by Jeff Woleslagle on May 23, 2011
Welcome to the first edition of Reloading
It has been quite some time since Ive written a column for TenTonHammer.com.
It has been so long that I cant even find a copy of one of my original columns
on the site. I guess they were just that awesome; even the
Internet forgot about them.
Choosing a topic for the first edition of any column is a daunting task.
It has to be something that people might actually care about.
Unfortunately, what people really care about seems to be nothing short of
obnoxious. At my most odious I cant hold a candle to the most
viewed videos on YouTube.
First up is Airport Pr0n by a
spikey haired gent who, like many attention seekers, uses three names, Ray William
Johnson. This video has generated over 2,900,000 views.
Seriously? How many times can his mom watch that thing?
The next most popular home school video is
Candy BBQ by EpicMealTime.
Its like a train wreck. You dont want to watch, but you cant turn your
eyes away. This disaster had over 1,600,000 views. The main
man in this little ditty wears a shirt that says Sauce Boss. There
are far too many jokes in there to ever pick just one.
After watching those, I pretty much ruled out being popular.
I dont like to look up facts, detest grammar, and cant be popular.
Looks like a big win.
Just when it seemed that all hope was lost I came across a World of Warcraft
article at GamesBeat titled Why
I (and probably 600,000 others) stopped playing World of Warcraft.
Again, seriously? Isnt it a bit presumptuous to think that because
they came up with a reason to do something, that every single other person must
have the same reason? Many of you have heard of Occams Razor.
The more educated of you have heard of lex parsimoniae.
Whether you are in grade four or an MBA it all boils down to the theory that the
simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation. Taking
Occams Razor to the extreme makes headlines, or does it?
Mike Morhaime, Blizzards Chief Executive thinks that players blew through
the Cataclysm content faster than developers expected and because of this they
unsubscribed until new content was available. This hypothesis
seems logical to me. If I didnt have so many alt characters Id probably
be bored with the game too.
GamesBeat disagrees with Mr. Morhaime. They believe that the game
is simply too hard and that players quit in droves of nerd rage and face
palming.
What we have here is a chasm of philosophy so wide that even Lady Gaga
couldnt come up with something to say about it. Blizzard thinks the
game is too easy and a writer who believes to be representing every person who
unsubscribed thinks the game is too hard. Im not sure that there is
a lot of common ground there other than they both play the same game.
Perhaps, just maybe, Mike Morhaime is right. Perhaps, it isnt
that the game is too hard, but rather that some gamers (not all) feel a sense of
entitlement to experience content whether or not they are physically or mentally
capable of doing so. I watched a great video the other day
about this exact thing. Comedian Louis CK sums up how I feel about gamers
who cant see the awesome in a game because they feel entitled to something they
simply arent capable of experiencing. Enjoy
Everythings Amazing and
Nobody Is Happy.
following pages.
Is WoW too hard? Is it too
easy? This feels suspiciously like a three bears story I used to tell my
kids. Leave a comment and have your say. Anyone who doesnt
comment obviously agrees with me. Those who disagree model their
lives after One Tree Hill. Thanks!
--
Vin Diesel Fact of the Day: Vin Diesel can divide by zero.
--
Real World News (You cant make this stuff up)
From the In-The-Center-Ring-Dept. --Until we meet again,
John Boomjack Hoskin