Sunday, April 15, 2012

Idiocracy for Dummies









I recently read a blog post about how the advises to not turn off or unplug your console while saving, because this may corrupt the save every time you save a game is annoying. The author complain he is not stupid and that he understood it the first time. Sorry, angry intelligent guy, but you may not be stupid, but we live in a world where there is plenty of stupidity.

I remember, and I am not sure if it is true, to read a story about a couple who closed their baby cart. With the baby still inside, severely hurting the baby. They sued the baby cart manufacturer, receiving compensations and forcing the manufacturer to put big letter warnings of 'do not close with the baby inside'. 

In another case, a kid dressed in a Superman costume jumped out of the window. Of the 10th floor of a building, killing himself. The parents sued the costume maker and now all the costumes comes with a warning of 'this costume does not gives you superpower'.

In the first case, the incompetence of the parents to perceive that the cart was never supposed to be closed with the baby inside and in the second the naivety of a children both costed the manufacturers money and the obligation of stating something fairly obvious to oblivious customers. And this is what the companies want to avoid.

I have corrupted save files before, both by turning off the game without noticing it was still saving and because of blackouts. Imagine a gamer who spent hundreds of hours in a game like Skyrim, losing all their progress because they made a mistake like me. In their frustration and anger, they may (and considering how  gamers can easily get angry for the smallest thing) accuse the game maker of not warning them enough.

In a recent firmware update, Sony made all PS3 consoles gives a PSA at start up about the health risks of gaming. They may decided to preemptively strike before some kid who don't read the manuals and/or their parents have any trouble and decide to sue.

Unfortunately, we may come to a day where those idiotic acts may lead to having to wait ten minutes before playing a game because of all the warning messages while all saves takes five minutes just asking if you are sure you want to save. If you saw Idiocracy, the movie, you know what kind of world this will lead to.

And I fear the day were the idiots will rule the earth....

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