Fuck E3. I wasn’t planning on coming in this hot, but seriously, fuck E3. Every year, I come into this shit hoping to see an announcement for one game, and ever year I reach the end of E3 the Emotional Extortion Expo more pissed off than before it started. I realize that’s what E3 really means, but I’m being edgy here and I’m very upset.
For anyone who is not familiar with E3 the Excrement Ejaculation Expo (also not what it really means, I think), it is a videogame convention where all the hottest companies try to increase their market value and stock prices by announcing games and/or videogame consoles that are mostly safe money making bets and are also not going to release for another three years. Then they show trailers for games they announced three years ago with the money shot moment coming at the end of each trailer when the release date finally confirms that, yes, the game will be dropping in time for Christmas.
Fans tend to react to trailers by pretending it was the first time they heard the game was coming out. They also repeatedly post “HOLY SHIT!” on Twitter upon hearing of the games that will come out in three years, of which we have zero details. It’s kind of like if Christmas morning meant coming downstairs to find that all your presents were vouchers to pay full price for new, slightly better looking versions of things you already own.
But those are the fans who get the announcements and trailers they wanted. On the other end of the spectrum are gaming fans like me who tend to say shit like, “Fuck E3,” when we don’t get what we want. A lot of these fans wanted Valve (a game developer but also a corporate marketplace giant) to announce Half-Life 3 and to include them as the main character in Half-Life 3 and for there to be a new breakthrough in VR technology where they can basically live in Half-Life 3 and that’s their entire world and they will never not be in Half-Life 3 from its release onward. Other fans wanted some quasi-obscure niche game announced which would include my wife, who has been waiting like 7 years for Pikmin 4 to drop.
Well, fuck all the previously mentioned people. I’ve been waiting over twenty years for some game company to announce a game, and that game is The Game, a game detailed in the movie The Game, which is a movie about the game The Game (developed by Consumer Reaction Services [CRS]). Readers may remember The Game (the movie, not the game The Game) as that thing where Michael Douglas plays a character who plays a game called The Game. That’s what The Game (the movie) is about, but what is The Game (the game)?
I’m glad I asked on your behalf. I’m very smart to have asked this question.
Hopefully, now that you, the reader, realize I am a very smart boy, you will want to be my friend. As a person who is not especially outgoing or friendly or likable, I sometimes have trouble making friends. I’m a real asshole and socially awkward. I talk down to everybody while talking over them, and I suck at making direct eye contact. Other than my wife, who married me for reasons I cannot comprehend (and who would have trouble leaving me because we own a house together and also have one kid and another on the way), I have never had even one friend.
Basically, people don’t like me. At all. But maybe you’ll be my friend because I asked that one question to myself. Maybe you’ll think I’m a smart boy and you were looking to make friends with a smart boy. This could be a match made in heaven, you and I. A friendship made in heaven, really.
Let’s think of some things we could do while hanging out:
- Drink sour beer. I like sours a lot. I specifically like fruit sours, and the sourer they are, the better. We could drink some sours together, but I hate the feeling of being drunk so not too many.
- Foods I like are: pizza, tacos, Indian, ice cream and clams/oysters/mussels (in that order, but I’ll take any of those three). We could eat those foods together. That could be a lot of fun.
- Watch some NBA games? I like basketball, but only real NBA basketball. We don’t even need to talk much while we watch. We could just watch and “hang”.
- If you also have a child or children, we could get together and have a playdate for our kids. They could become friends while we become friends. I’ll be wary of you if you want to hang out with my kid when you have none of your own, though.
- I love games, and the kinds of games I love are all kinds of games. My favorite game is The Game (the game, not the movie The Game), which I will tell you about now.
The Game (the game, not the movie) is a game that fucks up your entire life. You give Consumer Reaction Services all your personal information, undergo comprehensive tests where they find out everything about how you think, feel and react to any situation and they strip you naked and tell you the meat sac that is your body is “super fuckable” and makes them “extremely horny”, which is obviously a very uncomfortable thing for a group of doctors and technicians to tell you. This is all the start of the game that is The Game. This is how they build the game around you.
Oh fuck, what is it that? What I just wrote is true. This isn’t some procedurally generated bullshit. This isn’t a game designed for the masses. This is a game specifically designed around everything about you, and it’s intrusive as fuck. They know all your triggers and what makes you feel safe. The Game (the game) is a series of events meant to break you.
That fucking rules.
What the game The Game does best is use The D.E.N.N.I.S. Method as a means for controlling your entire life. This is a system of sociopathic human interaction detailed in the television show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And to understand The Game (the game, not the movie), you must understand how each step of the game The Game is actually a step of The D.E.N.N.I.S. Method.
Now, for the sake of clarity here, I should mention a few things about how The Game (the game) functions. This entire game is meant to be indistinguishable from your actual life. Consider it a form of augmented reality, only it doesn’t use any electronic devices or gaming systems. All the NPCs (non-playable characters) are real people in your life or actors, and they integrate themselves in the real world with people who aren’t part of the game at all. If that sounds potentially dangerous, it is. That’s all part of the game that is the game The Game!
When you are walking to work, you’re playing this game The Game (the game, not the movie). When you’re sleeping, you’re playing. When you’re on the toilet, oh boy are you playing! You are never not playing once you start a game of The Game (the game). Once it commences, it doesn’t un-commence.
You may think that it must be hard to distinguish between real life and The Game (by which, I mean the game – it shouldn’t be hard to distinguish between real life and the movie The Game, which you would be watching on a television or something), and you would be right about that. It’s very hard to distinguish the two, and that’s all part of the game, buddy. (Is it okay that I call you “buddy” so soon? I don’t want to seem too needy.) The game that is The Game uses this confusion to its advantage. It’s the very fact that real life and game life are indistinguishable that distinguishes the game The Game from other games that are not The Game (the game, not the movie).
D – Demonstrate Value: It starts with your brother giving you a voucher to play the game The Game and telling you it will change your life. As an emotionally fucked up human being whose wife has just left you and whose father committed suicide while you jerked off, watching, a change in your shitty life is considered very valuable.
E – Engage Physically: The game The Game does this almost immediately by physically hurting you and by shooting gun bullets in your direction. This physical interaction makes gamers shriek, “Holy shit! I think the game The Game (the game, not the movie) is real and not a game after all!” It creates a new conception of reality.
N – Nurturing Dependence: At some point, you will interact with a hot waitress who is actually an employee of CRS and will become the only person you trust because she will lie to you in a way that makes you trust her, which is rad. Each lie will be personal and designed so you trust her unquestionably even though it’s pretty stupid to do so.
N – Neglect Emotionally: At some point in The Game (the game, not the movie), the waitress/CRS employee/liar will drug you and make you think you got scammed into giving up your vast fortune to CRS in what would be the con job of the century and also bury you in a tomb in Mexico. This emotional neglect will have you thinking, “Maybe The Game (the game) was a big mistake.”
I – Inspire Hope: Through a series of hilarious events, you will find yourself holding hostage the waitress/CRS employee/friend? on a rooftop somewhere. This is the point where she will tell you that it’s all a hoax and the game The Game is honestly just a game. She will tell you that your friends and family are on the other side of the door in front of you which you are both standing, and you have won the game. For the briefest of moments, being told the actual, honest-to-god truth makes you feel hopeful that maybe your life didn’t just get ruined completely. That is, of course, until your archnemesis appears…
S – Separate Entirely: …an as-of-yet-unseen person opening the door this lady just said would lead to friends and family. The psychological tests CRS administered had already revealed that you hate it when doors open, so you do the only thing anyone in your position would do, which is shoot whatever the fuck is on the other side of the door, no matter what it is.
Surprise! It’s your brother, and you’re pretty sure you just killed him. This is where the game separates entirely from you in the way only the game The Game knows how. It has broken you down mentally and physically over the course of several days so that this familicide pushes you literally over the edge and through a window in an attempted suicide.
The Game (the game) ends here. You have won the game (The Game)! By either successfully or unsuccessfully completing a game-induced suicide, you are the winner! Congrats!
Clearly, this game is awesome, and it’s a tragedy that another E3 has passed without the announcement of another game of The Game – the best game in gaming history.
Maybe next year, I guess.
I’m fucking pissed.