Why Fall Guys is More Important Than Politics – Opting Out

Amongst apparent chaos in the world – tensions between world powers increasing, a potential constitutional crisis involving mailboxes, a deadly virus and the economic turmoil that’s resulted from authoritarians’ attempts to curb it – a viral video game has arrived to save us from the daily purgatory that is news and politics.

The independently-developed online multi-multiplayer game Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout features up to 60 players pitting it out in a Takeshi’s Castle style knockout tournament. Each round has a different mini-game which might involve a race to the finish on a conveyor belt as fruit gets thrown at you, or a manic scramble to accumulate eggs for your team, and presumably many more to come as the game’s life-cycle continues.

Your character is the same as everyone else’s: A pudgy ball with a face, arms and legs. Your only attack is a grab, used to steal eggs and pull opponents back for a few seconds. Colors, outfits and taunts can be customized to your tastes.

Fall Guys is now the most popular PS Plus game of all time. The timing of this game is important – something universal, wholesome and infinitely more valuable than politics and social justice activism when the world needs a break from it. Here’s why.

There’s a clear sense of ends that you can meet

Pity the good-hearted soul that makes the mistake of getting into politics. Let’s assume they correctly identify what’s wrong with the world (by no means a given). The chances of making any meaningful difference through the avenue of politics is vanishingly thin.

On the other hand, assuming equally average skill levels, your chances of winning a game of Fall Guys is 1 in 60. With practice, and assuming 30-50% of the players in your game are children, in the end you will grab that coveted crown.

It’s better value for money

Fall Guys is usually priced $15.99 on the PS Store, but is available for free with a PS Plus subscription until 1 September. That’s potentially hours and hours of entertainment and family fun for the price of three coffees.

The current budget of the US government is $4.829 trillion. 0.02% of that budget would be all that’s required to supply every individual in the world with a copy of Fall Guys. Yet it is an open question whether a single cent that is spent by the US government was not better spent somewhere else.

Aside from the obvious wastes of money such as USPS and the US military, and including things that arguably help people such as welfare payments, we have through a lack of proper price mechanisms no idea whether that money could not have been better invested for people in genuine need.

It’s obviously improving the world

We already know that Fall Guys is highly valuable. Yet it wasn’t through politics that we decided this. It was created by independent game developer, Medatonic, by two blokes in London. With investment and support by Devolver, it’s become a true underdog success. No state dictate, no government program can hold a candle to the ingenuity of individuals working together to provide value for people.

You might think, “It’s just a video game – a distraction for wasting time.” You mean, like government? The whole purpose of electoral politics is is not to “give you a voice” or change the world, but to lend apparent legitimacy to something which is at its essence a glorified Mafia. Therefore, campaigning, voting, spending time with politics in any way is literally a waste of time.

Not that there’s anything wrong with wasting time. That is your right. But my advice to you is to waste your time on things that will actually improve your day.

It’s non-corrupting

Fall Guys is perfectly wholesome. There’s no sex or violence, or questionable morals (aside from those p****s who deliberately block your path, forcing you to fall in the slime, in aid of reducing the number of entrants in the final round). It’s basically fun for the whole family.

Politics on the other hand makes sinners out of saints. Many a promising libertarian has been turned into a mushy milquetoast moderate by venturing into politics, and worse than that, abandoned any presence of intellectual and moral integrity for the sake of a smidgen of power.

Playing Fall Guys may not make a hero out of you. It won’t make you famous or make you much money. But remember the surgeon’s axiom: first, do no harm. You could do worse than, when considering a life of politics in those momentary lapses of good sense, just turning on your PS4 or loading up Steam.