[casual_games] Jonathan Blow interview: Do you believe social games are evil? “Yes. Absolutely.”

[Adam Martin]

IMHO this is just a case of indie developers (finally) starting to
understand the concept of "marketing" in a bit more depth than the 101
stuff.

With my PR hat on, this is great stuff: highly contentious (and
potentially dangerous) quotes - and yet, nowhere near as
career-damaging as declaring that a certain console is ****. "Evil" is
emotive, but just vague enough that you can get away with it in ways
that you can't when you target billion-dollar brands. *ahem*.

I'd also add that - in true marketing style - this whole conversation
is about 6 months behind the curve. Which is about right for a
mass-market promotional piece - people at the coal face have moved on,
but Joe Public is still intrigued and yet to catch-up. Anyone who
still thinks Zynga is the company from "that SF Weekly article" is
living in dreamland. FB games moves much, much faster than that.

IMHO. YMMV. etc...

Adam

On 15 February 2011 21:36, Lennard Feddersen <lennard at rustyaxe.com> wrote:

> I just paid $6.50 for a valentines card (didn't know this until I hit the

> till).  That piece of dead wood was manufactured and then trucked thousands,

> literally, of miles so that it could be glanced at quickly and ultimately

> disposed of.  Since the impact of most of what we do casually today is going

> to be borne by future generations... I'm gonna make the case that Valentines

> - as the big commercial enterprise it is today, is actually pretty evil when

> you look at all of the resources we consume and then dispose of.  We could

> just turn to each other and say we love each other or go out of our way to

> do something truly heartfelt.

>

> Lot's of stuff to be taken apart before V-Day but, really, it's evil.

>

> Lennard Feddersen

> Owner, Rusty Axe Games,

> www.RustyAxe.com

> 250-635-7623

>

> On 15/02/2011 11:06 AM, Matthew Wegner wrote:

>

> Did you read his definition?

> " but the general definition of evil in the real world, where there isn’t

> like the villain in the mountain fortress, is selfishness to the detriment

> of others or to the detriment of the world."

>

> Valentines aren't selfish to the detriment of others.  Most social exchanges

> aren't, either.

> Best,

> Matthew

> On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 11:33 AM, Hal Barwood <hal at finitearts.com> wrote:

>>

>> Evil?  What a silly idea.  If social games are "evil" then the vast

>> collection of social tokens that people routinely exchange, all of which

>> have the characteristics Mr. Blow despises so energetically -- including

>> ahem, valentines -- must be included.  So what if play is asynchronous?  So

>> what if I hang out with people I already know rather than meet new ones who

>> want to shoot me in CounterStrike?  --Hal

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