11 Dec 2019
There’s something oddly fascinating and morbid about watching famous and/or rich people falter. Whatever deep-seated emotional trigger exists, it’s powered they current voyeuristic trend in popular culture, and we’re not totally immune to it here at Pocket Tactics.
Earlier today, a co-worker shared an episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast. Episode 49 featuring Jack Black, released on December 9th to be precise. It’s a fairly typical celebrity interview for the most part. Conan asks questions, Jack Black is funny… it’s good listening if you like that kind of thing. Then comes the moment, at around the 37th minute, where Jack Black explains how he’s accidentally become a whale:
O’Brien: You’re quite the gamer, aren’t you?
Jack Black: I do enjoy gaming but I have to say, as of late, I’ve been all about my iPhone games which has ruined my console gaming. I used to be all about my Xbox and Playstation, and I still haven’t even conquered Red Dead Redemption Part 2, which I was anticipating for years.
Jack Black, a mobile gamer! The conversation shifts slightly to talk about Red Dead Redemption 2 and how much of a time-commitment it is, which is what drove Black to mobile games in the first place. O’Brien then asks him what he’s playing:
Jack Black: Right now it’s all about WGT Golf. It’s really embarrassing.
I had to look this up – WGT Golf seems to have been around since 2013, and is available on iOS and Android. As you can imagine, it’s a Gold game, and it’s Free-to-Play, as Black explains:
Jack Black: It’s a Golf game. It’s extremely satisfying and truth me told… expensive.
It’s horrifying – they figured me out, they know my brain and I have a bit of OCD. There’s a bunch of choices of clothing. And the clothing doesn’t just look rad – because I want my Avatar to look super sharp…
… but each piece of clothing has a value that helps your game. This one is going to help your short game, this one improves your accuracy, this one gives you more strength on your drive. To buy these little pieces of digital clothing, you either have to put in tons of hours of work, or you could just buy it and get it done.
I’m not going to tell you how much money I’ve spent on these clothes… because I don’t even know! It’s been so much money! It’s horrible.
After initially laughing, O’Brien then goes on to explain how he’d gone through a similar journey with Clash of Clans many years ago:
Conan O’Brien: I did this with Clash of Clans. My son was into Clash of Clans four years ago, and his friends were really into it too. And he got me into. I wanted to partake with my son, and be a part of his world. And yeah, you can spend all this time, slowley, making this tiny little catapult… or you can just buy the catapult.
And so I started doing that… and you don’t think that much about it because each [transaction] is so small. And then I started… I remember showing my son and his friends “Check out my Fortress.” and so he and his friends were like “Wow! Your dad has the cannon that shoots lava, and the special massive dinosaur birds!”
And then my son was like “You’re BUYING this stuff, aren’t you?” And Iwas like “yeah…” and then I think I checked a bill and I was like… oh my god!
It was bad. That was when I had to go cold turkey.
There you have it – even the rich & famous can succumb to the tricks of free-to-play gaming. At least they have the kind of money that can be wasted on such endeavours – many others who fall prey do not.
I do find it interesting what games pop-culture icons end up gravitating towards though – for all the talk of Fortnite, Merge Dragons or even Pokemon GO, who would have thought it’d be a random Golf game from 2013 that would grab Jack Black’s attention.