Game of War: Let it Burn

Is it possible to have a work of art as a nemesis? Game of War: Fire Age is certainly that for me.

For those that don’t know, it is currently the #3 top-grossing app on the iOS store, which means it is pulling in somewhere in the neighbourhood of one million dollars per day. Wildly successful.

The genre is a “farm and fight”, where players are given a city with various buildings they should upgrade, manage their resources, and train soldiers to go steal resources from other players in the game world. Something in veins of Travian.

So, why do I dislike Game of War? Is it because of its blatant attempt to ride on Game of Thrones’ coat-tails? No, but that’s a great metaphor for a pay-to-win casino that tries very hard to make you think you are playing a  strategy game.

I dislike Game of War because there is not one, but two bouncing treasure chests on the HUD that give you rewards every few minutes or hours if you log in to claim them. In addition to the daily free spin of the casino.

I dislike Game of War because there are two screens of quests you can do, and by “doing” them I mean pressing the “do quest” button and waiting for a timer to finish.

I dislike Game of War because it is theoretically about collecting and protecting resources, but I’m rarely missing any resources. Instead what I’m waiting for is building upgrades or researches to finish their build-times. The higher levels of which are literally years-long.

I dislike Game of War because the top-level troops (which take the aforementioned years of waiting or paying to speed up) are leaps and bounds stronger than the lower leveled troops. There is no strategy a player without these troops can employ to defeat a player who has reached them.

I dislike Game of War because while they go through the bother of putting all the players on a world map, I can break the game-lore and teleport my city anywhere I want, whenever I want. If I spend enough money I can even teleport to the special VIP-only land full of treasure and other things.

But so what. There are plenty of games I don’t like. There are probably plenty of games worse than Game of War. We usually just leave each other alone and are each happier for it. But with Game of War it goes deeper.

I loath Game of War because in spite of all this, or probably because of it, it is wildly successful. I loath Game of War because it is teaching a generation of game designers and company stockholders that this is what they should do to make a successful game.

Or it could be that Game of War is challenging my preconceptions about what a good game is, and I’m afraid my preconceptions are going to lose this one. It could be I just don’t like the taste of introspection.