This week, Mattel announced a new version of Scrabble that will allow proper nouns.

Cash in on points by spelling words like SyFy, Plaxico, iPod, and Ice-T.

What’s embarrassing are the headlines playing it up as a polarizing issue: “Scrabble Proper Nouns Anger Purists”. Finally a topic I can wholly and unashamedly call a debate versus morons. I’m inclined to agree with the guy who labelled these the “new idiot’s rules”. Next up, Mattel will remove the spelling requirement from the game in an attempt to woo the casual market some more.

I’m all for pop culture. Hell I swim in the stuff. Mattel probably did a study where people spell various Trademarks more correctly than traditional words. No doubt, they’ve got a market to pander to here.

I’m also a game fan and the long and short of this topic is simple: Games are defined by rules and challenges. You can only change so many rules and reduce the challenges so much before you’ve lost the entire point of the game. Scrabble with these rules isn’t actually Scrabble at all.

Which brings me to the casual gaming aspect. When you dole out rewards for virtually any mindless non-effort unachievement, I’d be hard pressed to call it a game. Why don’t we all play shout out random words? Is that a game? Really? How far have we lowered our bar for gameplay?

Welcome to the Idiocracy.