Braid creator Jonathan Blow isn’t a big fan of social networking games, apparently. In an interview with PC Gamer, the Braid dev described games like Farmville as “evil” and mostly about “exploiting your friends list”.
“It’s about using your friends as resources to progress in the game, which is the opposite of actual sociality or friendship,” he said, arriving at the obvious conclusion ahead of approximately 98% of Facebook users. “There’s no other word for it except evil. Of course you can debate anything, 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. And that’s exactly what [most of these games are].”
He goes on to explain how games are designed to disguise this exploitation.
“The thing about these games though is they’re made to look really light and friendly or whatever. So it’s very difficult especially for someone to think about games and how their design affects the world – which is most people in the world, they don’t think about that, right? It’s very difficult for them to see how this could possibly be detrimental in any way. They’re just like, ‘Oh, I’m clicking on the items, I’m having fun’,” he said.
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