Modern society is an invention to undersell the human spirit from its natural potential to the level of sewer rats. Its rituals, amusements, and obligations in reality are of hollow meaning and little consequence.

Sh*t I think I started off in a little bit too deep here. But it is the absolute truth. Laws are made to bind the very same who do not observe them. It is the same for cultural trends and fads. They are abstractions for those who cannot identify anything else, i.e. originality, functionality, creativity etc... It is in effect a low standard silently sold to everyone who does not immediately and vehemently reject it.

As such you -the reader of this guide- are not doing war with the sh*t tastes of your friends, you are doing a war against the broad spectrum of garbage they have implicitly and unknowingly bought into. Its funny because I started writing this to have some fun, I really did not expect to get so philosophical. But allow me to reiterate: you are not trying to change their tastes in so much as you are combating the threads of a wide net that has caught them and most others as well.

This is why great games tend to be """niche""", as the phrase so often goes. It is because they are made out of inspiration and to accomplish a very particular purpose well. Games of mass appeal are not made for the people who purchase them, contrary to popular opinion, but are made for shareholders, """"growth"""", """"markets"""" and masturbatorial scatterplots. So if you are going to fight """The Man""" and get your friends to play something decent for a change you are going to need some serious firepower. Luckily, you have come to the right guy for the job as I have gotten three of my own IRL chums to play this game. Only one of them, it is worthy of note, actually has an innate interest in strategy or tactics so all things considered my endeavor was quite an accomplishment.

I would say in general the best move is this: be an annoying sh*t. Needless to say you are learning from a natural. In order to instigate change in any environment you must agitate. In politics it's the radicals who define the arguments and means of debate- most of the population simply plays along.

It is the same with gaming, comrades. In order to wake the proletariat gamer minorities to new and better heights and reform our chosen genre of p*ssing away time and money we must not take to the streets but to our friends! We must press them into trying the game for novelty's sake, firstly. Then once the bait has been taken we may press for more.

Here are some things you may try to get them interested:

1. Tell them Dominions 5 is a Fortnite expansion
Okay this seriously does not work, but its funny nonetheless if you can do it with a straight face. You can make up some BS about how Epic is bleeding cash and they secretly made a paid expansion to the game with completely different mechanics as a side project, but no no its totally the same.

2. Tell them Civ is a milquetoast series and that this is better
For the strategy inclined they no doubt have played and perhaps even liked Sid Meier's series before. If you are bombastic enough with this aforementioned and authentic true statement: that Civ does indeed suck and is overrated, you can hook them into interest even if it is for the sake of trying to prove you wrong.

3. Bring up the game in casual conversation
LAST RESORT.

These methods can be adapted to your own needs and situation but you get the idea. If gamers are truly going to rise up we need our friends to stop laying down.

Your friends have hard earned cash themselves believe it or not, sometimes that is difficult for me to accept given their spending habits but still the point stands. If you buy them the game chances are they will play it to "be nice". It will only be a formality though, still that might be enough if they are attuned to being a doormat. It is a rare thing that authenticity grows from formality but one may mask the other from time to time.

Still I haven't answered the burning question, how do I get these scrubs on board with their own cash to make them feel invested?

Channel your inner Edward Bernays, your Joseph Goebbels, your spiritual Soviet Airbrush if you will.

1. "Cozy Dominions Nights"
Picture it, a cold night with frost spreading slowly on your window. The glare of the monitor warmly glows on your face in the soft tones of the randomly generated map. You feel an energy, a chakra, some kind of kundalini rising up from your spine filling you with the goddess of Cozy as you amble downstairs with your slippers to make a warm stimulating beverage of your choice. This is how I sold Dominions to my friends, that if they got the game we could have "Cozy Dominions Nights". This was my inner marketer coming out to play, making a new brand but with some actual thought and self awareness so actually completely unlike real world marketers. Let this serve as inspiration to lure your own friends in to purchasing games that only one of them will actually play consistently.

2. Burn them out with faster paced games
Make those fuc.. I mean friends of yours look forward to a slower paced game by churning their brains out with brutal reaction based games like Serious Sam on higher difficulty settings. Play hardcore settings on any of the games you usually play with them to turn your pals on slowly to the idea of kicking back and relaxing at a leisurely pace with a turn based game. I didn't even think of this one consciously it kind of just naturally developed.

3. Critical Mass
If you play in a small friend group who all knows each other this is where critical mass can be formed. If one concedes and gets the game you can chain it together via the same method your pedophilic gym teacher warned you about - peer pressure. Once some of them have it the threshold will be crossed sooner than you expect, and then most of them will get it, and then all of them. Its so simple, its all according to plan

So this is a section I have almost nothing for honestly. If they want to play consistently of their own free will, they will. If not then you at least led the horse to water.

Maybe you are one of those scientist nerds who think the universe is some kind of deterministic sand box of law and casualty. That if you find the right law and abuse it you can subvert the will of other beings. Idk just thinking about that makes you sound like a psychopath, then again I wrote this guide.... then again you are reading it.

Honestly tug all you want, if it takes an effort to get them to play chances are you will burn yourself out before you even get in game, provided you even succeed.

Was this all a waste of time? Is life just a bunch of screaming into the void while a certain death looms above us all? Do you even do the things that are apparently on your mind all the time or do you just ignore them to the tune of vidya and mundane chores? Well it wasn't a waste for me I got to write about something interesting, managed to convert one of my friends to continuous play, one semi continuous and one doesn't really do anything at all but he tried, bought it, and played it ---- once.

So if you have any tips please be sure to comment for other r/gamers out there lost and alone in this labyrinthine world of ours who are just looking to become gods at the expense of their friends in virtual space.

Make sure to #upvote #sharetoWSJ #######uploadtoYourOldMySpace and thank you for reading this yarn I spun.