“Once upon a time, there was a grandparent lived with their grandchild. One night, the kid could not fall asleep and begged them to tell some story; so, the grandfather told a fable to a kid, “Once upon a time, there was a grandparent lived with their grandchild. One night, the kid could not fall asleep and begged them to tell some story; so,the grandfather told a fable to a kid…(repeated *100xxxx times)”…“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is loving to hear more tale of them all?” I have no doubt, the one whom precipitately appeared is me! It is inevitable to say that once you were a girl or a boy, you might like to hear fairly tales from your parents as it can take you to an imaginary world like a poem There is no Frigate like a Book by Emily Dickinson. Thus, ‘Tales’ or any ‘narratives’ are the most useful tool for game industry to decoy young children to ‘buy’ their products, and one of the ‘wolves’ (as in the LittleRed Riding Hood) is the game called “Tales Runner”.

Tales Runner is a longstanding MMO racing game on PC that has been inaugurated in Thailand since 2007 by TOT untilnow (2021) by PlayPark– a popular game company for Thai gamers from generation to generation. Rhaon Entertainment first releases Tales Runner in South Korea since 2005 and is published globally by Smilegate Megaport to the service of TOT of Thailand in 2007, then is succeeded to PlayPark (Asiasoft) in 2016. Moreover, it won “BestCasual Game Award” in Bangkok Interactive Game Festival 2008 (GamesIndustry.biz) and I think that Thai Millennials (Gen-Y) might once hear or play Tales Runneronline on PC in a lifetime as it claimed that it is “the number one racing gamein Thailand.” Most of the old players since the previous server (TOT) to the present one (PlayPark) such as me and my friends agree that Tales Runner is imprinted in our childhood memory and we cannot help to replay, though we are are growing older because of some reason that I will provide later. Besides, Thairath also praises the game as “เกมสีขาว” that is rated for being harmless to youth, along with the MMOGames online magazine recommends Tales Runner as “a very good alternative game to take a break from the same old games,” and we will scrutinize together that Tales Runner does deserve these claims or not.

The main theme of the game revolves around the narrative of “[a] very beautiful and fantastic world of fairy tale” (Rhaon 6) from both western and eastern folklores which is governed by King Henry III and the seven color Pieros, the king’s servants, and we play as a runner (independently choose from 27 characters) in those fantasy kingdom; in the competition cubicle rooms in which the more we win the race, the more level [higher rank] we gain. For the game’s system in constructing the hierarchy in the game that the King is the highest, the seven color pieros are the middle and we runners are the lowest class who have to conform to these NPCs’ command and is tacitly forced to be slaves of the game, it reminds me to think about our real society, especially, the society in the workplace: King Henry III the office owner, the seven color pieros the bosses, and the runners the workers– as an adaptation of the cruel social hierarchy in a semi magical realism world ofcapitalism.

Moreover, there is a “Top-up code” system that available for those who want the extra items for the character’s status and fashion by buying the code from the game fair, buying Tales Runner cartoon books, paying for beingan internet café member or joining game special campaigns– and all these events squander your money! Tales Runner is a game that pushes the players to the corral of capitalism and pulls them with the myth of an individual’s racing proficiency. Humorously, as the game attempts to induce the players to buy a code to get rare items in the book, surprisingly, there is a legendary expert player name “KhunChai Arm,” makes his own gaming trick book to sell for the one who wants to be the next expert, this flaw system of the game, leads him to be a book’s dealer himself and he is a model figure in transforming a game to be a marketplace for the runners in Tales Runner. Nowadays, the players who currently play the game is not play a game for pleasure as in the old time, but they play the game for making real money by selling the game’s items through True Money Wallet. 

         On the “Dr.Hell” mode, it is a bitter pill for the runner who does not have much running “skill” although they wear a full set of EXTRA items with full status, because from the starting point you need to know a special technique to control the character to run along the labyrinth path and if you do not know how to deal that trick, you will never end the race and have to use the key Alt+F4 to end the game instead. However, this does not mean that the game is difficult because you have two choices before starting the game: first, you have to wait for the skilled player to help you pass that turn or quest, or you have to dedicate your time to practice on your own–Of course, Tales runner hints the trick in their official cartoon books! [as to suit with Smilegate’s marketing line that “The Original Brain Development Game, Tales Runner!”] Each failed in each turn does not give you any compulsion of vitality, but a dispirited feeling as we will get little game money (TR) and experience (EXP) which affects our progress to compete the rivals. On one hand, these mechanics of the game is seen as the tools for the players to enjoy the game in various type of gaming modes through its difficulty. 

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Hence, that difficulty of the game is served for the consumerism purpose. By playing along with the myth of the free-play-game such as TalesRunner which claims itself to be suitable for kids, there is a materialism in the game marketing that is the main agenda hiding in the beautiful surface. For me, to play this 14th-year game for an adult in this day might not be that silly or doing nonsense things because we can see that Tales Runner has provided many game systems for its own marketing purpose, but we as an adult players, a free-to-play players can get the benefit from these systems; we would not be a slave of the game anymore, but we will slaved the game to be our digital trading platform instead!

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