Rise From Your Grave: Psychobabble
by Chelsea Thompson on October 31, 2008 at 11:15 am
Remember the good old days of Popcap Games when they had online multiplayer? Psychobabble, a creative twist on magnetic poetry, was one of these games. Popcap decided a couple years back that the cost of maintaining these online games was simply not feasible anymore. People were pretty upset about Popcap’s actions, even going so far as to start an online petition (no longer active) in protest. To no avail; it was simply too expensive for the company to be monitoring the chats for inappropriate content. The game, along Lucky Penny and Atomic Poker, was taken down in August 2006.
However, it was far from game over for Psychobabble.
If you didn’t get a chance to play it before, here’s the rundown on how the game works:
Round starts in a room of 8-12 people, where you’re given about 30-40 words and a small line to construct a sentence. Use the words available to make the sentence you think is the funniest in about a minute. Second part is where you get to vote on who’s sentence you think is the funniest. Sentences are posted anonymously; most votes gets 3 points, and you will get a point for everyone who votes for you. To encourage people to vote for the funniest, you get a point if the sentence you voted for was the winner. Whoever reaches 30 points first wins. One of my favorite winning sentences that I managed was “Sack the children, we need slaves!” I won by a landslide on that one.
However, as previously mentioned, Popcap was having issues with explicit content getting into the chats and even the game’s sentences (which is bound to happen when ’sausage’ appears as a usable word). Two years ago, Popcap.com’s Chief Executive David Roberts had this to say to SeattlePi.com:
He called it a “tough decision,” but said it would take a significant investment to move the games on to a new Web platform. Also, he said the six-year-old company was not willing to invest the money that it would take to monitor the online community. If a child were to encounter sexually explicit material, he said the company could be liable.
“We have sort of gotten away with it for a long time, and we have some volunteers who have done a great job helping, but it has always been a drag on resources trying to manage that without a real revenue source,” said Roberts, who then provided examples of 19 sexually explicit account names that members have used in the past.
“If we could find a home for it in the short term, we certainly would do it,” he said.
Well, here’s the good news: You can still play Psychobabble online! I was completely overjoyed when I stumbled upon a forum where someone mentioned that Psychobabble was still alive. Reincarnated at Mutantdog.com as Pseudobabble, the spirit of the game lives on with a shiny new user interface and community pages.
If you haven’t played this game as Psychobabble, I highly recommend grabbing a group of friends and joining a room. I spent many a high school evening Psychobabbling with my friends online, and I personally can’t wait to get back to the game.
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4 Comments » |
on February 16, 2009 9:22 pm
I absolutely adore you. I have been mourning the loss of psychobabble for years and I’m glad I found a replacement.
on April 29, 2009 7:45 am
+1
missing this game since popcap took it down. thanks
on May 24, 2009 9:06 am
i cant wait to get back on that im gona buy an ounce and go on a journey of magnetic poetry it will be most magical
on June 17, 2009 3:56 pm
yeah, except there's nobody in any of the rooms. spread the word!