Further down the spiral.

This post has nothing to do with Nine Inch Nails. Except for that sometimes I feel like there are a few being pounded into my eyes.

For those of you who don't know, for a while (8 months! apparently) I've been "playing" a Passively Multi-player Online Game appropriately named PMOG. This guy, Justin Hall has made a name out of playing with the internet freely (both as in "without bounds" and "without cash"). He slapped together GameLayers Inc. in order to turn his thesis into a reality. The result is a FireFox extension/website combo dedicated to watching what you do and rewarding you for it. Oh, sometimes you can try to blow up your friends and stuff.

PMOG has been around in some form or fashion for roughly a year or so now, and they're in their second Beta (after having left beta). They're dedicated to making the game more friendly to the masses with new tools, a new toolbar, and new artwork. Unfortunately, when desperation for new users kick in, you end up looking at companies who have lots of users, such as Zwinky:


You can see from the news post, the new artwork isn't exactly well received by their current user base, and the PMOG forums themselves echo this response. This is the point where the eye nails kick in for me. I've been a bit critical of a lot of the decisions made by GameLayers, and this is no exception. Unfortunately, it seems that in their latest push out of obscurity, I disagree with nearly every decision they make. It's not personal, I just wonder how far down the spiral this game will go before I have to stop riding.