In an interview on PC Gamer, Jonathan Blow answered if he believed that “social games are evil”. His answer, “Yes. Absolutely.” Blow, of course, frequently talks about how he feels that many current games are unethical.
PC Gamer: I think you said you don’t like [social] being attributed to some of those games?
Jonathan Blow: Well, they’re not very social. A game like World of Warcraft or Counter-Strike or whatever is way more social. Because you actually meet new people in clans or guilds. You go do activities together and help each other out, right?
[With certain social games] it’s about the game exploiting your friends list that you already made, so it’s not really about meeting people. And it’s not really about doing things with them because you’re never playing at the same time. It’s about using your friends as resources to progress in the game, which is the opposite of actual sociality or friendship. Maybe not exactly, but it’s not the same thing, right? They’re really just called social games because they run on social networks but they’re way less [social] – like sitting down and playing a board game with friends at a party is a way more social game. That’s an intensely social experience, right? So, like whatever. I hate that name.
As I’ve written previously, I whole-heartedly agree that the social is a misnomer.