Braid Creator Calls Social Games "Evil"

[AgentBJ09]

So it's not a hard leap to say that social gaming as a whole is evil when the company leading the way for them is lead by scum like Pincus.

Anybody - ANYBODY - who says that social gaming is "evil" has no idea what evil is.

Shady, scummy, sleazy, greasy - sure. But evil? Come on.

I'm going to have to go the Dictionary.com route with this one, because there is plenty of reason to use the term 'evil' in realtion to Zynga.

First -

Greedy - Adjective - excessively desirous of food or wealth, esp in large amounts; voracious

Sleazy - Adjective - contemptibly low, mean, or disreputable

Evil - Adjective - morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked - arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct / Noun - a harmful aspect, effect, or consequence

For an example of all three of these definitions in action, I'll point you to these two stories.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/23/facebook.games/?hpt=Sbin - This article describes times when ads in certain Zynga games linked the people who clicked on them to scams, or otherwise made them sign up for a subscription service against their choice. It has been remedied, and would not be such a big deal if not for...

http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pinkus-faceboo/ - This coming from the CEO's mouth, "We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business."

Having read so much negative press about Zynga, I wholly agree that this company, and the practices it promotes with the games it has, can lump it in with the word 'evil'. They have used underhanded tactics to gain and grow, which is sleazy, but continuing to do so while they are growing is evil since they are continually committing unlawful acts, as per the definition.

 

[dietpeachsnapple]

Creativity tools? Fun.

Creativity tools designed to piss off all of your friends with item announcements? Pass

 

[AgentBJ09]

The site slowed to crawl when I was posting, so ignore this post.

 

[AgentBJ09]

The same with this one. Thanks a lot, ZP.

 

[the7ofswords]

OK, so maybe it's a "Sir Simon Milligan & Hecubus" sort of evil ... the kind that just gives away the endings of movies or blocks you into your parking space. And maybe it's not so much a "beware the hounds of hell" and more like a "don't pet the puppies of purgatory" kind of evil ... but they're evil nonetheless!!!

Evil!!

EVIL!!!!

~7

 

[PhiMed]

You realize some people say things almost exactly like that about puppies, right?

You don't have to jump to the defense of everything. I doubt Zynga, PopCap, or any other company cares what I think about this subject. Get off your horse, put your white armor away, and express an opinion on the OP rather than on a random post, because white knighting for social gaming is about the most purposeless activity imaginable (even more purposeless than social gaming itself!).

Having a negative opinion doesn't mean I'm "prejudiced". I've examined the situation, I've developed an opinion, and it's negative. That's still okay, last time I checked.

You just lost the argument on your first sentence. Usually it's not so easy (Calm down, joking).

I was just pointing out the obvious double standard. But that's ok, most "true" gamers think like you. For the record: I don't play social games at all. I'm just being reasonable. I don't like how gamers complain that videogames aren't considered a valid and valuable form of entertainment by some parts of society, and then apply the same kind of blindness they suffer from to other kind of games they don't like.

There's no problem in not liking social games, but to say in complete hyperbole, like you said, that they are evil and "bring no value to society", it's just the same kind of discourse conservatives have about video games in general.

So while I get off my high horse (or not, it's kinda cool up here), you think about that, ok?

I see arguments like this a lot, and they're uniformly absurd.

I'll repeat: It's okay to express an opinion that something has a greater objective intrinsic value than something else.

It's not your job to convince the world that "it's all relative, man".

Your argument is akin to claiming that in order for me to state that "Meet the Press" has social value, I have to admit to the indispensable nature of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians". That's a ridiculous argument, and it doesn't give people something to think about. It's just a contrarian relativistic snipe.

Did you think you were going to change my mind, or open my eyes somehow? Did you think that comparing my expression of opinion on an internet forum to conservative points on mainstream media would cause me to see the err of my ways? What is the point of you engaging me in this fashion?

 

[Xanthious]

No, I don't think Zynga is evil, because that's an unnecessarily dramatic term. If you want to excoriate Zynga, taking the company to task for what it actually did is much more useful then resorting to hyperbolic name calling.

Well that is where it all falls apart. I would absolutely love to hear your logic (or likely lack thereof) that refutes that Zynga/Pincus are not evil.

I would suggest you go look up the word "evil". Then continue to refuse to admit that a man who remorselessly admits to "DOING EVERY HORRIBLE THING IN THE BOOK", stealing other companies ideas, knowingly tricking customers into installing harmful software on their PCs, knowingly directing customers to scams, and god knows what else is in fact not evil. If you can not see how this isn't evil then you are either being obstinate, deficient in some capacity or towing some comany line.

I am taking them to task for what they did and what they did is by the very definition (morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked) of the word evil. The fact that I am labeling them as evil is simply calling a spade a spade. They have done evil things and not only show no remorse but choose to brag about it as if it's some great deed. Why others have such a hard time doing the same baffles me.

Even if I were to concede that Zynga was evil, however, your argument still wouldn't make any sense. Zynga is certainly a major player in social gaming, but it does not represent the entirety of the genre any more than Activision represents the entirety of the FPS genre, or Blizzard represents the entirety of the MMO genre.

Not only are they a major player they are in many ways the face of social gaming. I would even wager that they have more users than the other companies combined. If you were to admit that they are in fact evil it would be the same as saying "Ok not all social games are evil, just most of them"

 

[Kwatsu]

-deleted-

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

snip

I don't have the time right now to write out a full response, but I just wanted to say a couple of things quickly. I agree with you mostly and I think you articulated many of your points much better here.

First, I don't play any of these games. Most of what I've seen has been seeing friends play them. From what I've seen, I think you have to have a pretty narrow and silly definition of "social" to exclude games like FarmVille from that description. Asking someone to come harvest your crops is social gameplay. It's not simultaneous and it's definitely not deep, but it's certainly cooperative and it's certainly social.

You seem to have unintentionally understood my point about the statement that any game can be reduced to "press a button, change state, press a button" - it's a meaningless statement. You can describe any game as that and it's completely uninformative. You make your point much better here: that it's the same button and the same state with different lettering (which is, I think, completely right).

And I never wanted to insinuate that these games are good, ethical, or even not evil. I think evil is a ridiculously strong word to use here, but, that aside, I was taking issue more with the particular concerns brought up and with the tone of the accusations than with the conclusions. I'm not missing the overarching point because I was never intending to discuss the overarching point. As far as that ovearching point goes, I'm pretty much in complete agreement with both you and Blow.

 

[craddoke]

[Khmer Rouge Image]

EVIL

I just don't buy the argument that we're not talking about evil until there's genocide involved. Evil can be - and most often is - petty.

 

[YukoValis]

What's left to say? he is right. I gave facebook "games" a chance for a little while, but I couldn't do much because I needed more friends. Soon the concept of friends became the same as earning money in game. It became entirely pointless, and for what?
Getting a bigger farm to put more garbage on in farmville?
Stopping someone from stealing your imaginary stuff in mafiawars?

I rather have actual friends on my face book, then random people I needed for facebooks crummy games.

 

[CCountZero]

Besides, some people actually have fun playing social games. I do, for instance. I enjoy Playfish's Restaurant City for the most part.

I enjoy eating chocolate, but if someone sent me a ton of it, with the intention of me eating it and getting fat to the point of it being dangerous to my health, then I'd call the sender "evil" too.

Heroin addicts enjoy that shit as well.

Your enjoyment of the product has zero relevance to this argument.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

I'm actually gonna have to disagree with Blow here, and I'm going to use a few people I know that do play social games on Facebook as a counterargument (and yes, I know it's not conclusive, but no one wins debate by being as general as possible, Blow).

Thing is, they are still social, and the games can expand on the number of people you do get in contact with--it all depends on how you actually use the games. And they can be used to keep in touch more easily with the people you do know. Take, for instance, my mother, her friend, and my cousin. All three of them play, or have played, FarmVille and FrontierVille at the same time, and there are times when I'll see my mother utilizing Facebook chat with one of her virtual neighbors to coordinate something in-game. And they also "trade" friends with each other so that they all can achieve the social milestones implemented in the games.

And I know my mother and her friend do talk a lot about these games--about Zynga releasing new games and their plans to not get sucked into it, about certain in-game events, recent exploits, stuff like that. And they also talk about people that they "met" through my cousin. While they may not exactly talk to her directly, they still know she exists, which is more than they knew about her before playing these games.

The games aren't any more social than WoW or (current WoW-killer of the week). But they aren't less social than the MMOs, either. It all comes down to how you actually play them and utilize the chat associated with the games. And really, saying that friends are "resources" in the social games can also be applied to MMOs, too, especially if you "need healz" for your current raiding party. Blow just sounds as smart as the rest of the gaming journalism world by putting these statements forth--and Gog knows that gaming journalism on the whole is nowhere near close to getting a doctorate.

 

[Bloodstain]

I could write a whole essay about social gaming and the problem of dehumanizing and objectifying your friends as well as the idea of "possessing and having friends", with influences by Erich Fromm and Meister Eckhart.

Instead, I am just going to ask: Well, who didn't think they're evil?

there are very few things in this world that are genuinely evil..."social" games ain't one of them

"Evil" is the wrong word...I'd call it "potentially damaging", "numbing" and "objectifying". In fact, there is nothing that is genuinely "evil" to everyone, because the concept good/evil is entirely subjective. So to me, it could very well be evil.

 

[Danish rage]

If i want art i go to a museum, if i want to game i turn on the PS3 or Xbox. I don´t need them to be the same.

If i want art i go to a museum, if i want to listen to music i turn on my CC player.

If i want art i go to a museum, if i want to see a movie i pop in a DVD.

I hope you see where I'm going here

Maybe. But both music and movies can be art, you don´t interact with music and movies the same way you do with games. I just don´t see the need for games to be it to, not at the cost of playability and gameplay anyway.

It´s not really the topic in this thread, so im gonna leave it be for now.

 

[Danish rage]

If i want art i go to a museum, if i want to game i turn on the PS3 or Xbox. I don´t need them to be the same.

If i want art i go to a museum, if i want to listen to music i turn on my CC player.

If i want art i go to a museum, if i want to see a movie i pop in a DVD.

I hope you see where I'm going here

Maybe. But both music and movies can be art, you don´t interact with music and movies the same way you do with games. I just don´t see the need for games to be it to, not at the cost of playability and gameplay anyway.

It´s not really the topic in this thread, so im gonna leave it be for now.

 

[loc978]

So it's not a hard leap to say that social gaming as a whole is evil when the company leading the way for them is lead by scum like Pincus.

Anybody - ANYBODY - who says that social gaming is "evil" has no idea what evil is.

Shady, scummy, sleazy, greasy - sure. But evil? Come on.

That rather depends on how you define "evil". Is murder an evil act, while mugging is not, or are there different degrees inherent in the term?

In my humble opinion:
Coercion for financial gain can be considered a form of evil, and while Zynga is no Bernie Madoff (I still chuckle at how appropriate his last name is), it certainly qualifies as a representation of (please excuse the Dr. Evil quote) "The diet coke of evil".

 

[Logan Westbrook]

(more trimming for length)

Here's the thing, at no point have I said that I condone Zynga's behavior, and if you refer back to my originally response I said the company was "provably unscrupulous." If that's not enough for you I'm sorry, but that's all you're going to get. I may throw in a "greedy" and "unethical," but my worldview isn't so black and white that I'm going to start calling things "evil." I'd appreciate it though, if you didn't make accusations about my character and integrity over semantic differences.

How we might describe Zynga's wrongdoing is really besides the point however. Your claim that Zynga represents the majority of the social gaming market simply isn't true. The most recent figures from AppData [http://www.appdata.com/] show that while Zynga is certainly the single largest player in the market, it doesn't have bigger numbers than everyone combined like you suggested. Am I willing to concede that the most popular social games are made by a company I consider to have unethical business practices? Yes I am, but that's not the same as saying that social games are inherently bad.

Oh, and my comparisons to Activision and Blizzard hold up just fine. The problem is that you were taking them too literally. My point was that the market leader in a given genre is distinct from the market itself.

 

[Andy Chalk]

I just don't buy the argument that we're not talking about evil until there's genocide involved. Evil can be - and most often is - petty.

My biggest problem with it is that throwing the word "evil" at every behaviour we find objectionable undermines its power. Hyperbole is fun but if we stop recognizing it for what it is we risk losing the ability to recognize the real thing, too.

 

[Xanthious]

(more trimming for length)

Here's the thing, at no point have I said that I condone Zynga's behavior, and if you refer back to my originally response I said the company was "provably unscrupulous." If that's not enough for you I'm sorry, but that's all you're going to get. I may throw in a "greedy" and "unethical," but my worldview isn't so black and white that I'm going to start calling things "evil." I'd appreciate it though, if you didn't make accusations about my character and integrity over semantic differences.

How we might describe Zynga's wrongdoing is really besides the point however. Your claim that Zynga represents the majority of the social gaming market simply isn't true. The most recent figures from AppData [http://www.appdata.com/] show that while Zynga is certainly the single largest player in the market, it doesn't have bigger numbers than everyone combined like you suggested. Am I willing to concede that the most popular social games are made by a company I consider to have unethical business practices? Yes I am, but that's not the same as saying that social games are inherently bad.

Oh, and my comparisons to Activision and Blizzard hold up just fine. The problem is that you were taking them too literally. My point was that the market leader in a given genre is distinct from the market itself.

Thank you for that link to appdata. It proves my point marvelously. Of the top 10 apps 5 are Zynga titles. The others aren't even games. There is a dating app, messenger app, some daily quote app, some community organization app, and an app for bands. No games other than Zynga's are in the top 10. There isn't a non Zynga game til Millionaire City at number 13. Looking at the developer leaderboard Zynga has a 7:1 lead over it's nearest competitor and nearly a 3:1 advantage over it's three closest competitors combined. Looking at those numbers I think it's fair to say that Zynga does indeed represent close to, if not a total majority of the social gaming scene. Furthermore with that big a marketshare their actions good or evil reflect largely on social gaming as a whole.