[protected-iframe id=”dc94f6474b2342616b352bb482f121fd-60970621-4867901″ info=”https://secure.hulu.com/embed.html?eid=aVD5OFWSxTAAaFw8hG4Qjg&partner=southpark&sourceUrl=http%3A//southpark.cc.com/clips/1ms79p/the-terrance-phillip-mobile-game%23source%3Dff4daa77-43e0-4601-8fd6-21ea1daf9c19%26position%3D1%26sort%3Dairdate” width=”650″ height=”365″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no” webkitallowfullscreen=”” mozallowfullscreen=”” allowfullscreen=””]
The full episode of last night’s South Park, “Freemium Isn’t Free”, is embedded at the bottom of this post, and it’s damn fantastic. We’ve already posted a foul-mouthed rant about how much the free-to-play gaming modality seems like a killjoy experiment in behavioral economics and manipulating addicts, but South Park explained it so much better than we could, with a delicious side of Canada jokes. (“Soon Canada will be as advanced and developed as Michigan!”)
The clip above shows just how boring the Terrance and Phillip free-to-play mobile game is. In the next clip, we find out the game was created as a means to fund projects in the “ethical, respected, sh*tty tundra” that is Canada, but this conspiracy runs deep. So deep, guy.
Here’s the Prince of Canada explaining Freemium games (the “mium” is Latin for “not really”).
[protected-iframe id=”364802966a2d592fd6b4d2582178ce8f-60970621-4867901″ info=”https://secure.hulu.com/embed.html?eid=GrhRFSaMSQa2VcOMM3ub9A&partner=southpark&sourceUrl=http%3A//southpark.cc.com/clips/44wh2k/seeing-through-the-charade%23source%3Dff4daa77-43e0-4601-8fd6-21ea1daf9c19%26position%3D4%26sort%3Dairdate” width=”650″ height=”365″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no” webkitallowfullscreen=”” mozallowfullscreen=”” allowfullscreen=””]
Later in the episode (five minutes into the video below), their deconstruction of the Freemium model gets even more on point when the Canadian Minister of Mobile Gaming explains why the game has to suck in order to make more money. See, if we actually enjoyed the game, we wouldn’t pay 49 cents to make it temporarily not suck big fat demon chode. Speaking of which, there’s an amazing cameo in this episode for the long-time South Park fans. We don’t want to spoil it.
And what the hell, — or Canadian hell, as it were — here’s the whole awesome episode. Drink it all in, but drink responsibly.
[protected-iframe id=”4cc77c0d2b1927cee2d31465a97268a7-60970621-4867901″ info=”https://secure.hulu.com/embed.html?eid=-EJ3Sz2m4dOzpTvEcg0eHw&partner=southpark&sourceUrl=http%3A//southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s18e06-freemium-isnt-free%23source%3D2b6c5ab4-d717-4e84-9143-918793a3b636%3A63a32034-1ea6-492d-b95b-9433e3f62f8d%26position%3D1%26sort%3Dairdate” width=”650″ height=”365″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no” webkitallowfullscreen=”” mozallowfullscreen=”” allowfullscreen=””]
