBA Street really stood out to me. Of all the sports it was the one the closest to the playground experience. It was created on a farm in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, but in less than 50 years it would become the most important game of the inner-city. It would be embraced by black, and brown kids faster than any other sport had ever done in the history of the US. Even though the NBA didn't integrate Black players until 1950, it was nonetheless following on the heels of Major League Baseball which started integrating in 1947.

There were many Black pioneers in the ‘50s, but it wouldn’t be until the late ‘60s, and ‘70s that Black culture really started showing up with the players. The Civil Rights era turned athletes into cultural touchstones. This meant that the music, the language, the fashion, and even the hairstyles of the street also became part of basketball culture. This made it easy to identify with the sport while growing up in the city. Unlike baseball, or football, the game of basketball didn’t really need a huge field, just a basketball, and a hoop could do the trick. It didn’t matter if it was a hoop on a garage, or a milk crate tied to a telephone pole. The game was easy to pick up, and impossible to master. Every time you played you could learn something new. The athletes that played the game, the culture lent itself easily to urban vinyl art. The best figures in my opinion reflected the world. They weren’t trying to sell a name, or brand.

While growing up the toy companies told my brothers, and I season, after season what we were going to play with. The cartoon shows they produced were nothing more than extended television commercials. By Christmas time their goal seemed to get us to dump all our old toys, and beg our parents for some new ones. These manufacturers reminded us that there weren’t any alternates, they controlled the toys, they controlled the games. Even Legos which were the standard for letting kids use their imagination soon started licensing movies, and comic book franchises. Countless generations were stuck following the same trends. All of that changed when urban vinyl figures made their debut at the end of the ‘90s. These toys were not selling any product, or label necessarily. They were instead a celebration of us. There were men, women, boys, and girls that looked like us, our family, our friends, and heroes. They highlighted our culture, our music, and fashion. More than that these figures just looked cool. This understanding started changing the way that characters would be designed for video games.

JC Entertainment out of South Korea started creating streetball games in 2004, and continued pushing the genre forward over the next 20 years. In the earliest days they presented traditional street-styled basketball players, with jerseys, shorts, and sneakers. Over time their ball players would become more stylized, and dress in all sorts of outfits. They played in business suits, track pants, surf gear, astronaut helmets, pajamas, and much more. By the time they released 3on3 Freestyle in 2016 the studio had fully embraced vinyl character design. I enjoyed the look of many of the characters that went into their franchise. Joey was the star player, and had received a radical makeover called “Intensive Joey” for a special update. Of course it was absurd that anyone would try playing in boots, neon purple, and green punk rave gear. It nonetheless was a hard look. The fact that he was pictured with a black spiked basketball brought the entire fit together. It made me wish that JC Ent. made collectable figures, and not just virtual characters. It also got me thinking of what was it that I really enjoyed in those designs, in basketball, and vinyl figures.

I talked a little about it previously on this blog series. As much as I liked the game of basketball, and as much as I admired the superstars, I just wasn’t invested in getting highly detailed 12” figures of those players for my collection. The more stylized they were, like the All Star Vinyl line from Upper Deck, the more likely I was to collect them. But there was a different motivation to which figures I sought out. I liked characters that represented an era, a genre, and entire league even more than an individual player. In my opinion the greatest gardener figure designed by Michael Lau was Jordon. He was more than just a clone of Michael Jordan.

For starters he didn’t look anything like Mike. He was much taller, with a large afro, earring, and eyebrow piercing. He represented the entire game of basketball. He was a snapshot of the late ‘80s / ‘90s era of the professional league. This would be during the formative years of Michael Lau, when the street influence was inescapable. We're talking a period of time when all the classic Nike commercials from "Just Do It," and "Be Like Mike," all the way to "It's gotta be the shoes" directed by Spike Lee (as Mars Blackmon) had taken place. This marked a time when Hip Hop, and pro basketball started going hand-in-hand. 

These street-centric campaigns were an affront to the loud protests of the team owners. They wanted basketball players to be seen as clean-cut college kids gone pro, and not street kids hitting it big. By the late '90s, and early 2000's Hong Kong was the only place on Earth that understood how to tie all of those cultural touchstones together into a new 3D format. They had a culture that was quick to spot trends, remix them by pulling elements from music, fashion, and street culture while creating their stylized vinyl figures. Their ability to remix culture at an absurdly rapid pace would end up changing the way studios the world over would approach their own character art. This sort of stylized representation was what I thought made Stretch Monroe from the NBA Street franchise so important. Although he was modeled on the ‘70s era Dr. J, he represented much more than that. 

Stretch was a fictional legend from the same post-Civil Rights era. He was like many of the pioneers of the rival ABA that were pushed out of the league when the NBA captured the market. He just couldn’t fit in because he was too ahead of his time. Stretch never got a chance to compete in the pro ranks. This didn’t stop him from destroying all challengers on the playground over the following 30 years. When NBA Street 2 came out, and EA Big started putting retro characters in the game, like a young Julius Erving then it made the inclusion of Stretch feel redundant. The fictional spirit of basketball was the aesthetic that I loved more than anything. I wondered if there was anything that a new generation of creators could do to make me rethink my approach to collectables, and specifically their basketball character designs. Could I ever love a design for a real world player as much as I loved the fictional Stretch? What about his fictional contemporaries? All9Fun had the answer for me when they released Basketrio.

In case you weren’t familiar with the current generation of pros, the ones featured in the picture above were based respectively on Giannis “The Greek Freak” Antetokounmpo, James “Fear the Beard” Harden, LeBron “King” James, and Joel “The Process” Embiid. All9Fun allowed you to create your own avatar, build stats, earn prizes, and unlock pro players. These were things that gamers had already seen for years. However the pro players, or rather look-alike pros were not licensed from actual NBA, FIBA, or other leagues. Despite being eerily similar to real people the studio changed just enough features on them to skirt IP laws. The case of public opinion was something else entirely. It was similar to how they released players based on Street Fighter designs. I highlighted them in the previous blog. The team at All9Fun were building virtual characters using all the same tricks that Fools Paradise did when creating the Three Kings, and TwentyFour statues I had also talked about. The thing was that the statues from Fools Paradise, and the virtual characters from Basketrio were extremely desirable to fans. They managed to capture the personality of some of the greatest players to have ever existed, but in a highly-stylized fashion. 

As a fan of the vinyl aesthetic there was no doubt that the design worked in video games. Basketrio featured a version of the NBA elites in a format that I had always wanted to see. It was as if the studio was able to pull equal parts of the animated look of the Upper Deck All Star Vinyl figures, the street fashion sense of Michael Lau’s gardeners, and the Hong Kong style of the Super-X athletes. The remix of the various elements was sublime character design. The knockoff pros featured in Basketrio were a master class in storytelling, and streetball design. First off the team understood the scale of the individual players. The largest of which was “Shark” who was based on Shaquille O’Neal who in real life was over seven-feet tall. The smallest of which was “The Answer” who was based on Allen Iverson, who was barely six-feet tall. 

Everyone in between had a cartoonish scale applied to them. Their frames, muscles, shoulders, torsos, hands, and feet were just a bit exaggerated. This helped the characters stand out from the rest of the cast. As with fighting game characters, the bigger hands, and feet were easier to read when moving across the screen. They allowed animators more leeway when creating movements for crossovers, backing down opponents, and of course flashy slam dunks. These proportions also made it easier to read dribbles, or passes, making defending against them more balanced for gamers. From head to toe their costumes were absolute works of art. There was more to the fit than would be typically seen on a streetball player. They were all essentially wearing high fashion streetwear, however the choice of colors, logos, patterns, also reinforced the personalities they were portraying. NBA fans could identify who these characters were based on just by looking at their faces, however the studio could get away with it because they never named one of the characters after an actual person.

All9Fun skirted the line without ever crossing it. For example Shaq was called Shark, Kobe Bryant was called Mamba, after his nickname the Black Mamba. The outfits they wore had similar colors to their actual team uniforms, of course nobody could copyright a color combination, nor could they copyright the name of a city, initials, nicknames, or even numbers. Even if each of these things happened to be pulled from actual players, and teams. This allowed the staff at All9Fun to dress the characters appropriately, without getting in legal hot water. The outfits of each, and every player was more than really fashionable street wear. They were the streetball equivalent of superhero uniforms. Fans of every sport tended to make icons out of their favorite athletes. Even race car drivers, and their autos enjoyed a certain level of hero worship. Fans of NASCAR could tell you how important the colors of their favorite cars were. Just as red, and blue were matched to Superman, or red, and yellow were matched to the Flash every character in Basketrio got similar nods. 

The Lakers royal purple, and gold were matched to Kobe, and Lebron’s outfits, without either of them wearing anything remotely alike. The Milwaukee Bucks forest green, and white dressed on Giannis. The Maverick’s navy blue, silver, and black were placed on Luka Dončić. Even if you had no idea which teams, or players they were based on, each of the outfits was inspired. The standout was Dennis Rodman, the long-retired former Bulls player had multicolored hair, was shirtless with a feather boa, and dressed in white pants with the words THE WORM printed on the leg. A nod to his over-the-top personality, and outspoken fashion sense. While I could never justify spending hundreds on realistic NBA figures, if any studio were to ever release 12” collectables in the vein of the Basketrio characters then I wouldn’t hesitate to get them all. 

I was extremely happy with my Super-X team, and the Vinyl All Stars. They sung to all of my interests in a way that no other creator except for Michael Lau was able to reach. I never thought that anything better would come along. All of that changed fairly recently. A figure designer learned the tricks that the artists working on the FreeStyle Street Basketball series were using. Not only that his work predated the look of the Basketrio icons. I will talk about this designer in the next, and final blog in this series. What do you think of video games using the likenesses of real people, or teams without licensing them? Would you be willing to look the other way if they spoke to your interests? Do you think there is a difference behind art, and IP theft? Where do you draw the line? I’d like to hear your thoughts on the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs, podcasts, or buy a future streetball figure!

Remix Culture, how Asian designers changed the game, part 12

In the previous blog of this series I talked about a shift in culture in the US, and the rest of the world. Pro basketball started embracing the street influence in the ‘90s, and that translated into game design of the 2000, and 2010’s. One of the first online MMO developers in the basketball market was JC Entertainment out of South Korea. They had released Freestyle Street Basketball a few years after EA Big had published NBA Street. Both companies exposed several generation of kids to the street game. In 2016 JC Ent. made 3on3 Freestyle Basketball. It was a cross-platform successor to their earlier titles. With it another new hero was announced. He was a return to the classic Saru design from their oldest franchise, rather than the too heavily street-influenced Jack from Freestyle2 Street Basketball. The new face of the franchise was a kid named Joey. The nice thing about having a franchise of streetball games was that the publisher could actually re-introduce Freestyle, and Freestyle2 characters over different seasons. They were all a part of a massive shared basketball universe.

On the surface level Joey had a similar look to Saru. The red jersey, the backwards baseball cap were the most obvious things. Instead of sleeve of tattoos Joey had a literal shooting sleeve. The publisher was already established in Asian markets, but they were ambitious to sell their franchise to the west, which was a massive potential customer base. In order to do that they had to make sure that the game didn’t look like it was made by a Chinese, or Korean developer. Joey was presented more of a western character, as his look was just a hint more of the western comic style, rather than the anime style. There was a sort of universal understanding that manga characters modeled in 3D were Japanese by default. JC Ent. had to go out of their way to make sure that audiences could read that Joey was western. If the star spangled sides of his jersey couldn’t make it obvious, his eyes, and skin color had to be more overt. His design could almost work in a Pixar film.

During the release of the game they had the audacity to create, and paint a resin model of Joey. As far as I know it was only used as a promotional piece in their trade shows. Of course I reached out to the studio to ask if they considered selling it, as it was exactly my favorite type of design. Sadly I never heard from them. The creators working at JC Ent. and their contemporaries were keenly aware of basketball players, basketball culture, and the subtleties in the styles of players, and moves. A lot of the work they put into the game would be easy to miss to casual gamers. Those like me who were obsessed with details could pick out the levels of influence that went into the title. For example, did you know that some of the real life top players had a go-to dunk when they played? They used these reliable moves when they wanted to make a statement. LeBron James had a powerful pull back dunk. He would bring his arm way back, and slam the ball through the rim with tremendous force. He used this move while he was still in high school, and continued the tradition through his career. It was a signature move slam when playing for different teams. The dunk was easy to spot when the animators at JC Ent. used in in their game. Not only that but the pose itself was so well known that it would be easy for them to create a logo out of it for a fictional brand, similar to how the Jordan silhouette was used to trademark his own logo. It wasn’t the only absurd detail that the studio put into the game. 

Kids from this generation might be familiar with the legend of Michael Jordan, but they weren’t alive when he was in his prime. He dunked with such authority, and frequency that his nickname became “Air Jordan.” His kick-out dunk was recreated in NBA Street 2. While the JC studio used general influences when adding new teams, and characters into their title. There were a few interesting characters that actually had streetball roots. The monkey kid Goku for example was more than likely inspired by the Japanese freestyle player nicknamed BUG!? He could flip, and spin with the dexterity of a b-boy, while dribbling a basketball at the same time. The best studios knew who to look at from the international community, and not solely the USA when they needed to create stylish trick moves, and outlandish personalities as well.

The thing about the basketball titles that JC Ent. released since 2004 were that they were expanding what people thought the game could be about. It would be too easy to go through the motions, make an NBA Street clone, and call it a day. However MMO games required much more effort, updates, patches, seasonal events, and other ways to keep audiences engaged. They, and their contemporary studios like Halcyon, and All9Fun were elevating the genre with a multi-pronged attack. The game itself was essentially going to remain the same, basketball had a number of rules that was similar across formats. Everyone knew that points within the perimeter were worth 2, and outside the arc were worth 3. Getting to the basket, and defense were the true challenges. So how to you allow character creation, and make different roles, and styles of play work in an MMO setting?

The studios actually took a page from fighting game design as much as they did from traditional MMOs. A fighting game is essentially a version of “paper, rock scissors” but using punches, kicks, and special strikes instead. The developers had to figure out which moves took precedence during a fight. This constant fine tuning allowed them to create balance between the different characters. In the real world there were weight classes between fighters. No matter how good a flyweight champion was, he would not be able to defeat a heavyweight champion in a boxing, or MMA match. The difference between power, and the ability to absorb punishment was too much to overcome in reality. But in a fighting game a teen girl could have a fighting chance against a giant wrestler thanks to the distribution of different attacks.

In the streetball games audiences were able to create their own custom baller, and use skill points to build up certain moves, which benefited their style of play. Some people focused on people that could shoot the ball with tremendous accuracy. Some wanted speedy players that could cut through defenders, and reach the basket for a dunk. Some wanted defensive powerhouses that could not only stop shooters, and cutters, but could grab rebounds for multiple attempts at the basket. The best part was how the different strengths, and weaknesses showed up in the game. It didn’t matter if the character was gigantic, super short, thin, or muscular. You could have “special moves” that allowed you to push characters out of the way, increase the speed of passing, catch rebounds, dunk from further out, run past defenses, or block opponents. So it was possible to have a short girl act as a center for a team because she could shove her way into position, and jump high enough to contest any shot. It was an amazing mechanic that earlier studios, like EA Big didn’t even consider when they were developing the NBA Street series. Learning the advantages of different combinations could literally make every game a new experience.

The way the studios turned skill trees, and special moves as part of the process of building an ideal basketball player was very engaging. That style of making the player the star of the game, and allowing them to figure out what worked best for them would make its way into the modern crop of fighting games such as Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1, and Tekken 8. Not only could audiences put together a library of moves, they could also customize the look, and accessories on the characters as well. This was one of the many tricks that studios used to keep players coming back. As anyone that has played Fortnight, or other MMOs, there were countless tricks that the developers exploited to keep audiences coming back. There were daily tournaments, or daily challenges. Exclusive items that could be won via raffle, or unlocked as a loot box. During seasonal events you might be able to earn exclusive gear, stickers, accessories, or outfits for your avatar. Of course micro transactions were also available to unlock some items without grinding.

There were other ways that publishers used to keep the game feeling fresh. Not only could players customize their characters, but they could also visit different courts. Each one had a completely different atmosphere. Most of the studios would start with playgrounds, and other urban areas as the backgrounds for the street games. After every legendary real-world court, or inspired by a real-world location had been unlocked in a game the studios had to get more creative with locations. They started adding more esoteric sites to visually break up the mood. During seasonal events like Halloween you might get a foggy concrete court, lit by streetlights, surrounded by chain link fences, and zombies. Or fresh snow shoveled off of a green court during Christmas time. The gorgeous public courts on Venice Beach were a ready built destination, but nobody would have thought that a court on the moon surrounded by astronauts, and aliens would be even be in the cards. Each of these locations were enjoyable, and helped keep audiences engaged.

The ability to make continuous money from a free-to-play title was a great benefit for publishers. Micro transactions allowed them to offer free content, pay their employees, and build the engines for cross compatibility, or the next entry in the series. Gamers got to become part of the community, stay engaged with their friends, and help build a reputation for themselves online. I personally was against micro transactions. I have an addictive personality, and I know that it takes effort each, and every day not to fall into bad habits. This is easier for some people than others. I know that the lucky draws, and other gamifications of drops trigger the same parts of the brain as obsessive gamblers. I feel like every company that goes down this route is aware that it isn’t easy for people to budget themselves for the game, and instead spend money they shouldn’t trying to unlock a certain exclusive. Yet they push forward with those plans anyway because the sales numbers are just too good. That’s all I will say about it.

MMO basketball games from South Korea, Taiwan, and China added a lot to the genre over the past 20 years. One of their biggest contributions was storytelling through the character designs. I’ll look at that on the next blog. Until then I would like to read your take. Did you ever play any of the online basketball games, or the older NBA Street games? Do you think that being able to create, and customize your own character was going to be the standard for every video game moving forward? Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!