1. Black People

What do Snoop Dog, P-diddly, Usher, and Jay-Z all have in common? Besides our girlfriends
leaving us for them, they don’t play video games. At all. Well, they might, but they don’t
talk about it, and that’s one of the inherent problems of gaming. You only hear about old
men in suspenders telling us we need to legislate laws against them because if we don’t,
our children will begin raping and pillaging in their schools; while smoking cigarettes and
using words like “civil liberties” and “abortion”. Did Soulja Boy sing about Doom 3 or Age of
Conan? No, he was rapping about Escalades whilst telling you to Crank That and to
Superman That Hoe. I’ve also played video games for a long time, and unfortunately, I’ve
only known three or four of my fellow gamers to be black. Sure, our African brethren do
like to partake in teabagging while yelling expletives (See Pure-Pwnage), but not many. In
the past twenty years, things that become cool usually start with rappers and football stars.
Think about it, big clocks on necklaces, Nikes, Jackie Chan- they all owe their success to
black people; and frankly, video gaming needs a slice of that soul food marketing pie.





I don’t necessarily mean black people in general, but it just isn’t cool yet to play video
games. Sure, frat boys and Gamespot would like you to think its cool, but it just isn’t.
We may think it is, but it’s like when my friend comes and tells me how “sweaty” and “hard”
his paintballing weekend was- of course he thinks it’s as cool as wrestling down an angry
bull, but to me it sounds as cool sharing a beer funnel with Grandmother Gertrude. If a girl
told me her favorite games were Quake III, Dark age of Camelot, and Half-Life 2, after
posting a blog about it on my livejournal, I’d daydream about how cool she is and why
she’s perfect for me. Unfortunately, it isn’t the other way around 95% of the time. If you
were to try explaining to your friend why Quake IV wasn’t a good successor to Quake III
because of improper movement code and poor weapon balancing, he’d think you’re the
type who does jigsaw puzzles on Friday nights and then ignore you. But if that same friend
was to explain to you why his Football team scored more goals then the other because of
some hail jerry or something, you’d be obligated to think it was pretty gnarly bro.



2. World of Warcraft

Blizzard woke up one day, and thought to themselves “You know what? We own some of
the greatest intellectual properties ever conceived, we own some of the greatest
development teams ever conceived, and we have more money than anyone could ever
conceive. Let’s make a game that grabs people by their genitals and wallet books, and
never let them go. Then, we will inadvertently stem the world’s population problem by
forcing billions of people into never showering or leaving their houses to reproduce.”After
getting the go-ahead from accounts receivable and the damned lord of the underworld
himself, they went ahead with their plan.





The irony is that I myself play World of Warcraft. I hate it passionately, but what they have
done is create a medium in which I interact with friends on a daily basis, while paying for
the ability to do so. Most people get bored of MMO’s once they’ve done it all, but Blizzard
realized this. Instead of letting their game run out of content, they update it constantly to
make sure people never leave. And the ones like me, who hate the game with unquivering
commitment and don’t care about the content, are stuck because our friends still play it.
But I like my friends, so it never ends. World of Warcraft is a fantastic game- it has tons of
polish, gameplay, and it’s bloody long too; but I thought that three years ago when I
finished it. Because there aren’t MMO’s out there to compete, whenever we finish our single
or multiplayer game experiences, we fire WOW back up and get back to work farming AV
tokens. That’s not necessarily a bad thing I suppose, and it’s nice to have something to
suck my life away so I don’t worry about trivial things like school and hygiene, but it
destroys the market. Think of it like this- When Bioshock came out, we all still bought
Episode 2. But how many people play more than one MMO at once? Because WOW is such a
potent force, people see no reason to go play something inferior.

I can’t play Bioshock forever, so I end up playing Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3 eventually
because these are experiences in which you take them in small amounts. WOW forces you
to pay a monthly fee, and so do most other MMOs. When you set a standard super high like
Bioshock or the Orange Box, developers take note and work towards it in the future. For
someone to overtake WOW, they have to do twice as better than Blizzard just to compete
because the time and financial strains force it that way. WOW has effectively killed a
massive portion of the creative gaming sector unfortunately.



3. World War II

World War II forced the geniuses in marketing of every gaming company in the world to
make a World War II game. There are more WWII franchises out there than the number of
people that play them- that’s an IP for every man, woman, and child that can use a
controller and thinks General Patton was the coolest guy ever. There are so many in fact,
that when everyone in the world is eventually killed off because baby seals in Antarctica
have sunburn or something, or god thinks we’ve become heathens (What a cunt.), the
aliens or future species that look back at our internet will think World War II was a fictional
setting made up by John Carmack and Activision. Now, I’m not saying WWII itself is killing
gaming, that’s a fallacy. I’m simply saying that like WOW has, it has forced developers who
don’t necessarily want to do something, to do something.





We all have this grand idea that every game development studio is like Valve where
everyone is free to discuss ideas and the future of the games they will make. The reality is
that there are burly men with whips who are told what to do by former Enron executives.
These rich men decide what their poor little coders and modelers will make, and if they
refuse, their families will be slaughtered with rusty cutlery. Hey, it’s the truth- and while we
might not like it, unfortunately, it’s our faults as well. Because we buy Medal of Honor
Eleventy Million and Three, people in loincloths bruise and bled helpless men and women
who craft our video games into submission.

Here’s something to chew on- notice how EA is doing a silly, fun, simple, and cartoony
game? If you think that it isn’t related to Team Fortress 2’s success, then close this window
and hurry back to your Battlefield whatever, I can’t remember how many games and
expansions they’ve released in the last five years.



4. Martyrdom

Who’s the foaming at the mouth idiot who thought it would be a good idea to take a
multiplayer game like Call of Duty 4, and let people get kills for simply dying? What was the
meeting for that like?

“Okay guys, listen. People are complaining that frags are too difficult. Joe, what do you
suggest?”

“Well, we could give players the ability to carry more grenades… maybe three?”

“Good direction Johnson, but that would require they still throw them. Does anyone who is
illiterate and legally retarded have any ideas?”

Then, as a million skilled gamers were grinding honor and getting mad frags, a disturbance
in the gaming force was felt as the dumbest man to ever live suggested “Well Mr. Buttler,
how about if when a player dies, they can choose an ability to drop a grenade for them.
This way, players don’t even have to turn their monitors on.” After being promoted and
subsequently choking on air, the man died. But the precedent was set- gaming companies
realized that they could cater to a mentally handicapped player base and it would all be for
the better. Join any COD4 server and at least half of it will be using martyrdom. People are
not ashamed of this fact, and have instead embraced it. And it’s not for the LOL factor
either- people honestly want more frags without having to do anything. If you complain
about it, people will ignore it like it’s a hot issue like immigration or something like that. Oh
shit, too soon?





5. Ah crap, there’s two hours left before servers reset and I need to get three more arena
games in or I’m going to miss out on my points. Sorry.