It has been a while since I’ve had any more conversations with anthropomorphic representations of MMO studios. Why? Because it’s not fun for me. Come one, you all ready the last time, Cryptic put my cat in a box and made me pay five dollars to get my cat back! Do you know what that was like? I was stuck in a catless hell for an awfully long time, even if I did wait until after his usual feeding time so he wasn’t screaming at me the whole time I was giving him his food.
That’s a real thing my cat does, for the record. That part isn’t a joke.
Anyhow, despite my desire to steer clear, the concepts won’t stay away no matter how many “NO ANTHROPOMORPHIC CONCEPTS” signs I stick in my front yard. I have subsequently compiled them into list format and present them to you here because sometimes life is bad but you’ve just got to monetize it somehow.
1. Catnip Games
Catnip Games: “Gimme all your money!”
Me: “What the hell?! Where did you come from?”
Catnip Games: “Come on, man, cough it up! I’ll shoot you!”
Me: “With what? That’s not a gun.”
Catnip Games: “It could be!”
Me: “It’s a bar of soap. It’s dripping.”
Catnip Games: “…come on, give me some money, please, I’m getting the shakes.”
Me: “I am calling the police.”
Catnip Games: “No! They’ll put me away for tax evasion, drug use, and illegal transport of farm animals!”
Me: “…wait, what?”
Catnip Games: “It’s been a weird few years, okay?!”
2. Arenanet
ArenaNet: “I have a new means of delivering dinner! I have hidden it in your house.”
Me: “But… I like just getting dinner.”
ArenaNet: “This gets you just as much dinner split up!”
Me: “Does it really?”
ArenaNet: “I contain half of a factory for making more human beings!”
Me: “Are you high or something?”
ArenaNet: “Fish don’t worry about being wet! AHHHHHHHHH next content update drops in four minutes.”
Note: ArenaNet then spent ten minutes running around the room, arms outstretched, making airplane noises until I left.
3. Daybreak
Me: “So you say this is a party and not a tag sale.”
Daybreak: “Yes.”
Me: “But we’re having it in your garage.”
Daybreak: “It’s the biggest room.”
Me: “And all of your stuff is arranged on tables.”
Daybreak: “I like it like this.”
Me: “With price tags on it.”
Daybreak: “That lets me know how much money I spent on things.”
Me: “So how stupid do you think I am?”
Daybreak: “Here, help me drive this stake into my kidney so people know how much that costs.”
4. Perfect World Entertainment
PWE: “Check it out, guy! We’re going to give you not one but two brand-new cars!”
Me: “Really?”
PWE: “Yep! One of them is even exactly the kind of car you want! The other one is more of a pickup truck.”
Me: “Wow, that’s really decent of you!”
Five hours later (dot jpeg)…
PWE: “Ahahaha! We tricked you! We pulled a trick on you! You thought we were getting you new cars but that’s not true!”
Me: “Let me guess, I’m getting toy cars.”
PWE: “Exactly! Didn’t we trick you? Aren’t we foolers?”
Me: “I like toys anyhow. You could have just told me you were giving me toys.”
PWE: “You were tricked and we are very clever!”
5. Blizzard
Blizzard: “Check out our new apartment!”
Me: “This is barely new. You just put a roof on it when before it was open-air.”
Blizzard: “Not true! It also costs $200 more in rent.”
Me: “Shouldn’t you be -”
Blizzard: “Here’s another new apartment!”
Me: “This apartment doesn’t have a floor.”
Blizzard: “It’s a classic experience.”
Me: “It’s on fire.”
Blizzard: “Jump on board the Blizzard Party Apartment Complex! More people than ever before showed up for our film festival!”
Me: “You mean when you were streaming Leni Riefenstahl films in the lobby until someone sued you?”
Blizzard: “Look, let’s stop arguing and go strangle some squirrels.”
Me: “I miss when you were pretending not to be evil.”
Blizzard: “Fifty more dark side points and I get horns!”
6. Catnip Games, again
The Police: “Catnip Games, formerly known as Portalarium, we have the building surrounded! Come out with your hands above your head!”
Catnip Games: “We’re in this together now, buddy.”
Me: “We’re not in anything together, you took me as a hostage!”
7. Gamigo
Gamigo: “We have purchased Old Man Trion’s Family Fun Restaurant!”
Me: “Cool! Hey, some parts of it are pretty bad, but with some actual development and money it could -”
Gamigo: “We only want the child playplace and the open-air eatery from it!”
Me: “What? Look, no one liked the breakfast menu or the desserts, but the actual core menu was -”
Gamigo: “We have already fired the cooking staff!”
Me: “Please stop interrupting me and listen to -”
Gamigo: “Our new open-air eatery will be food trucks forever!”
Me: “I am asking you to -”
Gamigo: “This is a good plan!”
Five hours later (dot jpeg)…
Gamigo: “How do food trucks work?!”
Five hours later (dot jpeg)…
Gamigo: “Does anyone know how to re-hire a cooking staff?”
Me: “Your open-air eatery is on fire again.”
8. Amazon Game Studios
AGS: “New plan! It turns out no one liked our parties in which there was no music or food and everyone just got angry, biting chinchillas thrown at them.”
Me: “I’m surprised you got that many chinchillas on short notice.”
AGS: “So here’s our fix:Â no more chinchillas.”
Me: “And?”
AGS: “…”
Me: “And what else?”
AGS: “…”
Me: “What are you doing to replace the chinchillas?”
AGS: “You said you didn’t like the chinchillas.”
9. Riot Games
Riot: “Don’t you like -”
Me: “No. Stop. Stop right now. Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear it.”
Riot: “What?”
Me: “You’re going to do something stupid, and it’s going to be a thinly veiled metaphor for how you’re copying some grotesque competitive game that I don’t like anyhow, and then we’re going to do some pastiche about how you’re making it chiefly for the Chinese market.”
Riot: “That wasn’t it.”
Me: “And then we’re going to talk in vague terms about how much real and tangible harm you and your way of developing games has done to the overall online games market, Bree and I are going to argue about the actual success prospects of your title, and I’m tired, all right? I am literally so tired of this. You are bad and I don’t like you and I don’t want to do anything talking about your new ripoff of another game that shouldn’t even be getting talked about!”
Riot: “Turn around.”
Me: “Oh crap you’re naked!”
Riot: “You could be too.”
Me: “Right, I forgot you’re gross in several ways.”
Riot: “Baby, don’t be like that.”
10. Cryptic
Cryptic: “All right, all right, I’m getting the door, hold your… oh my God. You?”
Me: “Me.”
Cryptic: “We… we had a really bad fight last time.”
Me: “I know.”
Cryptic: “I’m not going to change who I am.”
Me: “I know that, too.”
Cryptic: “…damn it, I still love you.”
Me: “I wish I could quit you.”
Cryptic: “Why did you come back?”
Me: “At the end of the day… there’s too much to love. There’s too much good. Compared to so many others, you -”
Cryptic: “LOCKBOX: THE NEXT GENERATION!”
Me: “It stings like love. And getting hit in the head with a box. Ow.”
World of Warcraft offers an extra 30 days of subscription time for Dragonflight gift purchases through December
Perfect Ten: Conversations with anthropomorphic MMO studios IV: The Voyage Home
Perfect Ten: Son of conversations with anthropomorphic MMO studios
Perfect Ten: More anthropomorphic MMO studio conversations
Perfect Ten: Conversations with anthropomorphic concepts of MMO studios
Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten takes an MMO topic and divvies it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. Got a good idea for a list? Email us at justin@massivelyop.com or eliot@massivelyop.com with the subject line “Perfect Ten.”
