Kanye Zone creators on Launch Night. Photo courtesy of Michael Frederickson

3. It’s an Economic Metaphor, or Something

Here’s something that nobody’s really noticed yet. When the game begins, you start with $50,000.

Is there some significance to that?

Well, Jay-Z states in the beginning of “N*ggas in Paris,” “What’s 50 grand to a mothafucka like me, can you please remind me.”

So what’s you’re saying is, $50,000 is the equivalent of zero dollars.

Exactly. It’s nothing. Virtually zero. It’s like starting from scratch.

It doesn’t work that way in the real world.

No. Only in the Kanye Zone world.

Even other video games aren’t that generous. You don’t start playing Legend of Zelda and they’re like “Here’s 50,000 boomerangs and magic swords. Knock yourself out.”

No, they definitely don’t.

4. It’s Viral Success Is Probably Going to Result in Dozens of Spin-Offs and Sequels

Kanye Zone is huge, right?

We officially hit the two million mark. Over two million games have been played so far.

So there must be a sequel in the works.

Not yet, but there’s so many layers in that song to explore. We didn’t even touch on that business about the fish filet or the Bourgie girl or getting married at the mall or what went on in the bathroom stall.

There was something about him being Prince Williams and marrying Kate and Ashley.

Right, right. There’s so much we could cover, but we’re leaving it for another game. Which we probably won’t do, unless we get a serious financial backer.

You aren’t swimming in profits from Kanye Zone?

Oh god no. The Kanye Zone took us forever and we made like $8.

But if you got the financial backing, you could turn this into a whole cottage industry. Make dozens of games based on Kanye West songs.

I’m thinking “Watch the Throne” would be a pretty good game. The throne would just be popping out from behind trees and other rappers and various gold things in Kanye’s pad. And you have to direct his head to watch it, and see how good you could be at watching the throne.

“Can you put a price tag on conducting a long and ultimately meaningless conversation about the aesthetic value of a bouncing Kanye head? That may be a bigger waste of time than actually playing Kanye Zone.”

That’ll get three million plays easy.

Another game I’d like to do is “Through the Wire,” where you’d have to untangle this maze of phone cords to get Yeezy to the show.

What about “Gold Digger”?

Oh yeah! It’s be like a Minecraft-style game?

I was thinking more Dig Dug.

Sure, yeah. Here’s what I’m thinking. You have to dig underground but you’re constantly being thwarted by women who are after your purse.

And Busta Rhymes is always lurking nearby, trying to put a baby in them.

Exactly, yes. There’s also potential for a massive multi-player game where you go online and travel through this shoddily-constructed college metaphor.

Ouch.

You know, the metaphor that Kanye’s been working on his entire career but nobody really understands.

5. It’s Probably Going to Be Turned Into the Dumbest Big Budget Hollywood Movie Based On a Video Game Of All Time

Has somebody approached you about a movie adaptation yet?

Nope. But it’s only a matter of time, right?

They almost made Pong and Tetris into movies, so why not Kanye Zone?

I’m ready. The screenplay practically writes itself. I’m not going to name any names, but I have a list of at least eight qualified people who would be happy to play the circle.

Let’s do some role playing. This is a studio pitch meeting.

Okay.

I’m a studio exec who wants to make this movie. Sell me on it. What’s the plot? Who’s the marquee star?

Well, we’d need to get Michael Bay to direct. And we’d obviously need to get Kanye in the movie. I’m not sure whether he’d wear a green screen suit so we’d just have a disembodied head as the main character.

No argument here. Without a disembodied Kanye West head, we don’t have a movie. It’d be like Lord of the Rings without Gollum.

There’d probably be a resistance force called the Bumper. Maybe they can only move from right to left. And there’s lot of cinematic violence, with people getting shot and money spurting out of their wounds. Their blood would be gold cash.

This has blockbuster written all over it.

I can see a really intense sequence where “Jesus Walks” is playing and Kanye is sprinting through a minefield, dodging bullets and shrapnel to the beat.

And the best part is, the soundtrack is already ready to go.

Oh yeah. We have a huge head start with the soundtrack, which is like 95% of making a movie.

…

So what did I learn from all this? Probably nothing. Quite honestly, MTV isn’t paying me nearly enough to put any real effort into being a cultural critic. But then again, can you put a price tag on conducting a long and ultimately meaningless conversation about the aesthetic value of a bouncing Kanye head? That may be a bigger waste of time than actually playing Kanye Zone. And if you’re reading this sentence, then I can only assume you’ve at least skimmed this entire unnecessarily long and meandering story about an online game that even a housecat could figure out. Can I jump to the conclusion that you probably don’t have a lot going on in your life right now? Hey, no judgment, we’ve all been there. I suppose to make this a little less of a colossal waste of time for both of us, I could draw some sloppy conclusions about Kanye Zone being a stunning indictment of our cultural short attention span. I could talk about how we’ve come full circle in our video game diversions, stumbling backwards in our evolution to the stone age of Pong, and how this probably means that our Twitterized shrinking brains don’t have the capacity for original thought anymore, much less a time-wasting activity that requires more than two fingers and a perfunctory concentration. But I can hear Kanye’s voice in my head again, calling to me like a siren song — “Don’t let me into my zone, don’t let me into my zone” — and I really should be getting back to it. If I don’t keep Kanye out of his goddamn zone, who the hell will?