Boss Key

clipped from hdrlying.com It is becoming more and more obvious to both developers and gamers, though, that PC gaming is slowly changing. Where complex strategy games and western RPGs once reigned, relaxing puzzle games and twitch shooters now stand. Just hearing about Peggle on professional PC gaming enthusiast podcasts speaks volumes about the state of the industry. Back when games like Wolfenstein and Doom were easily installed on University Computer Lab PCs and office desktops, they all shipped with the infamous “boss key,” which brought up mock spreadsheets and DOS prompts designed to fool passersby that, yes, you were in fact working.

From D&D to Google

In a sweet article in Sunday's New York Times, Wired editor Adam Rogers notes the passing of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax and argues for a sort of teleological relationship between the culture of D&D in the 1970s and our current digital culture. This is interesting for the explicit link Rogers makes between gameplay and non-game digital objects and business models. Of course, it's also clearly a geek fantasy of redemption ("The stuff I know, the geeky stuff, is the stuff you and everyone else has to know now, too"). Not to mention, it repeats the digital culture origin myth (that functions very powerfully and literally) of American boy geniuses creating through play.