Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE
Being an artist, I know all too well the days of tossing a twenty-cent pack of ramen noodles on the stove and being glad I was able to find the change for it between the couch. In college I mastered the art of befriending incoming freshmen as they usually were loaded with unused points on their meal cards. A few games of Halo or Mario Kart "always after lunch", as I informed them, because who can game when hungry?
You can probably tell what type of gamer someone is by what they eat when they are gaming. MOBA players with their energy drink cans littering the floor; fighting game competitors with chicken and waffles which they oddly enough never eat, but which seems to always get their rivals' controller in no shape for accurately inputting combos; party gamers with bags and bags of Whitecastles.
Video games have been argued by some recently as being capable of changing the world. There have been TED talks and scholarly articles advocating for a new role of gaming. However these well-meaning groups and individuals have yet to demonstrate any games which can either achieve these lofty goals or be fun to play: they take too much of the meat out, include too little of what makes a game a game, offering up a low-calorie, low-fun pile of mush.
Then there are those games which themselves are a form of comfort food. Video games are rather odd in this respect: one can return to a book, movie, or song one enjoyed in their youth and realize it is terrible, but video games, so often viewed as childish and trite by others are surprisingly capable of providing fun and enjoyment to those outside the general age range of the intended audience.
Those timeless design principles are something that seem to be less of a focus of the industry these days: more thought seems put into how to get even the ramen noodle budget out of gamers with DLC and pre-order"bonuses" than creating content which will be more fulfilling and creating lasting memories for the gamer (and customer loyalty).
That's not to say that there was a lack of half-baked games in previous eras: but when modern gaming and its day-one patches and bug-filled empty hype is met by publishers (and the press!) with a "deal with it" attitude as if the fly in your soup is just a garnish, then I cannot help but lament the McDonaldilization of the modern gamers' diet.
For more musings from a video game foodie, follow me on Twitter @CodeNameCrono.
Sound off below about your favorite video game comfort food, and if you believe gamers today are being raised on electronic junk food.
