4 Things Battletoads Tells Us About the Future of Journalism

Much like this recent post on the lessons taught by the quaint pro-vandalism game Paperboy, a host of ideas about the news industry can be found by digging into classic video games and pulling out juicy nuggets of inspiration.

But why just focus on games involving papers, boys or neither of the two? Great lessons can be learned from titles involving aliens or other non-human lifeforms, particularly Battletoads, released in 1991 for Nintendo.

The game features Rash and Pimple fighting various creatures through 12 controller-throwingly difficult levels, and while it was lauded by video game critics at the time, it has not received its due credit as the prescient source of journalism wisdom until now. Here are 4 things Battletoads tell us about the future of journalism:

1. When things look difficult, warp to the future.

In level 3 (Turbo Tunnel), the game requires you to mount speedbikes and guide the Battletoads through an increasingly difficult slalom course. The obstacles come at you fast and furious, but if you can hang on until the fifth series of obstacles, you can hit a warp that will take you to level 5 (Surf City).

Level 3 is the current crisis facing newspapers--relentlessly fast, obstacles flying at us, and a fair chance that many won't have a chance to continue--because they slammed into a "wall" known as a failing business model and the rise of the internet.

So, to keep from falling by the wayside, newspapers need to hit a metaphorical "warp," becoming first adopters and pushing technological and web-based approaches and thereby jumping ahead with their technology and approach to journalism.

It will be scary--the warp requires that you drive straight into a wall--but if you pick the right “wall” to “slam into,” you'll survive to thrive into the future.

2. If you need to smash something, press against the wall, turn into a wrecking ball, and unleash fury.

In Level 2 (Wookie Hole), the brothers descend down a huge hole via rappelling lines (the B'Toads, as well all know, are avid spelunkers), fighting off a myriad of flying and floating enemies along the way until they fight what looks to be a giant AM Radio at the end of the level.

To stop these enemies, a player can press and hold their Toad against the wall of the shaft, wait until he turns into a wrecking ball, and then watch as flies violently across the screen, splattering all who dare stand (or, rather, float) in his way.

Much like the lesson of Level 3, “the Wrecking Ball approach” speaks again to how media outlets can survive: patience. When you press up against a wall, you don’t instantly turn into a wrecking ball, just as you can’t flip the switch overnight from “newsasaurus rex” to “George Jetson Journalist.”

It will take time, but with the right approach, your patience and perseverance for a new adaptive strategy will work, and allow you to “smash” into an “AM Radio,” which in this case represents not only an actual AM Radio but also all other old-timey sources of news.

3. Repeatedly kicking something against a wall gives you more lives.

Level 2 is a gold mine for extra lives—manage to bounce a Razor Raven off the wall enough times, you start racking up extra lives, which will pay big dividends as you progress in the game. The challenge is hitting the bird enough times (you only start getting 1-Ups after the 8th kick) to rack up enough lives to make it worth it.

Just like repeatedly kicking something against a wall, this brave new world requires focus, and for journalists, this means focusing on one “razor raven” or specific subject and “kicking it against a wall” by covering every facet of it. The days of cops/courts beats are over, as one reporter/blogger/newsonator will soon relentlessly cover small claims court cases involving meat. Behold the emergence of the microbeat.

4. If you're playing in 2 player mode, punching your partner is counter-productive

One short coming of Battletoads is that, in 2 player mode, an ill-timed punch, head-butt, or stick swing toward a pig creature can land squarely on the chin of your partner. In its heyday, statistics that I just made up show that more video game arguments were launched because of this “feature” than any other in video games (the unstoppable bicycle kick in World Cup Soccer was a close 2nd).

For journalists, “not punching your partner” means staying true to quality instead of competition. If you write for the Funkytown Observer, and you beat the Funkytown Herald on a story, that’s great—until the next week when you both fold because you don’t have a solid web presence and no one under 60 reads your paper.

Rather, news outlets need to measure themselves not against local competition but against everything on the Web, and figure out what they can offer that no one else can. They should focus on creating their own real estate--finding their own respective "pig creature" to "punch"--rather than fighting it out with their metaphorical Rash or Pimple to punch theirs.

This is the most important lesson we can learn from BattleToads. You should probably print this part out, cut out this passage, and tape it to your monitor.