Complicated? Over-developed? It requires almost no pre-existing knowledge on the part of its audience. They need to know:
- Video games exist.
- Video games have difficulty settings, including easy and hard modes.
- In the metaphorical Game of Life, straight white males play on easy mode.
Oh my god, it’s so complicated that it completely flew over the heads of everyone reading it, to the point where the comment threads were empty and no meaningful discussion was had regarding the concept. Any confusion wasn’t straight white males willfully misinterpreting the metaphor, or trying to make it into something more substantial than a blog post, or arguing against points the author never made, because the whole idea made them uncomfortable. Not at all.
Scalzi seems to have wanted the metaphor to be approachable to the audience that needed to hear it most. I fail to see how he did not succeed.
