I read this old post from Arcadian over at his blog today, and I couldn’t help but be floored by the pure truth of it:
So there I was looking at this question posed to me in an AIM chat window, and I gave it some real thought this time. It was a question I’d answered about eleventy hundred times over, but never really offered any kind of solution. My responses were a collective, “I dunno how to fix it. I just know it are busted.” This time around, I passed on the question – only to have the same topic resurrect its dusty bones in yet another AIM session later that day, this time with a super important big wig developer – which I iterate only to make me sound important and well connected. Thank you very much.
The question was, in raw reiteration: what’s wrong with online games?
Well, the question itself is almost a self-addressed, stamped envelope of answer – if the question is posed as a defensive “prove something is wrong!” interrogative, then merely asking the question validates the asking of that question. I have no idea what I just wrote. Lets try a new paragraph, and see if I can make some sense to at least one of us.
By and large, online games are built upon a single common event: violence against others. They are computer programmed, digitally simulated, theatrically animated, interactive Three Stooges shorts. We pay up to twenty dollars a month to poke our fingers in each other’s eyes and race to be the first to the dessert cart where an endless spawn of custard pies just begs to be tossed. Before I give EA its next big project, lets get more focused: almost every successful (and unsuccessful) online game has been built on the fantasy setting of swords and armor and knights and hobgoblins – with portions of Barbie Malibu Dream Home thrown in to attract the females. But essentially, all we’re doing is playing Three Stooges Meet King Arthur an average of two weekends a month. So as much fun as swords and dragons and custard cream pies can be, and believe me if you haven’t tried that, you should – the question echoes back; why isn’t this fun? Its like, we have this recipe for a rip roaring casserole of good times with every fun ingredient known to culinary science – yet no matter how many times we whip up a fresh batch, it tastes like a cow’s hoof. Its like Peanut Butter and pickles. They’re both great snacks. They both taste great in a sandwich. So what is it about peanut butter and pickles that doesn’t let them get along at all? It defies logic.
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