Monday, February 2, 2009

I Declare Victory! No wait... what's the other one? Oh yeah, defeat. I Declare Defeat!

A while back I had a brilliant idea. It was to be an experiment using google that would appear to be what the searchers were looking for but was actually no such thing. Instead what they got was me screwing with their heads.


It took the form of a fake interview about the new release of a famous computer game. The targets of the exercise were the people who wrote the game and the people who played it. This particular game is an assassination game. Each level comprises a series of targets (as designated by a fictional 'agency'), which the players then have to assassinate by way of shooting, knifing, poisoning etc. I shan't name the game for reasons that will become obvious.

The nature of the game is such that if the creators of it aren't on the CIA's payroll, then they're idiots who are missing out on free money. This game is precisely to the CIA what those Death-to-Arabs army games are to the US military.

The plan was merely to leave the interview on my blog (complete with an unmissable title) and let the assassination obsessed fans find it via google. This strategy worked a treat. The fans arrived in droves. The next part of the plan, wherein I would screw with their heads by way of the developers explaining: the enormity of what they had done; their desire for atonement by means of a new different game; and how in the new game the targets would consist of the agency and other warmongers who'd previously been the bosses, was an abject failure.

Of the thousands and thousands who arrived and read it, not a single one got it. They were utterly unable to view their bent for assassination in an holistic fashion. Forget the wide-angle, the only lens in their head was a 500mm scope that, if it didn't have a target filling the viewfinder, couldn't see anything at all. Every single comment left was perfectly moronic. Okay, there was one fellow who got it, but he pretty much shrugged his shoulders and went back to the strangling etc.

Eventually it was all too much for me. Every day, every goddamn day, about a quarter of my arrivals here were these idiot gamers. It was a tsunami that never ended. This thing was just relentless.

I tried tweaking the experiment by going so far as to explain the point of the exercise, and it made no difference. They just didn't want to know. What they wanted was a new series of people to assassinate. And they just kept coming.

Rather than surrender I deleted the previous text and inserted a new piece. Brilliant. But it was pointless really. Nothing changed. The game's name was still in the address path, and the idiot legion of gamers seemed to stretch into infinity. Sure enough, no one got the new piece either. "This doesn't seem to mention ______ at all! Who am I meant to kill? What bullshit!" And every day my statcounter thingy gave me the depressing news. More fucking gamers.

And so, I give in. I wave the white flag and surrender unconditionally. Which is to say, I have deleted the whole entry. The gamers won. I declare defeat.


*Anyway, the second piece I wrote may be of interest to those small numbers of people who don't groove on assassination, and it is immediately below. Yoroshiku.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

A white flag; quick shoot it!
Signed: Ariel Sharon

(you're in a coma somewhere idiot)
OK! OK!
Signed: Tzipi Livni
(you're going to lose the next election lady)
Oh! Right.
Signed: Bibi
(Right, right, good choice - you're going to get to destroy the world. Yeah!)
Thank you.

the Silverfish said...

I also declare victory in dafeet,,I had a bunion removed from me toe last week, plus I got’s meself a pedicure and a feets massage. Dafeets now da greatest, Yuh kin jes call me twinkle toes, en let the dancing on the graves of me enemies begin.
I shall proudly fly the flag of Livet and trample the foes of imbibers of da wee dram under da foots of me whoreses.

I love the smell of livet in the morning, it smells like VICTORY.

Ok Ok so it ain’t Shakespeare, but not bad from someone woo flunked home skoolin huh?

Skye said...

It's all about desensitization. My son tells me that he enjoys playing a game where he plays the part of a cop and earns points etc if he kills anyone at all who even appears to be nefarious in any form. He got a kick out of killing parents infront of their children when they'd tell the kids "no" because they wanted something. It could be abusive after all!

I truly believe that these games are designed to make people think that it's ok for cops to do whatever they want in the r/w. Or for countries to go to war with someone simply because they want something in that country. The games, like so many t.v. shows are simply there so people begin to think that this behavior is normal and they don't question what's going on around them.

Too bad so many people are in fact sheeple and just follow along blindly. These sheeple will never be shorn of the wool that covers them so completely.

Anonymous said...

I often wonder whether the majority of humans actually have the ability to communicate.

It often seems like they use language as a form of 'social location' device.

They talk at you and if you bounce the same sentiments/ego back to them they huddle together with you and other similar belivers as there is safety in numbers.

If you don't say what they want to hear then you may as well not exist. They will simply blank you as you aren't compatible with them.

Maybe it is the same at the upper end of society as well. No communication, as such, just the pursuit of compatibility.

Otherwise language just seems to be used as a tool of selfishness. To decieve or manipulate someone into satisfying their desires. And by manipulating someone else to do so they get their greed fed while pandering to their fear and still being able to hide in the herd.

nobody said...

Anon - I couldn't decide whether to say 'Exactly!' or 'Hee Hee!' When I figure it out, I'll get back to you

Silv - I couldn't decide if you were Krazy Kat or Ignatz. Anyway mate, I am pleased for you pedal extremities. As for me, I don't have feet. I have 305mm. Believe it or not, this works pretty well.

Skye - I could decide! The word is 'Exactly!'

Mike - Same same. And you won't go far wrong putting things in terms of selfishness/selflessness round here mate. For mine, EVERYTHING distils down to this.

su said...

Walked into my office the other day and found the kids huddled around the screen playing serious sam, which is pretty innocous. but i was having a bad day and i saw blood splattered on the screen and these faces in rapt attention.
took the disc out, put it underfoot, now their faces were really animated and proceeded to polish the floor with it. first time in ages, and must say the floor did look better after that.

nobody said...

Ha! Susana, cruel but fair! Actually back when I was making a living digitally, somehow I found a game (an online one I think) wherein the hero flew through the sky gathering clouds. And you 'won' by gathering enough to make rain. It was fantastic and closest thing I've ever seen to a Miyazaki movie. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to play it properly. I flew about, gathered clouds, lost them, and gave up eventually. A kid could figure it out I'm sure.

Sure enough, I forget what it was called. Does anybody know the name of this? It was brilliant. Really dreamlike.

the Silverfish said...

The only video game I ever played was Earthworm Jim. Sure he killed a lot of crows and junk yard dogs but what the hell they needed to be killed anyway.

su said...

Silverfish,
Shame on you, I like crows as much as owls.

nobody said...

Hey Susana, Silv's favourite game is actually called 'Stirring the Pot'. He high-scores on that one.

Skye said...

My favorite games have always been Tetris, Bejeweled, Text Twist and Majong, all are puzzles of a sort and not a one involves hurting other's. Now that's my kind of game :)

Penny said...

I don't play them, don't get them, at all.

So nobody when you went down in defeat, was it all bloody and gory?

never mind, I'll go read the other piece!

boxidsi

I hate boxing too

nobody said...

Shanghai Mahjong?! Aargh! That rotten game did my head in for a year! Even now I hear it whispering to me, "C'mon, just one more game. You know you love it" Those tiles, those gorgeous exotic images. Boy I really loved it. And don't get me started on actual mahjong played Hong Kong style. Start playing that and next thing you know it's three o'clock in the morning. Wow, how did that happen? It's not quite 'vade retro satanas' but almost.

That would be - 'get behind me, satan'.

Kevenj said...

Do you guys play Chess down under?
Now that's a cool game!
Of course up here (near DC) we kind of enjoy playing a good game of woods paintball every now and then. Damn those balls hurt when they hit you...

ps. Nobody, you gotta check out Skye's site-she's got a present for you! Bring a Fosters.

kikz said...

hey y'all..

don't hav a min..
but wanted ta chime in..

seahaven towers..

a 2 deck, 12 dump solitaire game..

kewliez

majong too!


kid home as of ystrdy aftn.. doin good..
eating.. etc..
i've work'd like dog taday.. laundry, repacking my emer extended stay 'gear' and playing nursey..

love ta all
k*