The Game Of Life.
The game where some people are not allowed to win.
This Is Not The Problem.
There are dozens of positive reasons for humans to play “Games.” They range from some of them being a healthy way of working out a strategy, to logic building, along with socializing, and confidence building. These games are especially healthy if they are played communally, or even in small social groups specifically in person. From chess, and checkers, to table top role playing games, they do something in today's society that is greatly needed. They bring humans together to socialize.
That is not to say that a reasonable amount of time spent playing video games is bad. They too can help people to think critically in ways that they normally wouldn't, and to solve specific types of challenges within the games. Some video games like Call of Duty, even help build team building skills especially when played live with a group of friends. Somewhere along the way though, we have seemed to have simply forgotten that the same Character and Wealth Building tactics, can be used in the game of real life.
Rather than developing their “Flesh Avatar” some people spend thousands of hours playing games like World of Warcraft, or Diablo, or Call of Duty. For instance, a neighbor of mine, who is a great person in general. He is always shown himself to be helpful, friendly, and a generally good neighbor. He has one of the most common issues that I have seen among modern gamers. He likes a pay to play game Diablo Immortal to be exact, he really likes it. So much so in fact, that he has thousands of hours, and tens of thousands of dollars into the digital items they wield. One direct example, are the “wings” that his character has, with a price tag of roughly $8,000 dollars. Mind you, that is only one of his 5 characters in Diablo. Inherently, there is no problem in my opinion with a man who works hard and pays his bills, to go and spend some money on whatever type of entertainment he sees fit. Freedom, blah blah, personal liberty and all that jazz.
The Problem…
This is a MASSIVE problem, and it lies almost entirely within these massive corporations that host, and run these games. Corporations like Blizzard, and W.O.T.C. who are both especially guilty of the scenario that I am about to lay out. It is not a phenomenon that is isolated to only their games though. This is a tactic that is being used to control not only the people who pay to play their games while they are actively in the game, but also in their everyday life. I am Still being way too vague, and cryptic aren't I?
Fine, let's get through the bullshit, and get right to the real life scenario. The same neighbor that I was telling you about previously, long story short, he has somewhere right between $19,000 - $21,000 in total, that he has invested into his 5 characters. Between all of their weapons and wardrobes in Diablo Immortal, he has the value of a brand new Kia. That is not to mention the literal thousands of hours that he has also spent playing, while socializing and strategizing among his in game clan. Well, apparently he is terrified right now. Just last week one of his clan members was booted from the game. It had seemingly happened with no warning, and there was no reason given at the time. His tens of thousands of $ invested into his characters armor and weapons, along with the characters themselves were just gone when he logged in.
He was later told that he was reported for online harassment or hate speech towards other players. He tried to dispute this though with Blizzard, you see he couldn't have done it. There is actually solid proof to the why he couldn't have done what they were accusing him of. During the day the incident was reported he wasn't playing while using the chat feature. He couldn't have been. In fact, that day he didn't even log on to the game once. This was clearly something they could easily just look into. Blizzard actually said they would further review it, and for a few days his buddy was convinced that they would find the login records, and fix this. After all, he had tens of thousands of dollars invested into their game. Well my friends, he got his reply.
Instead of Blizzard responding telling him they were researching and fixing the issue, according to my neighbor he got a completely different type of reply. “The player that reported your activity, was not specific as to whether the harassment and hate speech were done in game or happened elsewhere, ie Twitch, Reddit, in person etc. They have a zero tolerance policy towards these things, and regretted to inform him that his Blizzard account has been locked indefinitely.” In other words, and with the utmost consideration by the staff and our game developers, fuck clear off. We don't care. They required no proof, and even insinuated that he “may” have harassed the person outside of the game, but they neither required nor requested the proof before they terminated his account. Now the fear has begun to spread.
So, now my neighbor is also pissed off for him, and rightfully so. He can't speak up about it though because if he does, then he could be next. Hell he could even be next now if he doesn't do anything wrong at all. So he is clearing his Twitter timeline, and his Facebook account now, basically walking in eggshells. They are controlling his speech and his actions, both in and out of the game, simply by holding his $20,000 in digital property as a hostage.
That's massively fucked up.
First they sell you something that you don't even physically own, then once you are emotionally invested into playing, they use it against you. This goes far beyond just the monetary damages to the individuals involved. It's programming their desired behaviors into the minds of the people that play, and those around them. This is what is commonly referred to as manipulative “social conditioning.”
The very entertainment that these people once ran to, in order to escape the stresses of the modern world and just unwind, has been ever so slowly flooded with the very thing that they were trying to escape. These people should find a side hustle they can grind in the game of life, and use the gained wealth to come together and hire an attorney. They probably can't recover their lost time, but it's possible to recover the money they spent in the game before being banned from their platforms.
Break the Programming. It's not only coming from the world of corporate gaming. People are also getting bombarded by the very same social conditioning, both from Social media, and the Corporate Network News also. They are literally tampering with the free will of mankind in a massive social experiment. This is a violation of the Geneva Convention, or the laws of inertia, or something. 😶 It can't be legally, or morally justifiable in any way. Experimenting on people, and tampering with their natural social instincts is just pure chaotic politically motivated evil.
Your deprogramming has officially begun.
The next phase, rebuilding the self, starts when you close this article.
Links and Sources :
Blizzard Entertainment - https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/games
Social Conditioning - https://themindfool.com/how-to-understand-social-conditioning/
This is why I went back to the pen and paper games or any game I could physically own. No one can edit anything on the fly, no one can tell you you're playing it wrong (and if they do, you can tell them to go piss up a rope) and the best part, they're just damned fun.
Some can even be used to explore history and ancestry. A guy I know wrote Machuahuitl because he's of Spanish and Aztec descent and he didn't hold back at all. For those of Germanic origins, there's Ragnarok: Fate of The Norns, Codex Nordica and Codex Germania. For those of Celtic origins, there's Codex Celtarum, Cairn and a few others and there's literally a seat for every bottom.
Own your games. Don't spend tens of thousands into a video game you don't own and never will.
Exactly. It goes well beyond video games. Having huge collections of iTunes music, or a library of Streaming Movies you purchased on Prime. The same goes for Renting a house, or Leasing a vehicle. People are being convinced to pay for things they will never physically own, and a single Tweet, or Facebook post can cause them to be snatched away.