10) Public Transport
All public transport will be banned. It’s slow, unreliable and smells funny. Instead, each adult will be issued with a self-driving hover car, all of which will be identical, although items to customise the vehicle will be available from the item mall. All the cars will have superfast wifi, enabling passengers to indulge in a wide range of interactive abilities, including many racing games.
9) Mind Reconditioning
All those people who claim to hate games would be given a two-week residential course to show them the error of their ways. There would be game sessions, speakers from the games industry, prizes and awards, and the choice to take one of the games home with them. If that doesn’t work they’ll be mind-wiped and reprogrammed as cosplaying Call of Cthulhu white knights.
8) School Games
I’ll introduce compulsory game sessions into schools one day a week. This would include board and table-top RPGs as well as video games on an assortment of consoles and PCs. The Humanities would be removed to make time for these sessions, as most pupils use those lessons to sleep/text/draw exaggerated genitals on the desk anyway.
One maths lesson a week would also be dedicated to coding, so by the time the children leave school they’re ready for the games industry, and the quality and variety of games will go through the roof.
7) Dice Distribution
As well as a National Insurance number, a birth certificate and some weird made-up name, children would be issued with a full set of polyhedral dice in a random colour. This would include every die needed for every current game system, so the child has a choice of which TRPG they want to play in later life. The dice manufacturers would use the latest gene technology to encode the dice to the child, to stop the parents stealing them.
6) Cancel the Eurovision Song Contest
For those of you who’ve been spared this annual embarrassment, think yourselves lucky. Basically it’s a Europe-wide singing competition, something the contestants and judges alike seem to forget. In the last few years especially, it’s descended into a political mire of nonsense. Instead, it will be replaced by the Eurovision TRPG Championship, each country fielding a team of top roleplayers. The GMs will all be Swiss, obviously, and all teams will play the same campaign over four weekends. Points will be awarded for roleplaying, problem solving, rules knowledge and consistency of snack consumption. All the action will be televised across Europe, and the team with the most points wins. The winners will host next year’s game, and get to chose the system. If all goes well, this will be extended to each of the continents, with a four-yearly super final.
5) Extend Anti-Bullying Programmes
The present anti-bullying/trolling programmes would be beefed up and extended to include online activities like in-game chat, Skype and similar software, social media like Facebook et al, and basically anything that allows one person to bully another. The internet companies will be forced to reveal the personal details of the bullies, publishing them on a special name-and-shame website, where anyone can make fun of them for a certain amount of time, depending on the crime. Repeat offenders will have a webcam embedded in their foreheads so everything they do can be witnessed. Repeat repeat offenders will be fed to the dinosaurs, (or sharks if we haven’t yet genetically recreated dinosaurs.) the video streamed live on Youtube.
4) Redistribute the Wealth
Society will be rearranged into a merrytocracy. Those people who contribute most to people’s happiness, health and general well-being will be highly paid. Those who risk their lives doing their duty, like police officers and soldiers, will be paid the most. Those people who contribute the least, or actively contribute to people’s misery, like criminals, public officials and reality TV stars, will be paid the least, and/or be fed to the dinosaurs. (see above.)
Those people involved in the various game industries will be very, very, high on the list, as will those who make funny cat videos, film themselves doing stupid things or can name every character in the entire Star Wars franchise. I can also guarantee a special place for those who make cheesecake, cider, and mints.
3) Transform Television
Let’s face it, television has sunk to an all time low over the last few decades. Hours of tedious reality programmes interspersed with hours of adverts, trailers and channel idents. I will make all content pass a strict quality rating, ban all reality shows and allow only adverts which are humorous or clever. The space created by the removal of these reality shows, and that’s quite a lot, will be filled with gaming news, live D&D, the all-new Cosplay Show, (If someone actually does this, I want 5% for my idea.) and the all-new Walkthrough Show, featuring live gameplay of people beating particularly difficult bosses/levels/quests of the latest games. (Also 5%.)
2) Rezone the World
Instead of countries, we’ll have zones, divided according to population density to create zones of equal numbers of players. All wars and other such nonsense will stop, the olympics will be held every year, and will be extended to include relay chess, indoor monopoly, downhill scrabble, retrogaming, console vs console, four person and eight person mixed roleplaying, and jelly juggling for the LOLs. Selection committees from each zone will chose a team for each event. The gold, silver, and bronze medals will be signed and numbered collector’s editions, and all the contestants will receive an Amazon gift voucher of varying value.
1) Refocus Research
I would cancel all useless research programmes and re-channel the resources into creating a Matrix-style total-immersion game system by 2050. This would be optional of course. (honest.) All babies born before this date will have the interface fitted in their necks, ready for the release of the Playstation 40, a small black (naturally, although the PS28 was orange, but it wasn’t as popular,) cube with a single cable that fits into the neck socket. Hint: those companies making AR or VR equipment, special chairs and turntables, etc, make your profits and get out, we won’t need all that stuff anymore.