Atrophy
February 9, 2009
I have a problem: I’m not wired to play games the right way. I don’t care about strategy or tactics or any of that. All I really want to do is find something cool and play with it. Portal was a dream for me — the entire game was about playing with cool things and making sarcastic jokes.
The real problem with this approach comes when I try to play real-time strategy games. Once I find a powerful technique or unit, that one gets used to the neglect of all others. It works for a while, but my other units become useless through atrophy. To paraphrase General Sline from Spies Like Us, my unused weapons were useless. If and when the opposition is able to defeat my super-unit, my remaining forces are quickly overrun.
It occurs to me that, with that admission, I have lost the right to mock B-movie supervillains with superweapons . . . or at least that I must acknowledge that doing so would be hypocrisy.
My point here is that groups of people tend to work the same way. If one person is a strong leader, the others may become indecisive when they’re not together as a group. It’s important to maintain independent thought even in a group that’s doing well, because you never know who will have to become a leader.
And really, don’t you want all the people you’re leading now to succeed and go on to lead other people? Well then, don’t let their leadership skills atrophy.
