Play it.... IF YOU DARE.

[weemadando]

Lose/Lose - the game where the only way to win is to lose.

[Bounty]

That is one spectacularly retarded site. There isn't a single sentence in the whole thing which isn't either objectively wrong or cribbed from a 1983 amateur philosophy newsletter.

[KroLazuxy_87]

Lose/Lose is a video-game with real life consequences. Each alien in the game is created based on a random file on the players computer. If the player kills the alien, the file it is based on is deleted. If the players ship is destroyed, the application itself is deleted.

KILLING ALIENS IN LOSE/LOSE WILL DELETE FILES ON YOUR HARDDRIVE PERMANENTLY

The concept is... unique... I've gotta agree with Bounty's assessment of the philosophical BS that I guess is supposed to "sell" the game.

I'm considering downloading it and sending it to a friend without telling him the details.

[Dooey Jo]

Why do we assume that because we are given a weapon an awarded for using it, that doing so is right?

Gee, I wonder. Maybe that reward-thing you mentioned has something to do with it, or the format of the top-down space shooter. No no, wait, I mean, uh "human nature to be aggressive, blah blah, genes and competitive monkeys".

Now let's sandbox the damn thing a troll the hell out of that highscore list.

[Bounty]

This is the sort of self-styled "art" that really twists my nuts. Art that makes a point is a beautiful and powerful thing. Every artist wants to make something that makes people stop and think. It's also something that you just cannot force; you either have something to say or you don't.

This douche has nothing to say. There are words, but they are meaningless, since he's taking a deliberately obstinate stance on a fabricated non-issue and expects the ill-informed and the pretentious to stroke their goatees and say "hm, yes, intriguing".

His position isn't even internally consistent. His point, as far as I can manage to decipher, is that we as humans will instinctively kill simulated beings when given the tools to do so, with no regard for the well-being of the simulated creatures, a point which he clumsily tries to hammer home by giving the kills a real-world consequence. But the whole concept of video gaming is that there are no consequences. The very appeal of a simulation is that you are given an isolated sandbox in which your actions have no real-world effects, and when you artificially add in those effects you are removing the very essence of what makes video gaming stand out from reality.

His entire concept is that, when faced with real consequences, we will no longer enjoy consequence-less entertainment; and because that thesis falls flat on its face when confronted with a skydiver - people do accept reasonable risk when it is actively avoided - he adds unreasonable risk. It's morally bankrupt cheating that only proves how worthless his ideas are.

This is the digital equivalent of trying to prove chocolate is bad for you by shooting a puppy every time you take a bite. You cannot claim the moral high ground when you have to fabricate the ill effects yourself.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Actually in any game where I'm given the ability to be nice to "simulated creatures", I invariably am.

The only potential ethical consideration is really to the people who make the game in the first place, since they set the original parameters. That includes this individual.

[Zixinus]

What I don't get is what the hell was the guy thinking: that I'll risk damaging my computer (even if only temporarily) just to play a badly-made top-scrolling shooter?

[Oskuro]

Ooooh, but then you can upload your score and prove how hardcore you are! Idiots.

This is like an old virus that cached your MBR and deleted the file, forcing you to play a round of poker to save your computer, but without the twisted irony or an actual goal behind hurting yourself.

[DPDarkPrimus]

The concept is... unique... I've gotta agree with Bounty's assessment of the philosophical BS that I guess is supposed to "sell" the game.

It's a user-installed trojan horse with heavy ties to social darwinism. If you're stupid enough to install the game and play it without knowing what it does or how to fix the damage, then you get what's coming.

[Bounty]

The concept is... unique... I've gotta agree with Bounty's assessment of the philosophical BS that I guess is supposed to "sell" the game.

It's a user-installed trojan horse with heavy ties to social darwinism. If you're stupid enough to install the game and play it without knowing what it does or how to fix the damage, then you get what's coming.

Let's hand out loaded guns in preschools! We can call them happy fun toys and add some philosophical bullshit about self-discovery in a post-feminist framework.

[Oskuro]

Let's hand out loaded guns in preschools! We can call them happy fun toys and add some philosophical bullshit about self-discovery in a post-feminist framework.

Like that scene from Planet Terror?

[Amitabho]

It's a user-installed trojan horse with heavy ties to social darwinism. If you're stupid enough to install the game and play it without knowing what it does or how to fix the damage, then you get what's coming..

It does give a warning in the readme, on the site and in the game, and it even tells you what files you're deleting.

It doesn't get much clearer than that.

[Qwerty 42]

Ooooh, but then you can upload your score and prove how hardcore you are! Idiots.

This is like an old virus that cached your MBR and deleted the file, forcing you to play a round of poker to save your computer, but without the twisted irony or an actual goal behind hurting yourself.

I remember reading about that on SA, with the addendum that viruses were so much cooler back in the day.

[RRoan]

I suppose if you really wanted to play this you could always make a system restore point just before installation.

[Ford Prefect]

Let's hand out loaded guns in preschools! We can call them happy fun toys and add some philosophical bullshit about self-discovery in a post-feminist framework.

Yeah, because that analogy is really accurate. Seriously, you don't have to like this 'game', but there's no reason to completely misrepresent it. After all, the high scores are pretty much hilarious.

[Bluewolf]

Is there any reason why someone could not just put this into some External Hard Drive with a load of readme files or something and then just play it in said HDD, with it only deleting the readme's? I am just curious if it would work.

Let's hand out loaded guns in preschools! We can call them happy fun toys and add some philosophical bullshit about self-discovery in a post-feminist framework.

OK that is a bit of a shaky comparison. 1. Most people who will download this will be teenagers and adults, people who can read and know what this will cause, if it is played. 2. The game makes no mistake on what it is and what it will do, so its not if its hiding itself as a "happy fun toy".

Frankly though the philospohy idea behind the game is a bit weak to say the least and I get the impression that this guy just wanted to see how far people would punish their computers. He probably needed some sort of reason for them to do it. I am not sure though. It just seems a bit tacked on.

[Oskuro]

Or maybe execute the program without administrative rights, having locked up all sensible directories, and of course dumping a gazillion cloned files into the directory so the game has stuff to erase.

[General Zod]

Or maybe execute the program without administrative rights, having locked up all sensible directories, and of course dumping a gazillion cloned files into the directory so the game has stuff to erase.

Or just safely ignore it and play a non-shit game.

[Pulp Hero]

So the message of the whole game is, "You are playing the game the way games have programed you to behave, and are killing simulated creatures because you are supposed to."

Yeah, I think I liked this game better when it was called Bioshock.

[Hawkwings]

It's called playing it in a virtual machine.

[Drooling Iguana]

Who makes Mac-only games? I'd hoped to try this out in Wine (after first making sure that Wine didn't have access to any portion of my drive other than its own simulated disc.)

[Oskuro]

Yeah, I think I liked this game better when it was called Bioshock System Shock.

fixed

[Stark]

Okay so serious question.

Since the game sucks shit, what possible reason could there be to want to play it? Is everyone who plays it a stupid masochist or just plain stupid?

If the game was ... Modern Warfare 2 and every chicom sand-nigger eurotrash was OMG TEH DLLS, that'd be one thing because it's a good game. When the game is shit and the only possible hook is the stupid shit it does, what's the point?

Oh, right. NERDS.

[Hotfoot]

ITT Stark says Modern Warfare 2 is a good game so he can have some words to eat in the cold winter months.

[Stark]

I'm talking down to my audience ok?