If you remember the Internet when it first became available for public and commercial use around 1995, you probably remember weird online games that were not really games at all, but which appeared on websites that were for totally unrelated products. For example, I once played some ridiculous flash game where you had to maneuver animated keys into the mouth of an animated clown or something, which was on the website for the 1997 film The Game. This flash game had nothing whatsoever to do with the movie.
It was clear back then that these corporations knew they had to get involved with the Internet, but somehow did not know or comprehend what that meant, so they took their best guess and ended up with silly games. Flash forward to the iPhone.
What makes Pizza Hut’s iPhone app so insidious is that it is kind of fun. I mean, pizza is always fun, but this app takes it to a whole new level. Instead of just clicking on the name of the item you want to order, and the variety (sauce, topping, etc.) you get to use the iPhone’s touch screen to manipulate the product you want. Resize the pizza, pour the sauce on the hot wings, and soon enough, you’re forgetting that a medium-sized pepperoni pizza has 2080 calories, 96 grams of fat, and 4720 milligrams of sodium.
But while this is fun, it’s not as fun as it could be. Apparently. Because you can also race your delivery truck through a street filled with car-sized hot wings and pizza boxes as big as a baseball diamond. No, I am not kidding.
I’m almost at a loss for how to even comprehend this app, let alone talk about it. That black thing is a car, by the way. Or a truck. Whatever it is, it’s an upgrade from the red 1987 Ford Tempos driven by Pizza Hut delivery folk in my ‘hood. This is what our society has come to. Multiple programmers, who were probably the smartest kids in class back in high school, spent hours on end writing this game. And it’s not even a sensible game, like the one with those blocks falling from the sky, or that Italian plumber fellow. This one is just dumb. Giant pizzas? Huge trays of overcooked lasagna? I know traffic is bad, but that can’t possibly the reason.
Or could it …














