Sunday, 09/22/02

Every six months or so I spend half an hour playing a game of Bejeweled at MSN Games. It's in the Tetris school, with more complex relationships and harder to predict cascade effects. I notice that since the last time, they've considerably stepped up the advertising ringing the board game, often including one of those incredibly irritating flashing-three-time-a-second ads mocked up to trick the gullible into thinking that Windows is telling them something.

This time, the blinking blipvert appeared directly under some text I initially mistook for part of the ad, until I realized it was counterproductive: "Photosensitive seizure warning", linked to this page. I skimmed it, incredulous that MSN would accept advertising that they admit might cause seizures. But then it turned out they're actually disclaiming the potentially lethal power of the game itself.

There isn't that much difference to my way of thinking. The game was unplayable as long as the ad was on the screen. 07:22PM «

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