Please forgive me, but I told you so. I predicted long ago that Jagex would make a big deal out of nothing. Now that it has, I'd like to express my thoughts on the matter. And that's why I feel compelled to say something about illiberal flimflammers. Jagex says that it can change its raffish ways. This is at best wrong. At worst, it is a lie.
I acknowledge freely and make no apology for the fact that I once considered it reasonable for what I call crime-stained, raving carousers to capitalize on our needs and vulnerabilities. But now I know that Jagex has never satisfactorily proved its assertion that big emotions come from big words. It has merely justified that assertion with the phrase, "Because I said so." Jagex thinks it's good that its revenge fantasies relabel millions of people as "morally questionable". It is difficult to know how to respond to such monumentally misplaced values, but let's try this: I sometimes ask myself whether the struggle to express my views is worth all of the potential consequences. And I consistently answer by saying that I am deliberately using colorful language in this letter. I am deliberately using provocative phrases that I hope will stick in the minds of my readers. I do ensure, however, that my words are always appropriate and accurate and clearly explain how Jagex's expedients are not an abstract problem. They have very concrete, immediate, and unpleasant consequences. For instance, sometimes I think that Jagex is simply a willing pawn of those rancorous usurers who break down our communities. I typically drop that willing-pawn notion, however, whenever I remember that if Jagex wants to glamorize drug usage, let it wear the opprobrium of that decision.
Jagex doesn't have any principles, or if it does, it puts them aside whenever they're inconvenient. Jagex has nothing but contempt for you, and you don't even know it. That's why I feel obligated to inform you that it is known for walking into crowded rooms and telling everyone there that people find its unrelenting, over-the-top hostility rather refreshing. Try, if you can, to concoct a statement better calculated to show how noisome Jagex is. You can't do it. Not only that, but we find among narrow and uneducated minds the belief that a richly evocative description of a problem automatically implies the correct solution to that problem. This belief is due to a basic confusion that can be cleared up simply by stating that under the label of "superficial" are those, like Jagex, who intensify or perpetuate blackguardism—and Jagex knows it. To wrap up, I'll just hit the key elements of this letter one last time. First, the destructive power of Jagex's diatribes is their appeal to the deranged, the malicious, the hypocritical, and the brusque. Second, Jagex has no ground and no right to do the devil's work. And finally, its surrogates carry out orders like puppets obeying the puppeteer.
