Suck

for 9 July 1996. Updated every TUESDAY.



	Konami's Track and Field meets the '96
	Olympic Games ...on the Web!

	All the rush, the high-impact excitement,
	and single-minded drive to win of the
	Olympics, experienced and practiced on
	the net, courtesy of olympictorch.com!

	Deep inside each of us lies the soul of an
	Olympic athlete. Unfortunately, our
	grease-pocked, cellulose-laden posteriors
	rarely reflect the champion within. While
	millions are content to live the thrill
	of the coming Olympics via the vicarious
	pleasures of TV, many dream of the
	opportunity to show their mettle in
	competitive sports custom-designed for
	their non-ambulatory lifestyles. And
	while celebrity endorsements are largely
	seen as a privilege of the alpha elite,
	olympictorch.com radically reaffirms the
	status quo by matching "athletes" with
	sponsors - but with olympictorch.com, the
	consumer/athlete is pitched, rather than
	sponsored by, key brands.



	The implementation is simple: some
	iteration of the old arcade standby,
	Track and Field, is licensed and retooled
	with contemporary themes and graphics.
	Old-time gamers will recall the
	keyboard-slamming (and ultimately
	keyboard-annihilating) interface, which
	olympictorch.com will astutely capitalize
	upon by offering prime advertising to
	keyboard manufacturers, while at the same
	time offering new, ergonomic keyboards as
	runner-up prizes. As a networked sporting
	simulation game, a national epidemic of
	sprained wrists helps to manufacture a
	ready pool of potential tendon therapy
	candidates - wrist supports could be
	another popular prize.

	The principal obstacle is
	promotion of the olympictorch.com gaming
	network. This could involve, but not be
	limited to, brand placement at
	traditional Olympics events, extravagant
	and wildly appealing awards and accolades
	promised to winners, and recruitment of a
	Dream Team of world-class competitive
	key-slammers. The game itself should be
	either ripped-off, stolen, or cheaply
	licensed, as it is secondary to the
	frenetic quality of the play itself. One
	possible publicity event might include
	hiring Marc Andreessen to carry a mock
	Olympic torch from his office cubicle to
	a nearby Palo Alto burrito stand for an
	audience of national press.

courtesy of The Duke of URL