Throughout history, man has had ideas. Some of these ideas have been strikingly good, such as the wheel, fire, popcorn, and the entire Hardy Boys series. Others, sadly, have not been so good.

Social laws dictate that most bad ideas will naturally die out. Ideas like grunge music, Nazism, and Dane Cook’s sense of humor are all examples of unfortunate things that thankfully haven’t stood the test of time.

However, there are some extremely poor ideas which, for one reason or another, haven’t died out. This is particularly true in the gaming arena. Sometimes this is because it turns out the idea wasn’t so bad in the first place; other times it’s more because the gaming public in general isn’t the most discerning group of people.

This week’s column will examine a few of these bad ideas, and attempt to explain the series of events that led to them not dying like the unfortunate travesties they may or may not be.

Pong: What!? Pong? The grandfather of games? Surely, Mr. Jarvis, you aren’t blaspheming against the Progenitor?

Well, yes. I am. Seriously, think about it. Who was the guy sitting around in his office so incredibly bored he thought it would be cool to create a game in which two white blocks float around while another white block floats around between them? Even allowing for the fact that there weren’t any other games to compare the idea to, surely someone looked at the screen at some point during the creation process and said, “Kinda lame, ain’t it?”

Of course, Pong stood the test of time. This is more a testament to fact that people really had no lives in the eighties than any genius of the game, however – Pong would have been a big deal to a culture in which muscle cars were no longer made and everyone listened to Rick Astley.

Psychonauts: If you haven’t played Psychonauts, shame on you. It’s a fantastic platformer with a real sense of humor and a great storyline. Developer Double Fine has since jumped the PC ship by releasing Brutal Legend on consoles only, so I blame all of you who didn’t buy the game for my current state of unhappiness.

That said, the game is a bit of an odd concept. The story is about a kid with psychic powers who sneaks into a psychic summer camp to learn how to be a psychic warrior, which he does by entering various characters psyches and platforming a lot. It’s the kind of idea you’d expect to come up towards the end of a caffeine fueled all-nighter, kind of like the one I pulled before writing this article…

However, the game is quite solid and enjoyable, and still available for purchase if you look hard enough. Do yourself a favor and buy the game; doing so will enrich your life and also remove the curse of my wrath from your descendants.

Now that we’ve had our six hour meeting, let’s get to grinding!

World of Warcraft: Ok, put your pitchforks down and douse the torches. Come, let us reason together, says the Lord. Think about this game with me.

Here is a game that is quite literally so boring that it requires you to play with a large group of other people just to keep it interesting. This is not a game. It’s a social experiment in group management.

You might work at a job where your boss breathes down your neck, the guy in the cubicle next to you won’t stop making annoying sounds, and the quirky guy down the hall who really shouldn’t have been hired seems bent on making every task as much of a chore as possible. You flee your place of business, peeling out of the parking lot while thanking the powers that be you’ve survived another day.

Then you go home, fire up World of Warcrack and log into Ventrilo, and do it again. Except the irritating coworkers are replaced with the disembodied voices of your guildmates. And you’re strangely ok with this?

The success of WoW isn’t entirely mysterious. The backstory is impressive; the amount of lore and the completeness of the world that has been created is a little ridiculous; the game mechanics have been honed down to a fine science. But who was the guy who stood up at the Blizzard corporate meeting and said, “I know, why don’t we throw out all the storytelling and everything else lovable and cool about the Warcraft IP and make a game that actually encourages hours and hours of mindless grinding in the pursuit of a lonely life in a basement somewhere?”

Rereading that last paragraph, I realize I may be a little bitter. I was a big fan of Warcraft III…give me a break.

Puzzle Quest: The idea behind Puzzle Quest is mixing role-playing (traditionally a hard core genre) with Bejeweled (traditionally a casual game), tossing a few swords and spells into the pot, and standing back to see what kind of horrific Frankensteinian mashup emerges from the mix.

Surprisingly, a quite enjoyable little game rose from the unholy grafting. Puzzle Quest has all the charms of your typical casual game (colorful, family friendly, easy to pick up and play) with many of the elements usually reserved for more in-depth titles (character progression, some semblance of story). The game works in spite of its unthinkable origins.

Twilight: Ok, so this isn’t a game. But the new movie just came out and I can’t resist right now.

Let’s just be honest. These movies are basically an excuse for young girls to goggle at shirtless guys with big pecs. At the risk of my Man Card spontaneously combusting, I will admit that I did read the first book. I will also admit that it wasn’t all that bad. But these films are a travesty on everything that is good in the world. Things like “good acting,” and “my eyes not bleeding.”

What was Meyer thinking? A story about vampires…that sparkle!? Vampires…do not…sparkle! They guzzle the platelets of the living! They rise from the grave in the dead of night to stalk hapless innocents, may or may not transform into bats, have a deadly fear of crucifixes and are completely and totally unable to have children (they are dead, after all…). And they most definitely…do not…sparkle.

I need to sit down.

Jerod Jarvis is an independent gaming journalist and founder of Duality Games. He maintains gaming columns for The Washington Times Communities and for The Outpost. When not blogging madly about games, he freelances for the Spokesman-Review in his hometown of Spokane, Washington and attends school at Whitworth University. Check out his presence on Facebook and Twitter to stay up on Duality Games updates and the inside scoop on the gaming news you care about.