Ahead of the Curve

I like to be ahead of the curve. To that end I hereby declare myself to be the first anti-anti-anti-anti-really-hardcore-gamer.

First, you have people. People like to play neat games.

Some people like to play games more than other people. These people finish playing their game and look around them. "Hey," they say, "how come nobody wants to play this game with me?" So they create the distinction: gamer and non-gamer.

Gamers think they can convert non-gamers to playing games if they spread the truth. When they realize that they can't, they distinguish between gamers, not-yet-gamers, and anti-gamers. Anti-gamers, sick of being told that they have to play games that they don't like, go along with this, and complain about gamers playing too much, wanting to think too much, and spending too much of their money on games.

Along come the anti-anti-gamers, who deride the anti-gamers as the hordes lead by Hasbro, obviously too ruled by their subservient nature to understand real games.

Lately, we have seen a wave of anti-anti-anti-gamers, who say that they like to play good games on occasion, but that they are not obsessed with them, and hey, they still like Monopoly. This movement is gaining strength.

It must be stopped.

I hereby declare the formation of the anti-anti-anti-anti-really-hardcore-gamers league (abbrev: AAAARGH [sic]). Our aim is to once again swing the pendulum the other way. Our tenets:

- Our games are better than your games. So shut up, and stop defending mediocrity.

- Time playing games is time well spent. Time drinking beer, watching television, going to movies, reading books, having light conversations, and all of that other crap is fine, if that's what you're into. Don't bother us about it.

- More games is better, as long as they're good games. Stop saying otherwise. If you don't buy the good games and introduce them to your friends, you are just sponging off the generosity of those who do.

- People have been playing Monopoly in some form or another since the early-1900's, and since then people have killed more people more violently than any other period in human history. The world would be a whole lot better off if all people stopped killing each other or trying to persuade each other about religion, politics, what car they should buy, or whose butt looks bigger on television, and instead played better games.

Join us. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

Yehuda