Candy Crush is a unique creature. In 2014, close to 93 million people swiped brightly colored candies daily, and in 2015, the game had 550 million players total. Those figures can more accurately be described as “way too many goddamn people.” At the same time, very few people brag about their matchmaking prowess. The vast majority quietly creates combos with their heads bent covertly over their phones, refusing to admit that they’ve wasted the past four hours playing such a talentless and mind-numbing game instead of writing intelligent articles about European politics. However, not all has been lost. The mechanics of Candy Crush mimic real life to an alarming degree, and those who are aware of these similarities definitely and without a doubt have an advantage over those who don’t play.
1. The universe doesn’t care about your dreams, desires or what you believe you deserve.
At some point, everyone who has played Candy Crush has reached that level. You’ve attempted it at least twenty times, meeting various levels of failure each time. Sometimes you have twelve jellies left to clear, and sometimes you only have one (and you can’t actually be good at Candy Crush anyway). King doesn’t care. You have to pay nine gold bars for five more moves no matter how close you are. King won’t take pity on you because you really want to beat the level or because you really almost did it this time. Rules are rules. The real world works the same way. College admissions don’t accept applicants based on how much they wanted to be accepted. They look at your accomplishments and decide whether you meet their qualifications. Once you run out of moves, you become powerless. Earlier this year, a young woman at Yelp complained that she wasn’t being paid enough. The corporate world didn’t care either, and she was fired.
2. Life is significantly easier if you’re rich.
However, Candy Crush will pay attention to your demands if you can pay them. You can keep buying moves until you win if you have the funds the spare. You can also buy power-ups in the shape of little fish and even invincibility, although only for 2 to 6 hours. Only money gives you real power and control. Several aspects of the real world work the same way. For example, the candidates in the 2016 presidential election keep dumping billions of dollars into ads. Although TV ads may be less effective than in past years, the candidates know that if they don’t advertise, their competition definitely will, and spending millions of dollars on attack ads couldn’t possibly hurt when you have billions of dollars to spare.
3. You can never win at life.
Currently, there are 2,500 levels in Candy Crush, and the developers are adding more each week. So even if you finally reach episode 168, you can never be truly free. There is no final boss, no ending or victory song. You just keep playing until you lose interest, King quits or you die. Not in the sense that you run out of little virtual hearts. Some of us definitely know that we’ll keep playing until our lungs stop pumping air and we take our final breath. Similarly, there is no final battle in the real world. Your high school career is ultimately dedicated to getting into a good college. You want to study at a prestigious college so you can find a high-paying job. Your job supports your retirement plan. Your retirement plan guarantees that you can live comfortably for the rest of your time on this Earth. Even after you retire, you may find yourself lacking in experiences, relationships or skills. At no point in your life do you accomplish everything on a checklist or quest and gain the respect of all the peasants. You just keep trudging until you die.
4. Most of what you do has no purpose except to distract you from the pointlessness of your existence.
“Why am I still playing this pointless game if I don’t get any recognition for it?” you may ask yourself upon occasion, or in my case, twice hourly. The reason for your dependence probably has a lot to do with positive reinforcement and symptoms of addiction, but you still want to believe in free will, so you keep telling yourself that you’re just taking a break from the daily tedium of homework or your job. Of course, there are ways to cheat the game and get infinite lives, but even then, is it worth it at all? Will reaching level 637 gain you respect, love and trust? If so, you are probably spending time with the wrong people. But in the end, does anything really matter? Why do we go to our same boring office job or attend daily PowerPoint lectures? Because we’re told that we must be productive members of society, even in the face of our universe’s impending heat death. In the end, Candy Crush is just a tiny microcosm of our lives, a short distraction from the nihilistic nature of our very being. And I thought this would be more fun to discuss than Brexit.
