Game On

Lots of gaming stuff in the New York Times over the past couple of days beginning with Rob Walker's Consumed column in the Sunday mag about an "anti-advergame" called Disaffected! that actually lets you experience the misery of working at Kinkos. The game's message? "We're sick of seeing this colonization happen, and we want something out there that makes the advertisers realize that games can bite back."

Next up the Times looks at the global phenomenon that is WOW, which has become "the first truly global video-game hit since Pac-Man in the early 1980's." I think this quote sums up the secret to the game's success:

"I think the real key to WOW's success has been the sheer variety and amount of things to do, and how easy it is to get into them," said Kim Daejoong, 29, a doctor of traditional herbal medicine in Iksan, Korea, who had traveled to Seoul for one of the Chosen's regular in-person sessions.

"Hard-core gamers will play anything, no matter how difficult it is," Mr. Kim said. "But in order to be a mainstream game for the general public, it has to be easily accessible, and there have to be lots of things for you to do, even alone. What WOW has done better than other games is be able to appeal to both audiences — hard-core players and more casual players — all within one game and bring them together. That's why you've seen people all over the world get into the game."

There's also an article about the gaming industry developing more games for girls, which feels like a flashback to the late 90s (remember Purple Moon?). Granted, the games are less obviously girly and more Sims-like, but the idea is still essentially that girls aren't as into annihilating stuff in a game and prefer stories and social interaction. This reminded me of what someone was telling me at FOO Camp — basically that There.com, a virtual reality game which started out being targeted to twenty and thirtysomething gamers and then did a bunch of work with the military, has become very popular with teens — and especially teen girls. She said it's actually easier to play than Second Life and has higher numbers of teens participating. Once indicator is this recent fashion design competition held in-game. My FOO friend also mentioned there has been a rash of teen girls begging for money in There.com to buy clothes…

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