I like both shows, and enjoyed both of the episodes we are discussing. I do not rate Marge Gamer as highly as you do, but that's all just a matter of taste. As Simpsons episodes goes, it was okay. Not spectacular, but certainly watchable, and enjoyable. I think Make Love Not Warcraft was better. It broke new ground, and was enjoyable on many more levels.
If, in fact, Marge Gamer was trying to "parody" it, I think it failed. I recognized the similarities, certainly, but I did not find the episode to be making any jabs, twists, or thrusts at MLNW. It seemed more like they were just taking the same idea and putting a Simpsons spin on it. They did not fail at this; it was a good show. But, IMO, no gauntlet was being thrown down, and I don't see why Matt and Trey would feel they need to take it a challenge and try to "beat" it. They already did theirs, and they did it damned well.
But perhaps I'm just not seeing what you are seeing. Tell me, what elements of Marge Gamer do you consider to be "parody" (as opposed to just using the same idea)?
"Captain Infinity" wrote in message news:[email]...
Excellent response, I apologize for the incorrect assumptions I made about you.
Here's a section from my OP that should explain it:
There were two major differences in the SP parody of WoW and the game itself. First, when the characters in SP were being shown playing the game, they were talking with each other--not an ability the game has in itself but something you can rig up--but when they spoke, their characters' mouths moved and they gesticulated exactly as though they were carrying on a conversation in real life. This can't happen in WoW. Your character will gesticulate with certain commands, but doesn't have any way to react to any voice communication whatsoever.
Second, the plot of the episode was that a single character had gotten so powerful, he was able to kill all the other characters in the game, making all the other players miserable because as soon as they started having fun the powerful one would kill their character. This is impossible, the game is set up so that can't happen. The highest you can get is level 60 (or level 70 with the expansion pack) and there are plenty of other level 70 players around who are as powerful as you. At that point if you battle another character, the contest is determined by player skill, including strategy and reflexes, and to a slight degree by luck (some classes of characters have advantages over others, though the game manufacturer tries to keep them as balanced as possible.) So the whole plot of the parodical episode of SP was based on a blatantly false premise. (If you are a low-level player, high-level players can kill you if they are the opposite faction, but only in certain areas--and there's no reason for low-level players to venture into those areas.)
Once again, I am NOT pointing these things out as flaws in the SP episode, I consider them "artistic license" in order to make the episode more interesting. But they were, in the strictest possible sense, inaccuracies, since South Park chose World of Warcraft *by name* rather than using a parodical name.
(Now that I think about it, they went beyond artistic license because the whole premise of the episode was based on something that could never happen in WoW. It was a cheat. They could have done any number of stories involving WoW which could have been possible in the game. It's sort of like portraying Dubya as the first black president, and then basing an episode on the challenges he faces as such--it doesn't make sense.)
Now, this brings us to "Marge Gamer."
Though the game parodied in "The Simpsons" was referred to as Earthland Realms and had similarities to many online role-playing games, it had a number of elements unique enough to WoW to leave no doubt as to the target of the parody.
As soon as the game starts (after the introductory sequence and tutorial) we see characters speaking aloud and gesticulating in coordination, exactly as South Park showed it. At first, I assumed this was either sloppiness on the part of the writers, or that they were copying what they had seen on the SP episode out of sheer laziness and lack of originality but later I realized differently. It turned out that the plot of the Earthland Realms story was essentially identical to the plot of the South Park episode: one player ruins the game for all the other players because he's so powerful none can stand against him.
Maybe this really was sloppiness on the part of the Simpsons staff, and no one checked (or maybe no one cared) that The Simpsons was essentially stealing two things from South Park that were both just writers' cheats to begin with. If nothing more is heard about it, then I guess that's the case. If I'm right about it though, we should see another SP episode parodying TS--only doing it much better.