Braid Creator Calls Social Games "Evil"

[Kouen Hasuki]

Social games encourage people to use their friends as resources, says the outspoken indie developer.

Jonathan Blow, the auteur developer behind indie hit Braid, has weighed in on social games, and as usual, he's not mincing his words. Blow described social games as "evil," not in a mustache-twirling, Saturday-morning-villain kind of way, but as a more genuine expression of selfishness.

What's more, Blow though that name "social games" is actually something of a misnomer, because players usually couldn't meet anyone new. Blow said that games like World of Warcraft or Counter Strike were actually much more socially orientated, as players could forge new relationships with the members of their clan or guild and then work as a team. He thought that social games largely just exploited the friends list you already had, and were more about using your friends as resources, rather than working together.

Interestingly, he said that the players weren't really to blame for letting themselves be taken advantage of, as he didn't think that they were aware that it was happening. He said that social games were designed to be inviting, which made it difficult for people to realize that they were being exploited. Instead, he blamed the developers, who he said were degrading the quality of the players' lives.

He thought that the design philosophy of social games was to find new ways to siphon cash out of the players' pockets, and no effort was made to add anything to their lives. He said that it didn't matter to him if people were deriving pleasure from the game, because they were unethically designed and all about exploitation. Blow said that there was no other way to describe social games other than "evil," which he defined as, "selfishness to the detriment of others or to the detriment of the world."

It's impossible deny that social games are designed to make money out of their players - Zynga's recent multi-billion dollar is a testament to how effective that design is - but to call them evil seems a little excessive. Blow might might not like social games, but to say that they degrade the people who play them is verging on hyperbole.

Source: PC Gamer

Whats everyone's thoughts on this you agree? Disagree?

[Slacker Magician]

I more or less agree, social games are pretty stupid. I think part of the trick to social games is to make it as easy as possible to enable even the dumbest of people to be able to play. Once you have a large enough following you start throwing ads and then add ways to spend real cash on in game garbage.

[sockesocke]

i have to agree with this as well, to be honest its not the games fault but rather the players fault. the human being is selfish and cruel and you can observe this best if you put a lot of people together (online or otherwise). other than that i pretty much agree with everything shardnax has said.

[Aeolus Aeneas]

Playing with other people in general is just evil and wrong to begin with.

[Miss Piggy]

Depends on which game you look at. While i agree with this on WoW and Cunter Strike, I would not on, say, SCII. On games where it`s like "buy this sword/gun for only for only 29.99$ u.s" is a load of garbage. BUT if you look at somthing like SCII or any console social game, all the updates are free(mostly) and there is no real chance to spend to much time with this person you met in a random match, then i think it`s fine.

[Dr. Ivo Robotnik]

Depends on which game you look at. While i agree with this on WoW and Cunter Strike, I would not on, say, SCII. On games where it`s like "buy this sword/gun for only for only 29.99$ u.s" is a load of garbage. BUT if you look at somthing like SCII or any console social game, all the updates are free(mostly) and there is no real chance to spend to much time with this person you met in a random match, then i think it`s fine.

Yeah. That's why StarCraft II isn't considered a social game. And precious few console social games exist.

EDIT: At least, to my knowledge. Sorry, that sounded depressingly arrogant.

[Miss Piggy]

Yeah. That's why StarCraft II isn't considered a social game. And precious few console social games exist.

EDIT: At least, to my knowledge. Sorry, that sounded depressingly arrogant.

Well now that i think of it SCII isn`t REALLY a social game because it`s mostly quick matches... there goes my argument.

[skullpoker]

Well with the reference to Zynga this seems to be referring to Facebook apps and related content. The fact that news stories are popping up about people killing their children for these games says to me that this lunatic is absolutely right. People spend hours each day doing this and then shake their baby to death for crying, or leave their child in the tub to drown. This seems to be either Evil, or an agent of Natural Selection. XD

[Aeolus Aeneas]

Natural selection isn't a child drowning in a tub because the parent was busy with Facebook; that's something which shouldn't have happened at all, and that parent is just a horrible person. What makes it evil, though, is that companies like Zynga being supposedly worth billions of dollars and then having grumblings of the higher ups basically saying that they must copy what's popular until they get it down, then make money off of it.

[skullpoker]

Somebody stupid enough to let their child drown in a bath most likely produced equally stupid offspring. How "horrible" they are as a person surely springs from that stupidity. That's why I said Natural Selection. This person should have done the Human race the favor of never having reproduced. Sadly, you failed to deduce my intent. I hope you will do us the favor these Zynga parents should have. Thanks!

[Hobomaster]

Agreed. Facebook and facebook games also worth a mention.

[Aeolus Aeneas]

Somebody stupid enough to let their child drown in a bath most likely produced equally stupid offspring. How "horrible" they are as a person surely springs from that stupidity. That's why I said Natural Selection. This person should have done the Human race the favor of never having reproduced. Sadly, you failed to deduce my intent. I hope you will do us the favor these Zynga parents should have. Thanks!

Stupidity is not genetic; there is no proof of the child being as stupid as the parent. Nor was such an event very natural; it was the parent being stupid enough to be distracted by a machine long enough for the child to die, not a disease that took the child's life because it wasn't fit enough to survive.

This was about as natural of selection as an old lady being killed in her home by a robber.

[Wolf the Knight]

Stupidity is not genetic; there is no proof of the child being as stupid as the parent. Nor was such an event very natural; it was the parent being stupid enough to be distracted by a machine long enough for the child to die, not a disease that took the child's life because it wasn't fit enough to survive.

This was about as natural of selection as an old lady being killed in her home by a robber.

People are how they were raised. Its not genetics and its not rocket science.
In terms of what Science says about things though is never 100% true because its all man made.

[Slacker Magician]

Stupidity is not genetic; there is no proof of the child being as stupid as the parent. Nor was such an event very natural; it was the parent being stupid enough to be distracted by a machine long enough for the child to die, not a disease that took the child's life because it wasn't fit enough to survive.

This was about as natural of selection as an old lady being killed in her home by a robber.

Pretty much, the old lady would probably club them with a pan though .