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 This is hard to explain. Something's happening to Cow Clicker.
Some months ago, evil bovine lords broke into Cow Clicker and started making demands. Their mysterious clues became the Cow ClickARG, which, Inception-like, sent up Alternate Reality Games from within the send-up of a Facebook game. Clues were scattered by the "bovine gods" around the globe, where "cowllective intelligence" helped solve the mystery.
The result was the following message, which my most able clickers quickly decoded:
The cowpocalyse cometh, revealing its methane time-bomb. The bovine evildoers have initially set the moo-msday date to 21 July, which just happens to be Cow Clicker's birthday, and one month from today. But a dark udder hangs overhead: for every cow that is clicked by anyone in the game, thirty seconds are removed from the cowntdown timer. If it elapses, the entire clicking center will shut down. As I told my clickers, we are in a battle with and against our very pointers.
Yet the bovine gods, ever jealous and greedy, have opened the door to a solution, but it is a solution out of my hands:
But perhaps you can stop them by paying supplication to the ruminant gods. If your oblation is deemed worthy by the fractious bovinity, then time will be added to the doomsday clock, staving off the cowpocalypse... for now.
Bovine supplication involves... paying Facebook Credits as sacrifice!
So now the fate of Cow Clicker is in the hands of its players. Either the timer will elapse and it will meet its doom, or they will choose to supplicate to the bovinity, staying enough clicks ahead of themselves to keep the game running, perhaps perpetually. Or, perhaps yet another possible fate still awaits Cow Clicker...
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Bogost should be able to make money, but it certainly hurts his satirical, outsider cred when he engages some of the very activities he's satirizing. It'd be like Jon Stewart running for political office -- I wouldn't be against it, but he could no longer be a valuable, truth telling outsider.
It's pretty interesting to see the gauntlet thrown down. If this fails, what will Ian try next? Who will tire first? Ian in trying to make a point, or the compulsive cow clickers?
Why is it the responsibility of the satirist to avoid being cynical about how their money is collected? At least their target market is in on the joke.
However, I don't know that I agree with what I imagine is Bogost's message. I've spent Facebook dollars on Facebook games I play a lot, not because I want the boosts to my gameplay, but as a way of supporting companies that make good games.
Additionally, I get the feeling that people will pay for Cow Clicker for similar reasons -- as a vote of support for a clever idea. "Vote with your wallets!"
If people are supporting Cow Clicker out of a desire to support satirical art, it negates the satirical idea of people spending money on nothing -- people are spending in support of satire itself.
Anyway, I don't really get it.
I'm pretty sure I've discussed it elsewhere (I can't remember where; I'll look), but I see no inconsistency between profit and satire.
All this assumes I'm even making money in the first place. What do you think? :)
Making fun of someone who victimizes others is one thing. Victimizing others to make fun of victimization is little bit harder to take.
But I think the hurtfulness of games satirizing us depends on the level of duplicity. A game like Brathwaite's "Train" relies heavily on duplicity. Newsgaming's September 12th relies on a little duplicity, while Bogost's is completely open -- players voluntarily give money and they know exactly what they're going to receive -- in that way, they are volunteers not victims.
Regardless, interactive arts can be a powerful way of shining an uncomfortable reflection on ourselves -- it's just a question of how much people will let themselves be satirized. (Honestly, how many people would voluntarily go to a comedy club if they KNEW they were going to be singled out and made fun of the by comedian?)
I mean, there are a several theories you could be testing:
- that people are willing to pay real money for a stupid privilege to click a silly cartoon cow,
- that a community will form around the "common good" of having the game go on,
- that a social dynamic will emerge from the fact that time is a common resource that someone has to replenish but everyone wants to use up,
- etc.
But all these are rendered moot, because anything that players do at this point they may be doing because they're taking part in a social-game-themed joke.
(*I'm rather convinced that women are a lost cause to me)
Actually, I take that back. When I saw a video of a rat obsessively pushing a lever, believing it would receive food pellets, I understood humanity a bit better, but simply lost a lot of faith in it. Surely, we're better than rats!
Child's Play? Electronic Frontier Foundation? Click for a Change? Games that Give?
...
oh.
Bully for you, Ian. ;)
But it's so fun to be an asshole on the Internet, isn't it?
Haters gonna hate.
if I can try that again:
"Bully" was an irresistible pun at the time,
";)" was my only clue that this was irony,
I do support devs making money on their creations.
Please accept my sincere apologies. It was a poor joke that should be considered withdrawn. :(
I am highly intrigued... and whether or not you intend to give the money to charity, don't tell anyone! It will skew your ever so interesting findings. :(
The only way to win is not to play.