Mon Nov 09, 2009 11:29 am
EA & EGM: Case Studies in Fail: Reject Epic Narrative = Fail
Basically this article could be applied to the entire industry which is shedding billions in market cap and thousands of jobs.
Over the past several years, I would pick up major gaming magazines (EGM/Play/Edge) and turn straight to the letters section--the letters from the readers/avid gamers.
Invariably, there would be writers stating that they were looking for games with more exalted narrative, epic story, and meaning.
And the fanboy/fanmba editorial staff would often be both condescending and dismissive, basically giving them the middle finger in telling them to shut up and go back to their single-mom's basement to play Fallout/GTA and shoot cops and hookers and women in metallic bras, as really, GTA is all about the family, really, and living morally, with profound ideas that have profound consequences; and epic, exalted meanings for the greater culture.
And then, a few short months later, after giving the finger to the reader/consumer/yearner for art and narrative, EGM went under.
CASE STUDY #1: The Epic Failure of Dante's Inferno: The Epic Price of Ignoring Epic Story and Placing Dante's Beloved, Incorruptible Beatrice in Hell, and Playing up the Giant Nipples/Vaginas/Baby-Killing for The Vocal Fanboys
In one fell-swoop, EA blew several opportunities to exalt both classical culture and their bottom line. Mired in the "debauch the culture/currency and deconstruct the Greats" that so dominates our culture, EA approached Dante's Divine Comedy from a hateful, arrogant, fanboyish angle; instead of from a loving, manly, humble one.
So EA goes and slaps the name Dante's Inferno on a God of War Mod, basically giving the middle finger to Dante's art, life, love, poetry, religion, soul, and spirit, casting his beloved, incorruptible Beatrcie in hell, and recasting Dante the poet and scholar as a buff, world-wrestling-federation champion. And this is the result--a quickly forgettable #eafailsuck, generic, been-there-done-that-but-better-the-first-time-around game:
http://www.gamersdailynews.com/article- ... ferno.html
--http://www.gamersdailynews.com/article-2169-HandsOn-with-Dantes-Inferno.html
All those hours, upon hours wasted in debauching art and losing EA's investor's cash. All those hours, upon hours spent ignoring the story and focusing on mere, fleeting marketing gimmicks, placing Aristotle's spectacle first and his story dead last, thusly inverting the order of Aristotle's Poetics, and harassing booth babes:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DrElliot ... w_Gold.php
I reached out to Jonathan Knight regarding how the Gold 45 Revolver / Ideas Have Consequences / Moral Premise technologies could exalt not only Dante's Inferno, but his entire company, but he was pre-dedicated to debauching Dante's Divine Work, ignoring the fundamental precepts of the divine, epic narrative, and losing market cap.
And that's where the epic advantage lies. In all their epic EA arrogance they are forgetting that which matters most in art--the soul and spirit, and thus story.
CASE STUDY # 2: EGM MAGAZINE'S FAIL
What an opportunity EGM had! When they received letters from readers demanding profundity, poetry, and epic meaning in their games, they could have run with it! They could have become the flagship publication of the renaissance, while rallying game companies and developers who exalted epic narrative in their games, carving out a vast new market for games! If only!
But instead, because EGM magazine gave the exalted consumer the middle finger, they are now defunct. EA's fanboyish/fanmbaish Dante's Inferno is taking EA down the same EGM road to financial hell, giant vaginas, nipples, and babby killing all. But that's what you get for placing Beatrice in Hell.
I predicted this in my patent application, citing EGM's flippant, arrogant, fanboyish response to an honest gamer seeking exaltation, story, enlightenment in their games. What did they do? EGM told him to shut up and go back to his mom's basement and play GTA.
FROM: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0017886.html
PRIOR ART AND ADVANTAGES OF PRESENT INVENTION
There is a vast demand for deeper, more intellectual video games that is generally opposed throughout the industry. Many designers are weak minded like the Storm Troopers in Star Wars, and thus they believe hiring and killing prostitutes constitutes exalted story, as the fiatocracy's Death Star commands them to believe. Many will defend their hiring and killing prostitutes by the fact that one doesn't have to in the open-ended world, but then it GTA is not truly an open-ended world wherein one cannot take a prostitute to church, nor even speak words of exalted wisdom to her that might save her soul, nor give her a copy of Dante's Inferno nor Homer's Odyssey to exalt her soul. While developers, publishers, and insiders constantly hype the storytelling in games so as to sound cool and push product for mere monetary profit, the young can see that the emperor is wearing no clothes. In EGM's letter of the month, a reader expresses the rising generation's demand by writing:
EGM Letter of The Month:
“As I grew up, videogames grew up with me. I started playing games like Donkey Kong and Carnival on the ColecoVision before I could read, and Nintendo's Mario title were a staple of my early childhood. As I got older, I saw the storytlines and gameplay mechanics become more intricate and engaging. When I went through my rebellious and bitchy teenage years, so did videogames. And as I grew and matured, so did the subject matter of the games themselves.
Now that I'm 22, more things are vying for my time and attention such as work, college, women, drinking, and lamenting over my long-gone and simpler childhood. Needless to say, if I'm going to devote 20-plus hours of my life to completing a game, it had better be well worth it. And to me personally, a game well worth it is one I can take something away from on an intellectual level. For example, a game that makes me question my own existence, or the war in Iraq, or the increasing diconnectedness of our modern high-tech lives would be the holy grail of gaming to me. What are the chances that gaming will finally grow once more and develop a social and political conscience?—Eric Staskiewicz, summer, 2008 EGM
EGM answers “The answers are pretty damn good. Games are more and more frequently making “statements” about society and politics—see BioShock, GTA4, even Army of Two for just a few examples. We'll always have mindless diversions as well, of course, but count on seeing more and more depth of theme and storytelling in the coming years.”—Summer, 2008
And so it is that jacking cars, shooting police and the innocent, and hiring and killing prostitutes is now not only exalted art, but sublime political science and sociology. The younger generation is seeking exaltation and enlightenment in their video games, and the response is a) it is already pretty damn good so shut up and b) mindless diversions rock and c) it will get even better than hiring and killing prostitutes. It is quite obvious from the above letter, that the demand for video games with exalted principles is not being served. Fanboys do not believe in the “word,” and thus they poke around in their cave, grunting and smiling when the prostitute dies after they are done with her, enjoying their “art.”
Such novel games will stand head and shoulders above the prior and current art, including GTA, GOW, and Fallout 3, about which Kotaku reports: Cannabalism, Slavery and Sex in Fallout 3—http://kotaku.com/5022866/cannabalism-slavery-and-sex-in -fallout-3. An interview with one of Fallout3's lead designers goes as follows http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39736 ... Screenshot s-Interview:
“1) Which of the following, if any, will be featured in Fallout3; Romance, Sex, Homosexuality, Nudity, Prostitution, Slavery, Cannibalism, Children, Child killings, drugs, addictions? And of the things that won't be featured, can you explain why they won't be included in the game?
“It touches on most of those. Slavery, children, drugs and addiction more than the others, as those factor for into the setting more. In regards to nudity and child killings, no, it features neither of those, as they don't really add to the flavor of the game (I'll get into children in the next question more). I think if you look at Fallout 1, and the footprint it has with the topics you ask about, Fallout 3 is pretty much the same, in that it features the types of things you mention at about the same rate, no more, no less. Drugs and drug addiction play a larger role perhaps, as it's a key gameplay device. I think the heart of this question is “has the harshness and maturity of the world of Fallout 3 been tempered from the earlier games?” and I can certainly say “No, it hasn't been.”—http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39736/Fallout-3 -Screenshots-Interview
Note that while Cannibalism, slavery, drugs, and prostitution are regularly included in the the fanboy video games, nowhere can one find the US Constitution, nor Shakespeare, nor the Bible, nor Plato, nor Aristotle, nor Gandhi, nor Jefferson, nor any Great Book nor classical ideal included. Classical ideals have been excluded from the gaming realm; and while both good and evil exist in games, both are considered “fun,” and neither have long-term consequences.
Although Fallout1 allowed one to kill children, Fallout3 no longer does, as the designer states: “You will not be able to be a child killer. There are several reasons for this, some of them are very basic, like we wouldn't be able to sell the game, anywhere to anyone, if the children could be killed.”
The Fallout3 interview continues at http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39736 ... Screenshot s-Interview:
“3) Could you outline your thoughts on the matter of ensuring that choices and consequences provided by the various quests within your game are crafted so as to be more nonlinear than simply the superficial choice between “good, bad and neutral”/“affirmative, negative and nothing?” Also, will there be other aspects to choices in Fallout 3? Political? Philosophical? Exactly how far will you go with the player's moral freedom, the “gray” solutions?”
That really depends on the quest, so it's hard to say. There are certainly some that are clearly good/bad, like blowing up Megaton. It's clearly bad to nuke an entire town. It's clearly bad to kill innocent people throughout the game, and your karma is affected. It's also clearly good to help people in need, giving to charity, passing out clean water, and more. Those are specific examples in the game. I think many people want to play “good” and want to play “evil”. Both are fun in different ways. The gray area comes into several quests, where the situation is just “bad”. Some feel like no-win situations and they come across as “make a hard choice.” I think that's where it feels best honestly, but we do need to mix it up between that and simpler good/bad.—http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39736/Fallout- 3-Screenshots-Interview
So it is that good and evil are both “fun” in different ways. Imagine if our Founding Fathers had created a nation wherein they saw “good” and “evil” to be “fun” in different ways. The present invention differentiates itself from the prior art in that the outcome of the world ultimately does depend on classical ideals which must be fought for. Tobold's blog presents some insights into how the fanboy gaming community falls short in delivering games where exalted ideas and have truly exalted consequences; and where there is a good that ultimately makes a difference. The present and prior art of the video game world exalts games where evil is a thin plot device:
http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2006 — 06 — 01_archive.html
Tobold's MMORPG Blog
Friday, Jun. 30, 2006
“The end of evil
When last year Edward Castronova argued on Terra Nova that Horde characters in World of Warcraft are evil, he was widely ridiculed. There is no “evil” in World of Warcraft, players of either faction are constantly on quests that are helping somebody else. Whether you are a holy paladin or a demon-summoning warlock, it doesn't change the way in which you help the farmer get the deed to his farm back from the evil bandits. There is no moral choice, no option to sell the deed to the highest bidder instead of returning it for a lousy reward. Even the undead are “good” undead, fighting the evil scourge undead.
If a game like Black & White, or Knights of the Old Republic, or Fable, gives you the option to play good or evil, that is just a thinly disguised way to enable you to play the game twice. You chose evil or good by what you think is more useful to beat the game, and then if you play it again, you chose the other side, just to see something new. It is not a moral choice, but a tactical one. We don't feel that burning down a virtual village in a game world and killing the inhabitants is an evil act, after all those are just colored pixels that don't feel anything. Advancing in the game is the most important, even that means that in the next mission we have to throw Napalm on that Vietnamese village to continue.
All that ends us in a total inability between gamers and anti-game advocates or politicians to understand each other. The gamer picks up minor points that the criticism got wrong, like “there are no points in GTA for shooting and raping hookers”, and fails to see that the criticism otherwise wasn't all that unjustified. Most of what you do in GTA *is* a depiction of very, very evil behavior. By the time you finished the game you have committed more crimes than any known peace-time gangster. The anti-gamer fails to see that all these crimes are virtual, and don't lead to you going out and doing the same in real life.
“Evil” has become a joke. In Dragon Quest 8 one of the heroes has a special combat move with whirling axes, called “Axes of Evil”, har, har, nice joke on George Bush. But I wonder if all this making light of evil, all this gaming without true moral choices, is not making the medium of video games poorer. Fact is that in the real world there is real evil, guys like Sadam Hussein, Kim Jong-il, or Robert Mugabe aren't just “misunderstood”. And evil isn't limited to crazy dictators, there are people everywhere that like to be cruel to others. And ordinary people have to make hard moral choices sometimes, between good and evil. Previous entertainment media understood that, and made good and evil a major recurring theme in many books and movies. Only video games present the end of evil, a world in which neither good nor evil matters, where “evil” is just a thin plot element to explain why you as the hero have to go out and kill that boss. We end up with players in online games doing evil things that actually hurt real people, if just in a minor way, and not even realizing the difference. GTA won't turn anybody into a mass murderer, but it is hard to believe that hundreds of hours of inconsequential evil and violence should have no effect whatsoever on how you perceive evil and violence in the real world.”—http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2006 — 06 — 01_archive.html
In the real world, as in classic art, ideas have consequences. In the realm of video gaming, they do not, and thus games fall far short of classical, epic art.
The prior art does not let a character battle for the Constitution in exalted Word and Deed. To date, no video game allows the player to battle for classical ideals while fighting the forces of collectivism. No game brings the spirit of “the good fight” to life by layering in expressions of ideologies. No game lets one select friends and enemies based on the depth of the npc's souls and spirits. No game lets one choose friends and enemies based on the words that are spoken. No game lets one speak words and see where they take root, and then choose to befriend those who hear the word and accept it, in building their coalition or forming their fellowship. No game allows characters to be judged on the strength of their character—matching word and deed. No game focuses on the small moral choices a character makes, which would parallel the larger choices on down the line, and thus serve as a metric for determining who and who not one should befriend.
As postmodernists believe that art is created by society, and as fiat postmodernists dominate all our institutions today (as they are bought and paid for by postmodern fiat dollars) Grand Theft Auto, like Eggers & Oates, is ultimately a creation of our fiat banking system. It reduces women to prostitutes and men to douchebag thugs hiring and killing prostitutes while penning fake amazon reviews, and millions of fanboys exalt in this context, believing it to be the very pinnacle of existence, as they were raised by single mothers and educated in the fiatocracy's dumbed-down schools. This present invention will allow games superior to GTA and GOW. This invention will foster games that will bring classical literature to life, as well as contemporary literature with classical ideals such as honor, integrity, character, and fidelity.
No present video games incorporates real, historical quotes on opposing sides—such as Hayek versus Marx and Mises versus Lenin; and Hayek, Mises, and Rothbard versus Bemanke, Greenspan, and the feminist instructors who get a few pennies of the fiat cash now and then to displace Constitutional ideals. No game allows the player to weigh the words to inform their actions and choose who, and who not, to shoot, based on the character's ideas. And finally, no game shows the different worlds that result as the consequences of different ideas. In short, ideas do not have consequences in video games; and the world of GTA can thus never be exalted. It is not an open-ended world; as never can anyone fight for freedom from Roe vs. Wade nor stop the theft via inflation nor defend our own borders and protect the innocent. GTA presents a world without hope, with plenty of hookers and bowling games, which is exactly the way the fiatocracy envisions are future; as they detest the free, exalted, man—the classical hero. They have gone so far as to criminalize the creator and author—since the fiatocracy prints all the money, those who create wealth are technically stealing from the fiatocracy; and the fiatocracy goes after them by printing more money to try and buy their creations, or seize the savings by the inflation tax. Dante put the fiat masters in the seventh circle of hell, which is why they don't teach Shakespeare, Dante, and the Bible in the fiatocracy's business nor law schools. And thus opportunity abounds for games as exalted art, wherein ideas have consequences.
Opportunities abound to create video games with deep, profound, exalted spirits and souls—games which exalt the intellect, as do all enduring forms of dramatic action, from The Odyssey on down. The same opportunities abound for universities, but the fiat/feminist regimes must oppose the Great Books and Classics, Truth, honor, and integrity, so as to bolster the dying currency of a morally, spiritually, intellectually, and monetarily bankrupt empire; which went from honor, integrity, manufacturing, faith, and the family to debt, deceit, decline, and Godlessness; just as universities went from creating exalted students to using students to create exorbitant debt—moth monetary and spiritual. Imagine a video game that allowed the protagonist to bring it all on back. Imagine a game which countered the prevailing expert opinion that killing cops and hookers is the highest of art forms; and which allowed the player to render ideals real; and exalt the hookers via word and deed, and join the cops in laying down the law. To date, no game allows one to try and talk a hooker out of prostitution—a most dangerous occupation in games, where one is likely to be used and killed by a fanboy. So imagine a game that allowed one to exalt the hooker, and to kill fanboys who kill hookers.
The fiatocracy's dominant feminists and fatherless fanboys detest and oppose epic poetry, classical literature, honor, morality, and integrity; and thus opportunity abounds, as such entities are at the center and circumference of exalted art. The present invention would allow one to fight for the forgotten ideals echoed in the following poem— The Ghost of Valley Forge, by Pastor Paul Payton:
I had a dream the other night I didn't understand,
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0017886.html
Well, vast opportunities abound!
Rock on and rock out!
Over the past several years, I would pick up major gaming magazines (EGM/Play/Edge) and turn straight to the letters section--the letters from the readers/avid gamers.
Invariably, there would be writers stating that they were looking for games with more exalted narrative, epic story, and meaning.
And the fanboy/fanmba editorial staff would often be both condescending and dismissive, basically giving them the middle finger in telling them to shut up and go back to their single-mom's basement to play Fallout/GTA and shoot cops and hookers and women in metallic bras, as really, GTA is all about the family, really, and living morally, with profound ideas that have profound consequences; and epic, exalted meanings for the greater culture.
And then, a few short months later, after giving the finger to the reader/consumer/yearner for art and narrative, EGM went under.
CASE STUDY #1: The Epic Failure of Dante's Inferno: The Epic Price of Ignoring Epic Story and Placing Dante's Beloved, Incorruptible Beatrice in Hell, and Playing up the Giant Nipples/Vaginas/Baby-Killing for The Vocal Fanboys
In one fell-swoop, EA blew several opportunities to exalt both classical culture and their bottom line. Mired in the "debauch the culture/currency and deconstruct the Greats" that so dominates our culture, EA approached Dante's Divine Comedy from a hateful, arrogant, fanboyish angle; instead of from a loving, manly, humble one.
So EA goes and slaps the name Dante's Inferno on a God of War Mod, basically giving the middle finger to Dante's art, life, love, poetry, religion, soul, and spirit, casting his beloved, incorruptible Beatrcie in hell, and recasting Dante the poet and scholar as a buff, world-wrestling-federation champion. And this is the result--a quickly forgettable #eafailsuck, generic, been-there-done-that-but-better-the-first-time-around game:
http://www.gamersdailynews.com/article- ... ferno.html
What can be said for Dante’s Inferno? Well, it is definitely a complete rip-off of God of War, so it has that going for it. Oh, and it probably would have been better just to have made the game about a random crusader diving through the many layers of Hell and claiming inspiration to the literary classic. Now it just enrages anyone with an appreciation for those long forgotten “book” things your ancestors used to read. You know, back when paper was used by everyone and not just bureaucrats behind the times.
Truth be told the game wasn’t really all that thrilling. In fact, it was a little bit irritating and just a tad sickening. A number of buttons can be used for different attacks, yet somehow I always found myself pulling off the same combo that ended with me stabbing into the ground with a bone scythe. It felt like the only way to win was to simply button mash without any real plan in mind. . . .
. . .The combat to Dante’s Inferno isn’t terrible, but it isn’t great either. It’s just another action game trying to be God of War. The story may be good if you could care less about the literary origins. The artwork goes from being generic to outright disturbing and disgusting. EA can use as much controversial marketing tactics as they wish, but there is a very small audience for this game. It will have its fans, most certainly, but weeks after this game has been released it will become forgotten.
Thank God.
All those hours, upon hours wasted in debauching art and losing EA's investor's cash. All those hours, upon hours spent ignoring the story and focusing on mere, fleeting marketing gimmicks, placing Aristotle's spectacle first and his story dead last, thusly inverting the order of Aristotle's Poetics, and harassing booth babes:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DrElliot ... w_Gold.php
I reached out to Jonathan Knight regarding how the Gold 45 Revolver / Ideas Have Consequences / Moral Premise technologies could exalt not only Dante's Inferno, but his entire company, but he was pre-dedicated to debauching Dante's Divine Work, ignoring the fundamental precepts of the divine, epic narrative, and losing market cap.
And that's where the epic advantage lies. In all their epic EA arrogance they are forgetting that which matters most in art--the soul and spirit, and thus story.
CASE STUDY # 2: EGM MAGAZINE'S FAIL
What an opportunity EGM had! When they received letters from readers demanding profundity, poetry, and epic meaning in their games, they could have run with it! They could have become the flagship publication of the renaissance, while rallying game companies and developers who exalted epic narrative in their games, carving out a vast new market for games! If only!
But instead, because EGM magazine gave the exalted consumer the middle finger, they are now defunct. EA's fanboyish/fanmbaish Dante's Inferno is taking EA down the same EGM road to financial hell, giant vaginas, nipples, and babby killing all. But that's what you get for placing Beatrice in Hell.
I predicted this in my patent application, citing EGM's flippant, arrogant, fanboyish response to an honest gamer seeking exaltation, story, enlightenment in their games. What did they do? EGM told him to shut up and go back to his mom's basement and play GTA.
FROM: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0017886.html
PRIOR ART AND ADVANTAGES OF PRESENT INVENTION
There is a vast demand for deeper, more intellectual video games that is generally opposed throughout the industry. Many designers are weak minded like the Storm Troopers in Star Wars, and thus they believe hiring and killing prostitutes constitutes exalted story, as the fiatocracy's Death Star commands them to believe. Many will defend their hiring and killing prostitutes by the fact that one doesn't have to in the open-ended world, but then it GTA is not truly an open-ended world wherein one cannot take a prostitute to church, nor even speak words of exalted wisdom to her that might save her soul, nor give her a copy of Dante's Inferno nor Homer's Odyssey to exalt her soul. While developers, publishers, and insiders constantly hype the storytelling in games so as to sound cool and push product for mere monetary profit, the young can see that the emperor is wearing no clothes. In EGM's letter of the month, a reader expresses the rising generation's demand by writing:
EGM Letter of The Month:
“As I grew up, videogames grew up with me. I started playing games like Donkey Kong and Carnival on the ColecoVision before I could read, and Nintendo's Mario title were a staple of my early childhood. As I got older, I saw the storytlines and gameplay mechanics become more intricate and engaging. When I went through my rebellious and bitchy teenage years, so did videogames. And as I grew and matured, so did the subject matter of the games themselves.
Now that I'm 22, more things are vying for my time and attention such as work, college, women, drinking, and lamenting over my long-gone and simpler childhood. Needless to say, if I'm going to devote 20-plus hours of my life to completing a game, it had better be well worth it. And to me personally, a game well worth it is one I can take something away from on an intellectual level. For example, a game that makes me question my own existence, or the war in Iraq, or the increasing diconnectedness of our modern high-tech lives would be the holy grail of gaming to me. What are the chances that gaming will finally grow once more and develop a social and political conscience?—Eric Staskiewicz, summer, 2008 EGM
EGM answers “The answers are pretty damn good. Games are more and more frequently making “statements” about society and politics—see BioShock, GTA4, even Army of Two for just a few examples. We'll always have mindless diversions as well, of course, but count on seeing more and more depth of theme and storytelling in the coming years.”—Summer, 2008
And so it is that jacking cars, shooting police and the innocent, and hiring and killing prostitutes is now not only exalted art, but sublime political science and sociology. The younger generation is seeking exaltation and enlightenment in their video games, and the response is a) it is already pretty damn good so shut up and b) mindless diversions rock and c) it will get even better than hiring and killing prostitutes. It is quite obvious from the above letter, that the demand for video games with exalted principles is not being served. Fanboys do not believe in the “word,” and thus they poke around in their cave, grunting and smiling when the prostitute dies after they are done with her, enjoying their “art.”
Such novel games will stand head and shoulders above the prior and current art, including GTA, GOW, and Fallout 3, about which Kotaku reports: Cannabalism, Slavery and Sex in Fallout 3—http://kotaku.com/5022866/cannabalism-slavery-and-sex-in -fallout-3. An interview with one of Fallout3's lead designers goes as follows http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39736 ... Screenshot s-Interview:
“1) Which of the following, if any, will be featured in Fallout3; Romance, Sex, Homosexuality, Nudity, Prostitution, Slavery, Cannibalism, Children, Child killings, drugs, addictions? And of the things that won't be featured, can you explain why they won't be included in the game?
“It touches on most of those. Slavery, children, drugs and addiction more than the others, as those factor for into the setting more. In regards to nudity and child killings, no, it features neither of those, as they don't really add to the flavor of the game (I'll get into children in the next question more). I think if you look at Fallout 1, and the footprint it has with the topics you ask about, Fallout 3 is pretty much the same, in that it features the types of things you mention at about the same rate, no more, no less. Drugs and drug addiction play a larger role perhaps, as it's a key gameplay device. I think the heart of this question is “has the harshness and maturity of the world of Fallout 3 been tempered from the earlier games?” and I can certainly say “No, it hasn't been.”—http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39736/Fallout-3 -Screenshots-Interview
Note that while Cannibalism, slavery, drugs, and prostitution are regularly included in the the fanboy video games, nowhere can one find the US Constitution, nor Shakespeare, nor the Bible, nor Plato, nor Aristotle, nor Gandhi, nor Jefferson, nor any Great Book nor classical ideal included. Classical ideals have been excluded from the gaming realm; and while both good and evil exist in games, both are considered “fun,” and neither have long-term consequences.
Although Fallout1 allowed one to kill children, Fallout3 no longer does, as the designer states: “You will not be able to be a child killer. There are several reasons for this, some of them are very basic, like we wouldn't be able to sell the game, anywhere to anyone, if the children could be killed.”
The Fallout3 interview continues at http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39736 ... Screenshot s-Interview:
“3) Could you outline your thoughts on the matter of ensuring that choices and consequences provided by the various quests within your game are crafted so as to be more nonlinear than simply the superficial choice between “good, bad and neutral”/“affirmative, negative and nothing?” Also, will there be other aspects to choices in Fallout 3? Political? Philosophical? Exactly how far will you go with the player's moral freedom, the “gray” solutions?”
That really depends on the quest, so it's hard to say. There are certainly some that are clearly good/bad, like blowing up Megaton. It's clearly bad to nuke an entire town. It's clearly bad to kill innocent people throughout the game, and your karma is affected. It's also clearly good to help people in need, giving to charity, passing out clean water, and more. Those are specific examples in the game. I think many people want to play “good” and want to play “evil”. Both are fun in different ways. The gray area comes into several quests, where the situation is just “bad”. Some feel like no-win situations and they come across as “make a hard choice.” I think that's where it feels best honestly, but we do need to mix it up between that and simpler good/bad.—http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39736/Fallout- 3-Screenshots-Interview
So it is that good and evil are both “fun” in different ways. Imagine if our Founding Fathers had created a nation wherein they saw “good” and “evil” to be “fun” in different ways. The present invention differentiates itself from the prior art in that the outcome of the world ultimately does depend on classical ideals which must be fought for. Tobold's blog presents some insights into how the fanboy gaming community falls short in delivering games where exalted ideas and have truly exalted consequences; and where there is a good that ultimately makes a difference. The present and prior art of the video game world exalts games where evil is a thin plot device:
http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2006 — 06 — 01_archive.html
Tobold's MMORPG Blog
Friday, Jun. 30, 2006
“The end of evil
When last year Edward Castronova argued on Terra Nova that Horde characters in World of Warcraft are evil, he was widely ridiculed. There is no “evil” in World of Warcraft, players of either faction are constantly on quests that are helping somebody else. Whether you are a holy paladin or a demon-summoning warlock, it doesn't change the way in which you help the farmer get the deed to his farm back from the evil bandits. There is no moral choice, no option to sell the deed to the highest bidder instead of returning it for a lousy reward. Even the undead are “good” undead, fighting the evil scourge undead.
If a game like Black & White, or Knights of the Old Republic, or Fable, gives you the option to play good or evil, that is just a thinly disguised way to enable you to play the game twice. You chose evil or good by what you think is more useful to beat the game, and then if you play it again, you chose the other side, just to see something new. It is not a moral choice, but a tactical one. We don't feel that burning down a virtual village in a game world and killing the inhabitants is an evil act, after all those are just colored pixels that don't feel anything. Advancing in the game is the most important, even that means that in the next mission we have to throw Napalm on that Vietnamese village to continue.
All that ends us in a total inability between gamers and anti-game advocates or politicians to understand each other. The gamer picks up minor points that the criticism got wrong, like “there are no points in GTA for shooting and raping hookers”, and fails to see that the criticism otherwise wasn't all that unjustified. Most of what you do in GTA *is* a depiction of very, very evil behavior. By the time you finished the game you have committed more crimes than any known peace-time gangster. The anti-gamer fails to see that all these crimes are virtual, and don't lead to you going out and doing the same in real life.
“Evil” has become a joke. In Dragon Quest 8 one of the heroes has a special combat move with whirling axes, called “Axes of Evil”, har, har, nice joke on George Bush. But I wonder if all this making light of evil, all this gaming without true moral choices, is not making the medium of video games poorer. Fact is that in the real world there is real evil, guys like Sadam Hussein, Kim Jong-il, or Robert Mugabe aren't just “misunderstood”. And evil isn't limited to crazy dictators, there are people everywhere that like to be cruel to others. And ordinary people have to make hard moral choices sometimes, between good and evil. Previous entertainment media understood that, and made good and evil a major recurring theme in many books and movies. Only video games present the end of evil, a world in which neither good nor evil matters, where “evil” is just a thin plot element to explain why you as the hero have to go out and kill that boss. We end up with players in online games doing evil things that actually hurt real people, if just in a minor way, and not even realizing the difference. GTA won't turn anybody into a mass murderer, but it is hard to believe that hundreds of hours of inconsequential evil and violence should have no effect whatsoever on how you perceive evil and violence in the real world.”—http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2006 — 06 — 01_archive.html
In the real world, as in classic art, ideas have consequences. In the realm of video gaming, they do not, and thus games fall far short of classical, epic art.
The prior art does not let a character battle for the Constitution in exalted Word and Deed. To date, no video game allows the player to battle for classical ideals while fighting the forces of collectivism. No game brings the spirit of “the good fight” to life by layering in expressions of ideologies. No game lets one select friends and enemies based on the depth of the npc's souls and spirits. No game lets one choose friends and enemies based on the words that are spoken. No game lets one speak words and see where they take root, and then choose to befriend those who hear the word and accept it, in building their coalition or forming their fellowship. No game allows characters to be judged on the strength of their character—matching word and deed. No game focuses on the small moral choices a character makes, which would parallel the larger choices on down the line, and thus serve as a metric for determining who and who not one should befriend.
As postmodernists believe that art is created by society, and as fiat postmodernists dominate all our institutions today (as they are bought and paid for by postmodern fiat dollars) Grand Theft Auto, like Eggers & Oates, is ultimately a creation of our fiat banking system. It reduces women to prostitutes and men to douchebag thugs hiring and killing prostitutes while penning fake amazon reviews, and millions of fanboys exalt in this context, believing it to be the very pinnacle of existence, as they were raised by single mothers and educated in the fiatocracy's dumbed-down schools. This present invention will allow games superior to GTA and GOW. This invention will foster games that will bring classical literature to life, as well as contemporary literature with classical ideals such as honor, integrity, character, and fidelity.
No present video games incorporates real, historical quotes on opposing sides—such as Hayek versus Marx and Mises versus Lenin; and Hayek, Mises, and Rothbard versus Bemanke, Greenspan, and the feminist instructors who get a few pennies of the fiat cash now and then to displace Constitutional ideals. No game allows the player to weigh the words to inform their actions and choose who, and who not, to shoot, based on the character's ideas. And finally, no game shows the different worlds that result as the consequences of different ideas. In short, ideas do not have consequences in video games; and the world of GTA can thus never be exalted. It is not an open-ended world; as never can anyone fight for freedom from Roe vs. Wade nor stop the theft via inflation nor defend our own borders and protect the innocent. GTA presents a world without hope, with plenty of hookers and bowling games, which is exactly the way the fiatocracy envisions are future; as they detest the free, exalted, man—the classical hero. They have gone so far as to criminalize the creator and author—since the fiatocracy prints all the money, those who create wealth are technically stealing from the fiatocracy; and the fiatocracy goes after them by printing more money to try and buy their creations, or seize the savings by the inflation tax. Dante put the fiat masters in the seventh circle of hell, which is why they don't teach Shakespeare, Dante, and the Bible in the fiatocracy's business nor law schools. And thus opportunity abounds for games as exalted art, wherein ideas have consequences.
Opportunities abound to create video games with deep, profound, exalted spirits and souls—games which exalt the intellect, as do all enduring forms of dramatic action, from The Odyssey on down. The same opportunities abound for universities, but the fiat/feminist regimes must oppose the Great Books and Classics, Truth, honor, and integrity, so as to bolster the dying currency of a morally, spiritually, intellectually, and monetarily bankrupt empire; which went from honor, integrity, manufacturing, faith, and the family to debt, deceit, decline, and Godlessness; just as universities went from creating exalted students to using students to create exorbitant debt—moth monetary and spiritual. Imagine a video game that allowed the protagonist to bring it all on back. Imagine a game which countered the prevailing expert opinion that killing cops and hookers is the highest of art forms; and which allowed the player to render ideals real; and exalt the hookers via word and deed, and join the cops in laying down the law. To date, no game allows one to try and talk a hooker out of prostitution—a most dangerous occupation in games, where one is likely to be used and killed by a fanboy. So imagine a game that allowed one to exalt the hooker, and to kill fanboys who kill hookers.
The fiatocracy's dominant feminists and fatherless fanboys detest and oppose epic poetry, classical literature, honor, morality, and integrity; and thus opportunity abounds, as such entities are at the center and circumference of exalted art. The present invention would allow one to fight for the forgotten ideals echoed in the following poem— The Ghost of Valley Forge, by Pastor Paul Payton:
I had a dream the other night I didn't understand,
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0017886.html
Well, vast opportunities abound!
Rock on and rock out!
