When you watch this video I want you think substitute "cult leader" for "game designer", and "cult member" for "game player" - particularly in the context of online, free-to-play games.
I had a dream the other night that I was being enslaved by a gang of thugs, smuggled across borders with a group of women, like the film Trade - which I watched over Megavideo while searching for the film "Rogue Trader". There were rapes, random killings as a means of reinforcing fear, victimization of children, escape attempts that ended poorly, and when I woke up I looked up at the ceiling and thought "this is why the New World Order is being instituted. Gentle slavery can be sold as an alternative to brutal slavery."
Consider the primal human that lives in us, consider the regressions that go on in situations where modern comforts are lacking, such as in Haiti, or perhaps Liberia (one-sided as that depiction of current-day Liberia may be). Contrast that kind of extreme brutality with the douche-tastic domesticated man, perhaps nowhere better exemplified than a Davos panel discussion. Now do you see why the New World Order, and indeed, the less iShiny old world order, are so damn appealing despite the mind-number shite Hollywood puts out and the stupid zoning ordinances and the taxes and the time-wasting meetings? The problem is fundamentally one of government, not nessecarily in the political sense, if we are not governed by incomplete systems of law then we are governed by ancient evolutionary psychology, by fear, lust, petty territoriality, and a desire for more MSG-laden Cheetos(tm).
It can be said that the evolution of humanity since the dawn of history has come by the proxy of technology, but this would be too vague, a platitude along the lines of saying "people are basically good." A more precise thing to say would be: human evolution throughout history has come by proxy of mind-control technology - and while I'm specifying - people are basically "good" to the extent that their dopamine receptors can be synchronized to common cues. "Game design", as we call the practice of establishing algorithms with human components, is just the latest successor to a long line mind-control technologies, from basic social posturing to symbolic writing to television. And this term "mind control" doesn't have to be one sided, there's a dynamic between manipulative mind control - which we associated with Orwellian dictatorships or commercial advertising - and self-enforced mind control, which we could associate with discipline, meditation, and effective management. "Game" is a term that obscures the stark potential of this form, it sells the world on childish entertainments while delivering the most potent mechanism of mind control ever conceived. What else do you call the capacity to develop something in five weeks that results in an average of dozens of hours of compulsive clicking from tens of millions of people?
I see the project of humanity right now as building a grand web of mind control, one that can curtail the chaotic brutality through economic co-opting, and also one that can reflexively break free of trace-like thrall that domesticated man finds himself in. Games can both wire people for compulsive time-wasting and spending (not unlike the services economy we've been in the for the past several decades, but more efficient) and they can also educate, enlighten and ennoble. Maybe they do both in some players regardless of design intentions, I've heard that guild leaders in WoW are exalted for the management skills they develop when co-coordinating large groups, but they're surely the minority compared to those that can't remember doing anything in the past five years. It's my hope and ambition that these reflexive, positive properties can piggyback on commercial success, and perhaps later, that they can be wholly unleashed for the mental freedom of everyone, so that the mind-control mechanisms are individually distributed rather than emanating from a monolithic beacon of opportunistic design.
By the way I got a job designing social network games.
Lessons
#1: Design it like an onion. Dry, benign and useful and the outside and kooky, controlling, and evil on the inside. This tells us to make a game that's easy to pick up with initiially straightforward gameplay. Later, at higher levels, or on some deeper gameplay mechanic is the place to put the kooky ideas, the addicting quality, glimpses of plot, or "the juicy bits".
#2: LIE. As a DM, I'm a big fan of giving false intel to my players.
#2a: Develop a front group. ie, get them to initially play the online game as part of a web loading page, or as a charity thing, or (in a social-network game) make it part of interacting with others. Like a version of a facebook poke that turns out to be a game.
#3: Offer something free. This is a great business model. I'd go so far as to call it nessesary these days.
#4: Remove them from family and surround them with true believers. Well, if they're playing, they're already separated. But the lesson here is to establish a community of true fans. Each true fans generate a number of casual fans, and maybe even a few more true fans.
#5: Start with love. Learn them, their weaknesses, and how to love them. Yes, start with endearing yourself to the player base. You can't start a marketing campaign saying you're going to make the player your bitch. That never turns out well. Learning who you player base is, is also important. But if the player base loves you, then they will feel bad for stealing your products, and be far more quicker to go for their wallets. Free wallpapers, or in-game gimick.
#6: Then control them by granting or with-holding that love. Hey, those wallpapers now depend on a small donation.
#7: Control their behavior. Uh sure, you can guide them on how to play your game... yeah.
#8: Rigid schedule. Yep, this sounds like WoW and facebook games. "sorry we raid on thursdays" has been the escuse wayyy too often. And last tursday, my DM took breaks to play his fucking facebook game. "It has timed events" is also a piss-poor excuse.
#9: Keep them active with little sleep. There's a reason that you can only perform an action every 4 hours. Because 8 hours would be long enough to get some REM.
#10: Control emotions. Hey, any good plot should be able to make you suspenseful, happy, sad, excited, or thoughful. That's just a good game.
#11: Claim authority. Bullshit science is a gold-mine for sci-fi games. And referencing biblical events could become hip again, but probably only to a niche audience. Bullshit mysticism from foreign lands work well.
#12: Practice thought stopping excersises. Like point and click skill games.
#13: Make them part of an elite group with a mission. Throwing in some real world actions could be neat, but difficult. Involvment with elections would be effective, but those end. You need a long-term mission like giving the game some sort of cause, like breast cancer awareness.
#14: Make scapegoats, enemies, an us-vs-them attitude. Making the Telcom companies the main antagonist in a game would be fantastic. Any server problems? Dem dastardly ISPs be squeezing our toobs in retaliation!
#15: Encourage mind-body dualism ending in transcendence. The avatar in the game is of course the other half of the player. Transcending reality involves becoming immersed in the game.
No lessons: Restrict eating habits, Control thoughts, information, Attack the self, encourage a breakdown, claim it's spiritual awakening, Demonizing early life, create false-crimes, Indoctrinate with fear.
Our book is going to be
Our book is going to be called "the99th and HeckRuler on Game Design/Mind Control". Good inferences.