Since we launched Disaffected! back in January, we've enjoyed a continuous stream of feedback, some good, some bad, all interesting. I've shared portions of it in private presentations, but when I showed the game at the Games for Change Exhibition last week in New York, I reminded myself to write about it here.

For those of you just tuning in, this January my studio Persuasive Games released Disaffected!, a videogame parody of the Kinko's copy store. Probably the fastest way to read up on the game is in this MTV News article, by Stephen Totilo.

I'll spare listing the press coverage and instead share my favorite tidbits from the last six months. Here are the top 10 pieces of feedback and discussion we've found about the game.

(10) Persuasive Games' Disaffected t-shirts end up looking like crap. Cafe Press doesn't care and fails to reply to our complaints about their "WYSIWYG" black t-shirt advertising that doesn't represent the actual, dull colors on the garment. We submit a BBB report about false advertising to no avail. Even Disaffected! merch is disaffected.

(9) Disaffected earns a place in the games section of CNET's Worst tech of 2006 (so far), alongside the legume-shaped Sony Walkman Bean, Random Car Game, and Windows utility of questionable merit, ShutDown After.

(8) In response to an MTV News article about his closing address at the Games for Change conference, Raph Koster admits that Disaffected is "pretty fun."

(7) At least two readers of popular blogs that post complaints about Kinko's service (37signals and Pogue's Posts) suggest playing Disaffected for catharsis and/or empathy.

(6) Charming Disaffected one-liners from around the web:

It's like real life, but with better graphics
an epic quest to serve the public and find nirvana, or mix up peoples print jobs and not do anything. Your call.
All the fun of a soul-destroying job, without the pay.
Can't wait for the next Kevin Smith flick? Try Disaffected!
...a parody (or wryly accurate reality) of the FedEx Kinko's experience...
Just like The Sims...only more depressing--way more depressing
...a sort of adbusters for videogames....
It's so realistic, it brought the shudders back into my spine and instantly made my will to live plummet

(5) Disaffected! finds its way into the Wikipedia entry for FedEx Kinko's.

(4) Worker-organized website Kinko's Workers Unite calls Disaffected "quite possibly the best videogame ever. A reader offers the following reply:

(3) In their only public statement about the game, FedEx Kinko's tells Business Week it takes "strong exception" to the characterization.

(2) Near total confusion from one of the Independent Game Festival (IGF) judges. Entrants are provided with anonymous judge feedback. In the feedback email, festival organizers explained of the comments, "if they are positive and you like them, you're welcome to use them in your promotional literature as quotes from 'IGF Judge:' or similar." I decided that meant I could also use them as promotional literature if they were negative and I liked them. One judge completely grokked the game, while another, not so much:

(1) Earnest pleasure and even appreciation from Kinko's employees, via LiveJournal group kinkoids_unite:

• It can't be my store. There are more people who refuse to work and randomly move orders around for no reason at my store.
• I'm torn between loving it and wanting to kill things in frustration... Wait, that sounds a lot like how I feel about work anyway!
• This game RULES. I could actually feel myself getting angry and depressed, and my sense of self-worth going right through the floor, as I played. That's what makes it so brilliant.

Comments (2) | Post a Comment | TrackBack (0)