Braid Creator Calls Social Games "Evil"

[Logan Westbrook]

(snip)

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I've never suggested that Zynga wasn't a big deal, or that it wasn't an unscrupulous company, but I just don't agree with your conclusion that because Zynga is bad, all social gaming is bad.

 

[tautologico]

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?

You're missing the point here. I'm not arguing for relativism at all.

But you're making a categorical mistake. You're not saying "Mass Effect is better than Farmville". You're saying that all "core" games are intrinsically better than all social games, because the latter don't have anything to offer. You didn't say "Farmville has no value", or even Zynga games. The Braid guy didn't qualify it either: he said all social games are evil.

It is basically what anti-gaming conservatives do: movies and books are better than games, the latter don't have anything to offer to society. The same thing was previously done to comic books, and so on.

And I've been on the internet long enough to not hold much hope people will think about their views after a forum discussion. There are people who do, fortunately, so sometimes it is worth it.

As for why I responded to your post? I was bored, and I find it funny that every time social games or Zynga are mentioned in this site, there are a bunch of people with the "bring torches! let's burn the witches!" attitude.

 

[Falseprophet]

(snip)

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I've never suggested that Zynga wasn't a big deal, or that it wasn't an unscrupulous company, but I just don't agree with your conclusion that because Zynga is bad, all social gaming is bad.

I think judging social gaming as a whole based on Mark Pincus' character is akin to commenting on the American auto industry solely based on Henry Ford's character. You're tripping over several logical fallacies to do it.

Anyway, everything Blow said has been levelled against the entire gaming culture since the early 1980s. Those arcades sucked quarter after quarter out of us for a few mere minutes of frenetic joystick waggling and all the moral guardians clucked their tongues at this anti-social, addictive, pocket-picking destructive behaviour. Yet all of us are here because of those games. I can't shake the feeling that this hatedom for social gaming is like the kid who was bullied in school, grows a bit, and then starts bullying younger kids.

 

[GTwander]

I consider it fully-evil as well, but not because they aim to make money... it's the base philosophy of these games where they basically say "you can play this for a little bit, then you're done, come back tomorrow (and on time, dammit)".

You can't actually sit down and deep out on these things. You just do some maintenance on your previous actions, check when you can come back and do it again, then rearrange your schedule for it. If you don't check in daily, or multiple times daily (in some cases) you are effectively punished. An example would be adultswimgames.com's Hemp Tycoonm, which *IS* basically Farmville. The game amounts to "buy seeds, plant em, come back when they are fully grown"... but if you forget about it for too long they wither, your efforts go to waste, and it forces you to be a zombie that constantly keeps the timers posted on your internal alarm clock so that you don't get punished for *having a life*.

They are designed to be evil, period.

 

[PhiMed]

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?

You're missing the point here. I'm not arguing for relativism at all.

But you're making a categorical mistake. You're not saying "Mass Effect is better than Farmville". You're saying that all "core" games are intrinsically better than all social games, because the latter don't have anything to offer. You didn't say "Farmville has no value", or even Zynga games. The Braid guy didn't qualify it either: he said all social games are evil.

It is basically what anti-gaming conservatives do: movies and books are better than games, the latter don't have anything to offer to society. The same thing was previously done to comic books, and so on.

And I've been on the internet long enough to not hold much hope people will think about their views after a forum discussion. There are people who do, fortunately, so sometimes it is worth it.

As for why I responded to your post? I was bored, and I find it funny that every time social games or Zynga are mentioned in this site, there are a bunch of people with the "bring torches! let's burn the witches!" attitude.

People categorize things, man. It's human nature.

Not every statement of opinion needs to include a proper noun.

If you're bored, please troll someone else. Yes, that's what you're doing.

 

[EvolutionKills]

I love how people are saying the games aren't evil because "some people have fun playing them." People having fun playing the games doesn't automatically make his claim that they are evil invalid. Evil can be fun. If it weren't fun, it wouldn't exist.

These games, though, are completely mindless entertainment. They tell no story, develop no skills, encourage no growth, and thus have no redeeming value. They are a mind-melting time waster, like twiddling your thumbs or masturbation.

And if someone you knew spent as much time masturbating as most of these people spend playing social games, you'd probably be concerned, wouldn't you?

So he's right. These companies have created a socially acceptable way for people to mentally masturbate, for several hours a day, in public. Rather than do something constructive, informative, or at least actually pleasurable, they're doing this. Productivity decreases, and stupidity expands.

Both the player and the human race are worse off, all because someone figured out how to use psychology to make a game that would make people continue to play, and continue to pay, because damn it, they can almost reach that carrot.

Evil.

Mental masturbation. That is such an awesome two word summary of 'social' games, that I have to save that one for the future. Bravo! You reminded me of Kevin Smith, and Kevin Smith is AWESOME.

 

[PhiMed]

I love how people are saying the games aren't evil because "some people have fun playing them." People having fun playing the games doesn't automatically make his claim that they are evil invalid. Evil can be fun. If it weren't fun, it wouldn't exist.

These games, though, are completely mindless entertainment. They tell no story, develop no skills, encourage no growth, and thus have no redeeming value. They are a mind-melting time waster, like twiddling your thumbs or masturbation.

And if someone you knew spent as much time masturbating as most of these people spend playing social games, you'd probably be concerned, wouldn't you?

So he's right. These companies have created a socially acceptable way for people to mentally masturbate, for several hours a day, in public. Rather than do something constructive, informative, or at least actually pleasurable, they're doing this. Productivity decreases, and stupidity expands.

Both the player and the human race are worse off, all because someone figured out how to use psychology to make a game that would make people continue to play, and continue to pay, because damn it, they can almost reach that carrot.

Evil.

Mental masturbation. That is such an awesome two word summary of 'social' games, that I have to save that one for the future. Bravo! You reminded me of Kevin Smith, and Kevin Smith is AWESOME.

Kevin Smith?... That a fat joke?

Just kidding. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'll be here all week.

 

[SalamanderJoe]

It's very true. I actually block all requests from social games on Facebook, mainly because half of them require you to play so Billy can get an energy refill or some crap.

 

[Mouse One]

Heh, I guess the kerfluffle about Blow's comments re: the WGA awards had died down, so he felt the need to be outrageous again. Seriously though, once you dial down the hyperbole, his points stand. Uncreative games like Farmville that require you to use friends and family as an end to scoring games points do damage interaction on social media. People aren't communicating for the intrinsic rewards of social contact, they're doing for extrinsic rewards.

There's an old cognitive psych study about teaching kids to fingerpaint. Give kids candy to fingerpaint, and they'll paint more. But when you stop giving them candy, they stop painting. The kids in the control group without the rewards didn't paint as much initially, but they kept at it longer because they simply liked painting.

Replace fingerpainting with "talking with friends and family" and candy with "Scoring points in Farmville", and you get the idea.

Now, social media games CAN be interaction enhancing. They serve the same function as party games;they give you something to do together. Echo Bazaar is a great example of this sort of game. But EB is a well made game, and one worth sharing with friends-- not to score points, but because you want your friends to have a good time, too.

And that's the key difference.

 

[EvolutionKills]

Kevin Smith?... That a fat joke?

Just kidding. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'll be here all week.

That depends, have you ever been kicked off of a Southwest Airlines flight?

 

[OceanRunner]

I don't play Zynga-type social games anyway because I'm not interested,so while I agree that it's misleading to refer to them strictly as "social games", calling them evil is definitely exessive.

 

[Gralian]

I wish i could be a swanky executive or developer and just come out with whatever i wanted and have people take it seriously.

It strikes me as a bit juvenile that someone can just make a statement and have it lapped up by the media and general public just because of their position. Whether i agree with Blow or not, he's no more credible than you or me to denounce something as being outright "Evil". It doesn't matter if he made Braid or not; he cannot speak for the industry at large. To think so is rather conceited. Megalomaniacal much? Though whilst i may pick on him for making a statement like this, i know a lot of people "in the biz" tend to. If i remember rightly, Treyarch have been making all kinds of statements over the past few weeks.

If i called Captain Crunch evil, no-one would listen to my ramblings.

Seriously though, anyone with a 'tash like that is OBVIOUSLY plotting something.

 

[ItsAPaul]

Well you don't do anything in any of them other than spam your friends (like literally, I've tried them and you don't accomplish anything at all), so I believe he's right.

 

[Lokithrsourcerer]

I think south park beat him to it with there face-book episode

 

[Super Toast]

I wouldn't go so far as to call them evil...

 

[Frotality]

id agree with him, but frankly i dont consider social 'games' to anymore a game than screwing around on any given social networking site. i do wish more people would realize that there are some games designed to be fun instead of taking your money though. even obligatory cash-in sequels try to be fun in some way, mostly.

EDIT" id also like it known that i reloaded the page becasue the captcha actually displayed accented letters. the fuck, escapist? your really expecting me to randomly input those damn numpad combinations in hopes of finding the right accented letter? what about people who dont even know about that? is captcha from germany or something? our american keyboards arent meant for your crazy umlauts and what not...

 

[Logic 0]

And here I am thinking social games were worthy of moustache twirling levels of evil guess their not that evil ... yet.

 

[PhiMed]

Kevin Smith?... That a fat joke?

Just kidding. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'll be here all week.

That depends, have you ever been kicked off of a Southwest Airlines flight?

Yes... but for entirely different reasons...

They had it coming...

 

[NaramSuen]

Yes social games are evil. Much like all conservatives are fascists, all liberals are communists, all Muslims are terrorists, and all Christians are fundamentalist morons.

He undermines his entire argument when he degenerates into generalizations, hyperbole, and proselytizing. Which, coincidentally, are the same techniques employed by the clueless talking-heads critics of video games propped up by the cable news networks.