Reading comprehension is an important skill that one could argue is being lost to the flood of hot takes and those who absorb only headlines. A flagrant display of this failure to understand what was written (and that’s the generous description) was brought to light by veteran MMORPG developer Raph Koster on Twitter, who shared a passage from an article by a writer who apparently tried to spin Koster’s 20-year-old book Theory of Fun for Game Design as a treatise against “woke messaging” – with Koster’s rebuttal exuding all of the energy of a disappointed professor casting an exhausted stare through a cloud of pipe smoke.
The snippet tries to claim that Koster’s book argues “woke messaging is fundamentally incompatible with a fun, satisfying video game” because good games respect players’ intelligence while “woke games” treat players like “idiots who need to be lectured and have their expectations subverted.”
“This person has fundamentally misunderstood my work,” Koster writes in defense of his actual position and words on the actual page of the actual book. “I argue no such thing. All forms of media lecture. *The article the author wrote* lectures. It’s on the reader or player as to what they think. Those who dislike the ‘woke messaging’ should take it as ‘challenging and teaching’ and then make up their own minds.”
The article came on the heels of Koster’s talk at this year’s GDC in which this person was reportedly an attendee. Clearly, he wasn’t paying attention and has thus received a failing grade in the College of Social Media.
To be clear, I argue no such thing.
All forms of media lecture. *The article the author wrote* lectures. It’s on the reader or player as to what they think. Those who dislike the “woke messaging” should take it as “challenging and teaching” and then make up their own minds.
— Raph Koster (@raphkoster) March 23, 2024
As a fun side diversion: Deep in the comments of this Twitter thread, another bright spark decided to attack Koster by blaming him for Star Wars Galaxies’ NGE – not once but four times – even after Koster pointed out that he didn’t implement the NGE and didn’t want it either.
“No, you just didn’t actually read closely. Let me try again. I designed the original game. I was not working on it anymore when the decision to do NGE was made. I opposed it. I was overruled. It ruined my hard work. It was a big factor in my eventually leaving the company. I have never been shy about saying I disliked the NGE, in public. It’s on record over and over. So, with all due respect, you don’t know what you are talking about.”
