Ammunition > Heroics

http://www.bobsgame.com/


I've been looking in on the whole Bob situation every now and then for the last couple months.
It was kind of interesting at first, but then it got... weird.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about and are too lazy to click the link:
There's this guy, Bob, and he made an RPG for DS. But he didn't actually have a DS developer's kit from Nintendo, and they wouldn't give him one. So to protest that fact, he locked himself in a room until they did.
But then he went nuts (unless he already was).
He trashed his own room.
He threatened to (among other things) release his game on a nonofficial DS-compatable device (like the sort used for homebrew and pirated games).
He pretty much vandalized the Nintendo World Store, plastering its walls with posters and littering the floor with business cards.
He pretended to be abducted by aliens.


I was reading some comments on a gaming news site, and several things were brought to my attention. Now I'm wondering what's going on here; it's just weird.

1. The game uses only the upper screen. As far as I know, it has no touch control of any kind, and no microphone use. It does not make use of any of the unique features of the DS. No wonder Nintendo won't let him have his developer's kit; even the lamest of lame games have at least some reason to be on DS.
2. Bob already has his game working on DS. He claims that it is "finished", but he only needs the developer's kit. That doesn't really make sense. If he's that resourceful, he shouldn't have any trouble wrapping up. The only real reason must be that he wants to be officially endorsed so he can sell the game better in stores, but with the way he's acting, that's never going to happen. If I was Nintendo, all I would do is hire a guy to scream at Bob and kick him in the shins.
3. It's very obvious that Bob has far, far more time and money than is good for him. Why? What's going on?
4. This last part is the scariest of them all. It's pretty obvious, so I don't know why I didn't see it before (like I said, all this stuff -- except the third point, mostly -- was brought to my attention by some comments left on a news post I read).
On his website, and all his posters, it says "Welcome to Bob's Game. Thank Yuu for playing." (Yes, he consistently writes the word "you" that way. I don't know why.)
Welcome to Bob's Game.
Thank you.
For playing.
It's creepy. Like this whole thing is Bob's Game. As if it was all set up, and he's lying about how long he's spent developing this game. It could even be something dumb he randomly threw together; it's not like we've seen much of it.
And his whole point is right here. And he knows he's being an idiot, and he's causing all this noise purely for his own entertainment.

I'm not sure how much I believe that theory. It makes a ton of sense, yes. But I'm a little hesitant to accept it as the truth just yet.

Regardless, what he's doing is an incredibly juvenile cry for attention. He's not just crazy, he's childish. He didn't get what he wanted, and he's making a fuss about it.
And yet, he's getting exactly what he wants. Attention.

I mean, while locking himself in his room was a little extreme, it was at least moderately mature. Wrecking your own room, vandalizing a store, making threats, and claiming to have been abducted by aliens is not.
It's almost funny.
In a sad, sad way, it's almost funny.