>
> The PC based RPG games involved a lot of skills, mostly dexterity, but
> skills nonetheless. The PC based strategy games (e.g. Civilization)
> involved substantial strategy skills - long term planning, balancing
> conflicting interests, etc. But this whole tablet craze seems a one
> giant stride toward pointa-clicka-no-thinka idiocracy - especially the
> scene in which hospital receptionist pushes buttons that show icons of
> different ailments. Any thoughts?
>
>
Cow clicker: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker)
"The player is initially given a pasture<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasture> with nine slots and a single plain cow, which the player may click once every six hours. Each click awards a "click" for the cow. If the player adds friends' cows to their pasture, they also receive a "click" when the player clicks their own cow. As in other Facebook games, players are encouraged to post announcements to their news feed whenever they click a cow. An in-game currency known as "Mooney" can be bought with Facebook Credits<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Credits>; it can be used to purchase special "premium" cow designs, or to obtain the ability for a player to skip the six-hour time limit and click their cow."
[...]
"Unexpectedly to Bogost, *Cow Clicker* became a viral phenomenon<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_phenomenon>, amassing over 50,000 players by September 2010—many of whom understood the game's meaning and used it as a symbol of objection to Zynga's practices. In response to its sudden popularity, he committed to improving the game with new features. Updates to the game added awards for reaching certain milestones (such as the Golden Cowbell<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowbell>
for 100,000 clicks), the ability to earn Mooney by clicking on other users'
*Cow Clicker* news feed posts, and the chance to randomly gain or lose Mooney on every click. New cow designs were also introduced, such as an oil-coated cow to commemorate the recent BP oil spill<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill>, and the "Stargrazer Cow", which was simply a mirror image of the original cow that cost around $20 US<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar>
worth of Mooney.[3]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker#cite_note-wired-cc-3> [4] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker#cite_note-kotaku-4>
"Although continually disturbed by its popularity, Bogost also used *Cow Clicker* to parody other recent gaming and social networking trends; such as the addition of an API <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API> to allow "Cowclickification" of other web sites (which would allow sites to incorporate opportunities for sites to have clickable cows of their own), the spin-off game *Cow Clicker Blitz<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bejeweled_Blitz> * (co-developed with PopCap Games<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopCap_Games> co-founder Jason Kapalka), "My First Cow Clicker" for iOS<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS> (a parody of simplistic education apps; designed to "train" children on cow clicking and add the resulting clicks to their parent's total), and a "Cow Clicktivism" campaign where users could click on an emaciated<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emaciation> cow to donate to Oxfam America <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxfam_America>—with a goal of donating an actual cow to a third world<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_world> country. The cow, known as the "Cowclicktivist Cow", could also be unlocked for the player's pasture with a $110 donation."