i was out with a buddy of mine a couple of years ago. he took me over to his cousin jumby's house. he wanted to show me jumby's slot car track. "oh, big deal!" i thought. "i remember my dad having one of those stupid things, the cars never EVER stayed on the track (i didn't know that you were supposed to slow them down around turns
), and after a while, they just quit working all together!" he took me anyway. i walked into his basement and saw the most amazing set-up. an approximate 5'x10' track, perfectly level, an LCD board that calculated your speed, and about 500 of the coolest little cars that i had ever seen. the track was worth around $3,000, and he had another few thousand in cars, parts, accessories, etc... when i got to talking to him about it, he tells me that they (slot car enthusiasts) travel around with their cars and race people from around the country. some people are known within their circles as the best track builders, car builder, etc... when i told of my previous thoughts about the "game", he just smiled. he had heard it all before. but he also knew that seeing was believing, and until people actually see the game being played in a positive light, people will always have a negative spin on the game because of their personal disappointment, or lack of interest with it when they were kids.
i personally think that promoting it as a specialized hobby could make it as appealing as model trains and slot cars. not forcing any issues on people, letting them know that there are many options to choose from as far as styles of play, boards, figures etc... is still a key. i know that this statement has been overstated in previous posts, but i remember hearing football coaches saying K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid
as far as i know, that saying is still used.
by the way, i read that article, about it being the worst game ever made, when i was first starting to hunt around for this "game" again, and it didn't phase my growing interest. it just stuck the words electric football even deeper into my head. remember that some old guy once said that there is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.
i couldn't listen to the podcast, puter's too slow and i don't own any of that fancy, shmancy technological mp-3 players. what was the overall synopsis?