For The Love Of Ayn Rand, Do Not Quote From Marx Or The World Will End In FIRE

Posted on July 15, 2009 by Scott Jennings| 243 Comments

Build 1.0: You see a comely lass in a short skirt and a low cut blouse emblazoned with the Evony logo that beckons to you brazenly. WHAT SHALL YOU DO, GOOD SIRRAH.

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Build 2.0: You see Prokofy Neva. RESPOND! RESPOND NOW!

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Build 3.0: Realize that you have achieved a masterwork of commentary on the human condition that “MBA Fanboys” can never comprehend. Have a Paul of Tarsus moment where you are struck with the beauty of your innovation creating a game with real moral choices that quote from the greats of philosophy and literature. Ignore prior art such as Bioshock and Civilization. File patent so that your genius is properly compensated.

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Bonus points: make sure you have as many reference to whoring women in your patent application as humanly possible.

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Also, include a message board thread. Patent reviewers love that.

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Build 4.0: Write a book. Write a Gamasutra blog. Just freaking WRITE. A lot. Ignore all the hataz. Get a non-profit grant to fund your hyperlibertarian game design. Get a faculty position at Pepperdine.

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Build 5.0: Smoke a bowl. Get a hot model to pimp your media empire. Ask her which philosopher she’d quote.

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Congratulations! You’ve won the game. Or, as Trotsky would say, “insurrection is an art, and like all art, has its own laws.” (WORLD IS LOST)

Hat tips: mystery, Metafilter, SA/LF!

This entry was posted in Academia, Ayn Rand Died For Your Sins, Patent Trolls, _. Bookmark the permalink.
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  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    What I’m saying is that the devil is in the details. You think you’ve found the answer: “If only people could make games that were meaningful!!! OMG! BILLIONS!$$$!$!1!”

    However, then you sit down with the game development software for a bit, and suddenly realize that it’s not that nobody has tried making meaningful games, it’s that they’ve tried and run smack up the problem that, no matter how many different tried-and-true methods of epic storytelling they leveraged, there’s that ultimate barrier that it’s just a game.

    This isn’t a billion dollar idea. It’s something so blindingly obvious that any aspiring game professional designer has already whipped out a napkin and discarded it as untenable. It remains untenable no matter how many old names you throw at it.

    If it wasn’t for the blinding obviousness of it, you might just have sold it. You don’t teach a class on game design, you teach a class on making money selling art. You’re whole goal, from start until end, was to weave an elaborate sales pitch designed to sell this idea for big money so you can impress the kids you teach.

    Where did you go wrong? Well, the main trouble is that game design has been around for awhile. It’s close enough to an established industry that there really isn’t enough room for a smooth operator to wiggle his way in anymore.

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    Just to clarify, it’s not that I don’t think games can evoke emotion from their players. Look at Floyd and Planetfall for example – and they pulled that off with a 1985 game. It’s that idea that there’s this whole new level of meaningful decision ramification beyond what has already been done that you’d have to be completely manic to believe. Either that, or have some kind of radical new technology, like cybernetic feedback plugs or something.

  • Aufero

    Nyarlathotep seems more relevant to this conversation than Ayn Rand.

  • http://www.brokentoys.org/ Scott Jennings

    There is also the game Hidden Agenda, which has multiple branching choices for leading a Central American government in either a right-wing, left-wing or moderate path, each with its own pitfalls and strengths, and players have their government embody their political views and have them tested. This was in 1988.

  • Njal

    When I speak of fighting for the US Constitution, I am speaking of fighting for its immortal, immutable ideals.

    Ah, here’s your problem.

    There’s no such thing.

    What he said.

  • Dr. E

    @Scott: “There is also the game Hidden Agenda, which has multiple branching choices for leading a Central American government in either a right-wing, left-wing or moderate path, each with its own pitfalls and strengths, and players have their government embody their political views and have them tested. This was in 1988.”

    Again, there is no opportunity to win the game by fighting communism, central planning, and state control. There is no opportunity to walk from cafe to cafe and form a fellowship based on the npc’s ideals and beliefs. There is no opportunity to quote, nor hear others quote, the founding fathers, and find out who is interested in fighting for a free government based on the classical, exalted ideals found in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

    Furthermore, in the prior art, ideas which have consequences do not spread like viruses, transforming the NPCs into communists/vampire/zombie/fanboys all stating that there is no such thing as objective truth and reason, nor immutable, classical ideals.

    The gaming industry is in a vast crisis, and this novel technology could exalt it to new heights.

    You guys keep repeating “walls of text,” and “inane” as the fiatocracy’s academies trained you to do from an early age, rewarding you for deconstructing the Great Books and Classics, and shouting “wall of text” when encountering the US Constitution. So it is you must loyally defend yesteryear’s hooker-killing technologies in false open-ended gameworlds, where one cannot fall in love nor exalt a classical, epic renaissance.

    In three years or so, someone will blog about the novel research as if they themselves created/discovered it, and then it will begin becoming common knowledge.

    Then, in five years or so, after the MBA/fanboys begin to believe that they are the ones creating it, we will see the novel Gold 45 Revolver/Ideas Have Consequences/Moral Premise technology in video games.

    And I look forward to it!

    I look forward to video games with exalted story, soul, moral premises, character, honor, love, romance, and epic story! And so do millions of others!

    I hope you join the renaissance in serving the rising demand. Now, go forth and read Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey–go forth and read Shakespeare & The Bible. Go forth and read the Great Books and Classics, until you see that they are not “walls of text,” but eternal vessels of the ethereal soul’s epic beauty.

    The first companies to adopt my novel Gold 45 Revolver/Ideas Have Consequences/Moral premise technologies will reap billions of dollars.

    I came up with very specific, novel game mechanics in my patent applications:
    http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=366448

    You can tell how novel it is, by everyone’s amazement at its elegant simplicity which has already solved a glaring design problem in Fallout 3.

    –http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20908
    “Self-censorship was the least effective course of action open to Bethesda if they are looking to morally instruct their players. Why not take the route less traveled and try to implement some meaningful consequence, something beyond an essentially meaningless “karma” stat? (YES!! THE KARMA IS MEANINGLESS! WHY NOT INCORPORATE A GOLD 45 REVOLVER WHICH ONLY SHOOTS ZEUS’S LIGHTNING IN THE END IF YOU HAVE BEEN DOING THE RIGHT, MORAL THING THROUGHOUT?)”
    read more @ http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20908

    As you can see, the simple, elegant solution would be worth billions! And it could be applied to all RPGs and FPSs! Such a novel weapon would be worth tens of millions in gameplay enjoyment, and tens of millions more in publicity. *Everyone* is going to want to get their hands on that Gold 45 when it comes out, and *every* game is gonna want to have one.

    Where in the prior art can one form a fellowship based upon the ideas/ideals/characters of the NPC’s? In what game does the eventual outcome depend on the character and integrity—the ideals and beliefs—of the fellowship one forms? Re: How much would it be worth to Bethesda/EA/38 Studios/Visceral/Bioware/Ubisoft?

    How much would it be worth to put the following on a game box? “It is the dawn of the American Revolution, and it is up to you to build the fellowship that will lead the epic battle for freedom. From tavern to tavern you must walk the streets of Boston, listening in on conversations and recruiting those speaking (and oft whispering) of liberty’s epic ideals. Redcoats and King George’s spies abound, and when you hear the words of Washington, Jefferson, Paine, Madison, Jay, and Hamilton, you must engage the characters by speaking of liberty’s ideals yourself; or lose their trust. Throughout you must select the best words to rally and inspire the troops during the fierce war for freedom–to attract the poet warriors with the greatest characters to fight alongside you. Ideas have consequences and word must be matched with deed, as freedom’s fate falls upon your shoulders. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. –Thomas Jefferson”"

    I argue that such a novel approach to gaming–not only incorporating the words of the actual Founding Fathers–but rendering their consequences (or the dire consequences of their absence)–would be worth hundreds of millions, if not billions.

    And wouldn’t that be an awesome game??? Imagine meeting Jefferson and Hamilton, finally defined by their greater aspects–their souls, characters, and words–and actually recruiting Washington to command the forces, based upon his words!

    But, as you can see, the fiatocracy’s fanboys have been programmed by their deconstructionist lords to laugh at classical, epic, exalted ideals and their rugged, moral implementation in gameworlds, as you et al. are forced to accept the debauchery of the currency and culture–of marriage and the family–as if it were ordained by God.

    It’s not my fault the fiatocracy has dumbed down so many and commanded them to deconstruct classical ideals in innovation, while investing hundreds of millions in hooker-and-unarmed-women-killing technologies.

    As you can see, the MBA/fanboy industry would rather shed billions upon billions of dollars in market cap while serving their bottom-line arrogance, instead of serving an exalted renaissance in gaming, and incorporating the classical, epic ideals, as outlined in my research:
    http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=
    0&chdet=1247423239469&chddm=98141&cmpto=NASDAQ:THQI;NASDAQ:TTWO&cmptzos=-18000;-
    18000&q=NASDAQ:ERTS&ntsp=0

  • Dr. E

    @Njal

    You write, “When I speak of fighting for the US Constitution, I am speaking of fighting for its immortal, immutable ideals.
    Ah, here’s your problem.
    There’s no such thing.
    What he said.”

    That’s the unique magic of the Beatrice Game Engine–it treas ideals form a manly perspective–as immutable abstractions; and not from the feminized, fatherless, fanboy perspective.

    And there’s a growing demand from gamers to play games that treats them not as dumbed-down, feminized fanboys, but respects them as men, capable of interacting with the Constitution’s immutable ideals.

  • kildy

    So I have to ask the two required questions:

    A) What’s with the all women are whores unless they embrace your ideals thing?

    B) Why do you have something attempting to model moral choice into a game properly, but only with one correct outcome? Essentially you’re just throwing out choice entirely and presenting it as an “agree with me or game over” variant of a choose your own adventure book.

    I’m not finding that compelling, personally. Simply because it refuses to accept that any choice other than the developer’s pet choice is acceptable. Heck, it fails to accept that a player may fall from the accepted path and become redeemed later by reaffirming their dedication to the one true path.

    It’s a patent for a nine hour QTE without the button prompts.

  • Gx1080

    How many sock puppets this guy already have? Seriously.

    About the subject, 1) laws in general are supposed to be able to adapt to the current times, thats how they stay vigent instead of relying to mafias and social laws to keep order.

    2)Hell yes a game can have multiple choices with each choice affecting the outcome in the storyline. Problem is that the number of choices and outcomes are LIMITED unless you are in the social aspect of the game. Thats a fact because designers are human beings and they can only create so much and random-generated content it all looks the same after a while.

    3)If you havent noticed, we are NOT impressed of the “billions”(slight exageration perhaps) in your investigation. My reasons are that i have seen money dumper in dumber things and you are sponsored by pharmers (who are bad for the industry).

  • Gx1080

    Whoa.

    How many sock puppets this guy already have? Seriously.

    About the subject, 1) laws in general are supposed to be able to adapt to the current times, thats how they stay vigent instead of relying to mafias and social laws to keep order.

    2)Hell yes a game can have multiple choices with each choice affecting the outcome in the storyline. Problem is that the number of choices and outcomes are LIMITED unless you are in the social aspect of the game. Thats a fact because designers are human beings and they can only create so much and random-generated content it all looks the same after a while.

    3)If you havent noticed, we are NOT impressed of the “billions”(slight exageration perhaps) in your investigation. My reasons are that i have seen money dumper in dumber things and you are sponsored by pharmers (who are bad for the industry).

  • Dr. E

    thanks kildy:

    So I have to ask the two required questions:

    A) What’s with the all women are whores unless they embrace your ideals thing?
    That’s not the point of the patent/research.

    I am not sure where you are seeing it. I am merely trying to introduce the classic Beatrice/Penelope/Autumn archetype into games and gaming. You see, when the fiatocracy’s corporate-state tries to render Beatrice, they put her in hell, as does EA in their “Dante’s Inferno” game. I am just trying to return her to her rightful place–Paradisio.

    B) Why do you have something attempting to model moral choice into a game properly, but only with one correct outcome? Essentially you’re just throwing out choice entirely and presenting it as an “agree with me or game over” variant of a choose your own adventure book.

    You see–the ideals of freedom and liberty–which so many died for to defend, are absolute and immortal. And sure–you could use the exact same technology to fight for communism’s ideals and collectivism’s, but we all know how that ends.

    I’m not finding that compelling, personally. Simply because it refuses to accept that any choice other than the developer’s pet choice is acceptable. Heck, it fails to accept that a player may fall from the accepted path and become redeemed later by reaffirming their dedication to the one true path.

    No, no, no. It is not the developer’s choice–it is the choice of Leonidas, Cicero, Homer, Dante, Jefferson, Ron Paul, Moses, and every hero of Western Civilization. Now wouldn’t that be an awesome game–to be a hero of Western Civilization in an open-ended world, and to form fellowships based on the classical, immortal ideals; and to fight alongside a band of brothers who you recruited based on their soulful principles expressed in word and deed?

    “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be never so vile. This day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.” –Shakespeare

    It’s a patent for a nine hour QTE without the button prompts.

    No, no, no–it is the paradigm shift that will exalt a renaissance in gaming and video games–something the ailing industry needs in a massive manner.

    http://gold45revolver.com

  • Dr. E

    Tnaks Gx1080
    8:30 am on July 17th, 2009

    About the subject, 1) laws in general are supposed to be able to adapt to the current times, thats how they stay vigent instead of relying to mafias and social laws to keep order.

    –yes–that is what the Federal Reserve’s schools taught you so that by and by they could destroy freedom, liberty, truth, and the soul. I forgive everyone here for the snarky hate, as many of you grew up without fathers, as the Federal Reserve also funded the sycophantic feminist movement so as to socialize all of entirety and criminalize free thought and creation. A true Zeus-like Father would have taught you the importance of manly principle and the honor in matching word and deed–tenets which will be exalted in the great books gaming renaissance. Many of you love/hate me because these words remind you of the father you never had.

    2)Hell yes a game can have multiple choices with each choice affecting the outcome in the storyline. Problem is that the number of choices and outcomes are LIMITED unless you are in the social aspect of the game. Thats a fact because designers are human beings and they can only create so much and random-generated content it all looks the same after a while.

    No, no, no. By focusing on simple ideals and ideas which have consequences, the present research/gold 45 revolver/moral premise vastly simplifies the AI. The hero’s journey natural emerges when ideals and the moral premise are incorporated in the AI. Aristotle noted the moral premise was a most unifying force; so why not use it to unify the programming and AI of a game?

    3)If you havent noticed, we are NOT impressed of the “billions”(slight exageration perhaps) in your investigation. My reasons are that i have seen money dumper in dumber things and you are sponsored by pharmers (who are bad for the industry).

    Well, all I’m saying is that everyone here would want to not only buy, but work on such games, and thus the technology will be released in such a manner that you could populate the dialogue/ideals/action trees with your own sense of moral goodness. Even if you are a communist at heart, you could use the novel technology to build a game wherein the freedom-fighters were the vampires/zombies whose ideals and ideas spread the zombie/vampire virus/quality; but in order for the communist game to be any fun, I imagine that the designers/players will have to be high as a kite–like heroin high or something.

    Join the Great Books Gaming Renaissance!

    http://gold45revolver.com
    http://twitter.com/45surf
    http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DrElliotMcGucken/20090708/2305/The_Gold_45_Revolver__Ideas_Have_Consequences__Moral_Premise_InnovationsTechnologyGames.php

  • John Arras

    On the bright side, since he rejects Scott’s examples from fallout3 of engaging in moral gameplay and fighting for principles and ideals, then his patents are truly worthless and not a threat to anyone making games.

    Scott, I think you should save this thread for the purposes of prior art so if this guy ever sues a game developer, the developer can refer back to fallout3 and the response here that the kinds of actions and karma found in fallout3 (which are the kinds of moral decisions you would find in games) have nothing to do with his patents.

    And since he uses message board discussions and chat room discussions in his patent applications, hopefully he won’t be able to complain too much if they are used as prior art against his patents.
    :)

  • Dr. E

    @John

    Hey there! I am not the one rejecting Scott’s examples for fallout 3, nor syaing that the moral system is hollow and the karam system meaningless.

    I am merely echoing the word on the street:

    http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20908

    “These are difficult questions with few satisfying answers. But no matter what, in removing the opportunity to kill children in their anarchic game, Bethesda has admitted video games’ ineffectiveness in providing meaningful disincentives and negative repercussions for in-game atrocities. That the team chose to carve the issue out of their game rather than attempt to engage it head on, speaks volumes. ”

    Self-censorship was the least effective course of action open to Bethesda if they are looking to morally instruct their players. Why not take the route less traveled and try to implement some meaningful consequence, something beyond an essentially meaningless “karma” stat? (YES!! THE KARMA IS MEANINGLESS! WHY NOT INCORPORATE A GOLD 45 REVOLVER WHICH ONLY SHOOTS ZEUS’S LIGHTNING IN THE END IF YOU HAVE BEEN DOING THE RIGHT, MORAL THING THROUGHOUT?) see the post @ the bottom: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20908

    See? The novel Gold 45 Revolver technology solves vast and glaring design issues!! This could be applied to GTA/Fallout 3/KOTOR/Bioshock any RPG/FPS/MMORPG!!

    “In Fallout 3, you cannot kill children.
    …
    Problematically, in singling out and self-censoring one particular type of ‘crime’ in his game Pagliarulo by implication justifies all the others as being non-gratuitous and necessary. Last night I blew the head from a homeless scavenger girl, one who’s barely into twenties. The slow motion camera tracked her head’s explosion before lingering on the crimson fountain spurting from her neck stump. Is this kind of interaction and feedback ‘socially responsible’? And so then what’s the difference to killing a minor?”
    –http://dragonchasers.com/2008/11/01/moral-choices-in-fallout-3/

    I don’t think I’m the litigious type.

    I innovate and invent not to sue other people, but to serve the greater good.

    If I could walk into Best Buy next week and buy a novel Gold 45 Revolver/Ideas Have Consequences/Moral Premise game, I would be happy. I might also call the the developer and ask for a couple bucks, and give them some ideas for the film/movies/franchise. A rising tide lifts all boats.

    I gave all my artificial retina technology away for free:

    http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/40158797
    http://elliotmcgucken.com/dissertation.html
    http://elliotmcgucken.com/figure9.jpg
    http://elliotmcgucken.com/figure7.jpg

  • http://mmomisanthrope.wordpress.com/ Dblade

    There is no growing demand. It’s all in your head. You are a business teacher, go do some actual market research, as opposed to endlessly repeating the same tired phrases over and over again. You will find that no one really cares about the golden revolver at all. No one cares about the founding fathers popping up in a video game unless its a simulation about the revolutionary war, and even then its all about resource management and battle recreation, not this vague claptrap you keep spouting.

    No one cares. Do you play tetris, hoping to convert each little brick into accepting the ideals of the constititution, and classically, epically fall into place into neat lines ordained by Dante to defy the MBA fanboy Fiatocracy? When you play Madden, do you ignore the snap and plug in a keyboard so you can try and speak truth to power and try to reform the feminized fanboys hungry for the moses/zeus ideal of judeo-christian blah blah blah?

    That’s how absurd you sound. It’s to the point where people are hoping you are trolling us all, because if you take it seriously you are monomanical to near insanity levels. Lum linked to you not because your ideas had merit, but because your written work is one step below Transformers fanfiction.

  • Dr. E

    oops–somebody is not letting my posts go through!

    why the fear of the First Amendment Scott Jennings?

    I will have to post this on my various blogs if you keep deleting it:

    9:07 am on July 17th, 2009
    @John

    Hey there! I am not the one rejecting Scott’s examples for fallout 3, nor syaing that the moral system is hollow and the karam system meaningless.

    I am merely echoing the word on the street:

    http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20908

    “These are difficult questions with few satisfying answers. But no matter what, in removing the opportunity to kill children in their anarchic game, Bethesda has admitted video games’ ineffectiveness in providing meaningful disincentives and negative repercussions for in-game atrocities. That the team chose to carve the issue out of their game rather than attempt to engage it head on, speaks volumes. ”

    Self-censorship was the least effective course of action open to Bethesda if they are looking to morally instruct their players. Why not take the route less traveled and try to implement some meaningful consequence, something beyond an essentially meaningless “karma” stat? (YES!! THE KARMA IS MEANINGLESS! WHY NOT INCORPORATE A GOLD 45 REVOLVER WHICH ONLY SHOOTS ZEUS’S LIGHTNING IN THE END IF YOU HAVE BEEN DOING THE RIGHT, MORAL THING THROUGHOUT?) see the post @ the bottom: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20908

    See? The novel Gold 45 Revolver technology solves vast and glaring design issues!! This could be applied to GTA/Fallout 3/KOTOR/Bioshock any RPG/FPS/MMORPG!!

    “In Fallout 3, you cannot kill children.
    …
    Problematically, in singling out and self-censoring one particular type of ‘crime’ in his game Pagliarulo by implication justifies all the others as being non-gratuitous and necessary. Last night I blew the head from a homeless scavenger girl, one who’s barely into twenties. The slow motion camera tracked her head’s explosion before lingering on the crimson fountain spurting from her neck stump. Is this kind of interaction and feedback ‘socially responsible’? And so then what’s the difference to killing a minor?”
    –http://dragonchasers.com/2008/11/01/moral-choices-in-fallout-3/

    I don’t think I’m the litigious type.

    I innovate and invent not to sue other people, but to serve the greater good.

    If I could walk into Best Buy next week and buy a novel Gold 45 Revolver/Ideas Have Consequences/Moral Premise game, I would be happy. I might also call the the developer and ask for a couple bucks, and give them some ideas for the film/movies/franchise. A rising tide lifts all boats.

    I gave all my artificial retina technology away for free:

    http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/40158797
    http://elliotmcgucken.com/dissertation.html
    http://elliotmcgucken.com/figure9.jpg
    http://elliotmcgucken.com/figure7.jpg

  • Dr. E

    Oh, but there is a vast and growing demand for the Gold 45 Revolver Technology!

    Without any funding *whatsoever*, it has become the *most talked about* novel gaming research over the past few months.

    Imagine if a company went ahead and built the game, which could be done with simple mods of existing engines, requiring minimal investment. The ROI would be huge, huge, huge!!

  • http://www.brokentoys.org/ Scott Jennings

    oops–somebody is not letting my posts go through!

    Your posts are triggering the blog software’s automated spam filter. You can avoid this through not having dozens of repetitive links in every post.

    why the fear of the First Amendment Scott Jennings?

    As a true student of constitutional rights would be aware, freedom of the speech does not override property rights. Simply put, I am free to eject you from my virtual living room no matter what truth you are speaking to Communist vampires. You are, of course, free, and in fact constitutionally protected to speak all the truth you want in your own virtual home.

    You would also get more discussion if you actually discussed your ideas instead of attempting to beat people into unconsciousness with the sheer weight of your text. For example, you have been given several examples (moral choices involving gameplay branching in Fallout 3, choices between communist and capitalist governance in Hidden Agenda) which predate your “research”, in Hidden Agenda’s case by 20 years. Instead of acknowledging, discussing and learning from this, you simply ignore it and repeat your previous posts verbatim. This does not encourage others to seriously engage with you.

  • http://blog.weflyspitfires.com We Fly Spitfires

    The cowgirl chick is hot.

    That’s all I learnt from this post :)

  • Dr. E

    @scott yes–i appreciate the property rights and all, but it’d be more fun if my posts went through!

    @We flie Spitfires
    yes–finally someone is getting the gist of the novel research/technologies! weclome aboard http://45surf.com

  • Dr. E

    @scott thanks for letting the post go through dude!

    i find you intelligent & witty. :)

    i laughed aloud at your original post.

    i imagine you laughed at the patent–haha.

    i still laugh when i read parts of it. “omg–the fanboys are gonna kill me for this!” i kept thinkin’ when i was writing it. but then, if i provided some pictures of hot chicks, all would be cool, i figured.

    but seriously, i was wondeirng how long it would take for someone to find the patent. a year? two years? never? it was more like a couple months after its publication in January 09, and then things took off in May.

    i’m glad you guys found it–loved Scott’s post. :)

    i think i know where/how it all started too–how the first person found it/happened upon it & opened pandora’s box.

  • JuJutsu

    I thought Prokofy Neva was the mistress of the wall-of-text post. She’s a rank amateur compared to this guy. I sincerely hope the good doctor doesn’t develop an interest in Second Life, the two of them posting on the same thread could break the internet.

  • http://www.brokentoys.org/ Scott Jennings

    They already have, in this one. The Internet managed to survive the experience.

  • Belsameth

    “No, no, no. It is not the developer’s choice–it is the choice of Leonidas, Cicero, Homer, Dante, Jefferson, Ron Paul, Moses, and every hero of Western Civilization. Now wouldn’t that be an awesome game–to be a hero of Western Civilization in an open-ended world, and to form fellowships based on the classical, immortal ideals; and to fight alongside a band of brothers who you recruited based on their soulful principles expressed in word and deed??”

    Open ended? Not at all. Linear choice. Even more linear then the od Lucas Arts adventures, I’d almost say.

  • Dr. E

    Yes–for the first time we would have a truly open-ended gameworld.

    In the novel Gold 45 Revolver/Ideas Have Consequences/Moral Premise games, you could actually fight for the principles of the US Constitution in word and deed.

    You could man up and win, or fanboy it on home and lose.

    http://www.onelastcontinue.com/9136/vampire-zombie-communist-hookers-patent-it/

    “Vampire Zombie Communist Hookers? Patent It!
    By Austin Walker, 1:30 pm on June 27, 2009

    From Patent # US 2009/0017886 A1: “If the player heeds the higher ideals and seeks the higher path they will be rewarded not with money and jacked cars, but with their soul.” What? More after the jump.

    If you’ve read my editorials, you know that I’ve been pushing games towards a more serious path. An intense potential for creating and cultivating emotions and ideas in the players exists in games that is unique among artistic mediums and valuable for it. Dr. Elliot McGucken, a man dedicated to bringing sight to the blind and honoring Joseph Campbell, believes so to. And the way he’s realized this belief is through this patent [via EmCeeGramr on NeoGaf] that makes my stomach churn.”

  • Dr. E

    http://incentives-matter.blogspot.com/2009/07/video-game-wherein-ideas-have.html

    Where’s Kabul?

    It seems I am a big hit there!

    http://paulpajo.com/2009/07/16/system-and-method-for-creating-exalted-video-games-and-virtual-realities-by-elliot-mcgucken/ ”

    “… 6. The method in claim 1 where said ideas spread like viruses, by being spoken, written, or disseminated in some other manner, transforming characters who come in contact with said ideas into vampires, zombies, or other forms of monsters, and where said vampires, zombies, and monsters may be saved or converted back to normal by coming in contact with ideas that oppose the ideas that made them vampires, zombies, and other forms of monsters…”

    http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DrElliotMcGucken/20090717/2462/_Marketers_of_Video_Games_How_Much_is_The_Massive_Gold_45_RevolverIdeas_Have_ConsequencesMoral_Premise_Buzz_Worth.php

  • Dr. E

    all you peeps are sooooo much more fun than the metafilter dudes & dudettes.

    http://www.metafilter.com/83274/Would-you-give-this-man-125000

    I think I wrote something that offended them or something–who knows–maybe I didn’t return their friend request on facebook or something.

    Anyhooo–I just wrote the way it feels to get shut out and abandoned:

    “Where’d everyone go?

    I hope I did not spoil your fun, and too, I hope you don’t shut me out and leave me in the gold. It seems just yesterday we were all falling in love, but now I’m only falling apart:


    –http://www.metafilter.com/83274/Would-you-give-this-man-125000

  • hmm

    Can someone give me the details on involuntary commitment in California?

  • Dr. E

    @hmm

    I checked and it seems you have to first volunteer for it. Maybe that is why they are going bankrupt?

  • hmm

    this is too much

    The night fell fast, I found myself alone,
    A D.C. summer storm was blowing in,
    I stood at the tomb, these soldiers unknown,
    and knelt and prayed for the rain to begin.

    Not for the monuments nor any money,
    nor pomp, circumstance, nor the pedant’s pride,
    the politician’s smile, nor lawyer’s fee,
    for these present treasures, none of them died.

    I ran to Jefferson to read the wall,
    to make sure that God was still written there,
    then to Washington, and across the Mall,
    where Lincoln invoked his immortal prayer.

    Winded and ragged, lightning everywhere,
    I slowed to a walk, pondered what would be,
    if God’s great Enlightenment weren’t there,
    we could still be brave but never be free.

    I found comfort in the Mall’s mud and rain,
    without mines nor cannons nor raining shells,
    so free from fear, iniquity, and pain,
    because thousands had endured a thousand hells.

    And I found myself back before the tomb,
    humbled by the humbled, with naught for name,
    shivering, though they had the colder room,
    sans light, nor sound, nor tomorrow, nor fame.

    I thought for a moment, what it could be,
    the center and circumference of their dreaming,
    it must have been the prophet’s poetry,
    that granted their souls eternal meaning.

    So judges and congressmen, please don’t forget,
    the reason these patriots picked up swords,
    not for perks nor power were their deaths met,
    but for honor and duty–for mere words.

    So do take pause before telling a lie,
    for there’s one more thing I saw on that night,
    as the wind and the rain began to die,
    I walked away, turned, and beheld a light.

    Will ‘o’ wisp, reddish light, sailor’s delight,
    It hovered there–just above the tomb’s stone,
    As fading thunder whispered to the night,
    “Freedom’s the name of all soldiers unknown.”

  • Dr. E

    A lot of you probably work in the video games industry. Many of you in marketing.

    Well, this question is for you:

    http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DrElliotMcGucken/20090717/2462/_Marketers_of_Video_Games_How_Much_is_The_Massive_Gold_45_RevolverIdeas_Have_ConsequencesMoral_Premise_Buzz_Worth.php

    “How Much is The Massive Gold 45 Revolver/Ideas Have Consequences/Moral Premise Buzz Worth?”

    Thanks in advance!

  • Dr. E

    @hmm

    i’m glad you enjoy my poetry!!

    THE MOST PERFECT SILENCE
    I know where the most perfect silence is,
    Seen it in the wild blue off Hatteras,
    A mile out, rainbowed sails in silent bliss,
    Looked like they’d collide, but they safely passed.
    I know when the most perfect silence is,
    Down a dusty Ohio road, high noon,
    No shirt on, being burned by the sun’s kiss,
    Sixteen, takin’ my time– it was still June.
    I know what the most perfect silence is,
    It’s what we say when falling out of love,
    It roars and thunders right through the kiss,
    Says all that no words can ever speak of.
    I know why the most perfect silence is,
    It is there for the whisper to be born,
    The whisper in her ear became the kiss,
    Just a dream in DC early one morn.
    I know who the perfect silence is for,
    It is for the ones whom we love the best,
    It is there to protect them from our core,
    By the silent trust we all seek to rest.
    And I know how rare that silence can be,
    With everyone talkin’, it’s hard to hear,
    But I know I felt it, on the streets of DC,
    The sound in her eyes– it was crystal clear.
    And it brought back to mind the rainbowed sails,
    And the way it looked like they would collide,
    Like two souls set upon fate’s iron rails,
    But the most perfect silence never died.

  • http://www.eartheternal.com Matt Mihaly

    Crazy guy wrote:

    When I speak of fighting for the US Constitution, I am speaking of fighting for its immortal, immutable ideals.

    Like slavery and the oppression of women? Is that what you want games to fight for? Odd.

  • http://foolsage.wordpress.com foolsage

    Dr. E, or whichever of your sock puppets, if any, you choose to use to respond to this… let’s try an experiment if you’re willing: you list one thing, ONE THING, that you think is novel in your approach to game design. Keep it as short and simple as you’re able – and try to be aware of your propensity for tangential remarks and buttressing, and avoid those pitfalls for this discussion at least (and if you’d learn to avoid those pitfalls in your general writing, it’d sincerely be a great help to you in your life and career). Don’t quote someone else’s ideas, don’t quote yourself or your patent application, and don’t point us towards the Great Works (which by the way I’ve read and I imagine most of the readers of this blog have as well – your arrogant assumptions about the ignorance of others are misplaced). Don’t repeat your arguments from above; don’t fall into the same rut. Just express one simple, single idea that you are certain is new and unique in the field of game design. Don’t link to it, just summarize it briefly, in no more than 200 words (if you can’t summarize it in 200 words or less, then you simply do not have a clear and concise understanding of what you’re talking about – think of patent abstracts here). Don’t mention hookers, communists, vampires, the Founding Fathers, or Beatrice, unless these things are absolutely central to your idea, and your idea cannot be clearly expressed without mention of these things. Then we, the readers of this blog, will engage in a discussion with you about whether this idea is in any way novel or tenable. How does that sound?

    I’ll preemptively admit that I sincerely doubt you’ll be able or willing to accomplish this. Right now I’ll candidly say you’re doing nothing to earn our respect, much less our interest… except in the morbid sense that people like watching NASCAR to see car crashes.

  • Dr. E

    “Dr. E, or whichever of your sock puppets, if any, you choose to use to respond to this… let’s try an experiment if you’re willing: you list one thing, ONE THING, that you think is novel in your approach to game design. ”

    Let me turn to my good friends in Kabul, Afghanistan:
    http://paulpajo.com/2009/07/16/system-and-method-for-creating-exalted-video-games-and-virtual-realities-by-elliot-mcgucken/

    “Are you ready to patent your own game system and method? Here’s a sample of Elliot McGucken’s patent application:

    “… 6. The method in claim 1 where said ideas spread like viruses, by being spoken, written, or disseminated in some other manner, transforming characters who come in contact with said ideas into vampires, zombies, or other forms of monsters, and where said vampires, zombies, and monsters may be saved or converted back to normal by coming in contact with ideas that oppose the ideas that made them vampires, zombies, and other forms of monsters…”
    “

  • Dr. E

    “Right now I’ll candidly say you’re doing nothing to earn our respect, much less our interest… except in the morbid sense that people like watching NASCAR to see car crashes.”

    Then I imagine you enjoy following the video games industry!

    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2350390,00.asp
    Video-Game Sales Plunge to Nine-Year Low

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-10289207-235.html
    Video game sales revenue plummets 31 percent

    My novel technologies are here to help, but so many fanboys are so filled with teh fiatcoracy’s hate and ignorance that they would rather see the industry and culture and currency debauched, than save it and the greater culture with a renaissance in games, art, film, and literature.

  • http://www.brokentoys.org/ Scott Jennings

    “Fiatocracy” is not actually a word.

  • Dr. E
  • http://www.brokentoys.org/ Scott Jennings

    Yes, that’s Google indexing all the places you’ve used it. It’s still not actually a word.

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    Google is not actually a dictionary.

  • Dr. E

    Check it out! The rising generation is using the word “fiatocracy” in their signatures!

    While games view hookers as lowlifes, worthy of use, abuse and murder, this novel invention would foster games where the hookers have souls, and within those souls are the secrets of the games greater glory and ultimate victory over the fiatocracy and the Supreme Court which has sanctified the murder of tens of millions of innocent souls and plays GTA all day long [...] – by Elliot McGucken PhD

    Search for it on this page:
    http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=16433.msg675925
    http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9992.msg676329

  • Dr. E

    In addition to revolutionizing the gaming industry, I suppose I’ll also go down in history as coining the phrase “fiatocracy.”

  • http://www.brokentoys.org/ Scott Jennings

    I assume given your libertarian bent you are referring to fiat currency. However that is akin to calling Nazi Germany an “armbandocracy” because Nazis wore armbands. Oligarchy or perhaps plutocracy may be the actual word you’re looking for, unless I am wrong and you are actually campaigning fearlessly against the tyranny of stylish tiny Italian sports cars.

  • Dr. E

    dude–we live in a fiatocracy!

    the fiatocracy trained many of you to hate the great books and classics, to rage against the immortal ideals, and to snark manly truth and honor. they did this so as to blind you to your slavery. while they create the debt, you work to pay it off.


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXb-LrVkuwM

    they detest the honor deep in your soul. they detest exalted manhood and womanhood. they detest the classical, epic ideals; and that is why you will not find such worthwhile, exalting entities in GTA/Fallout 3, for as you can see by the fatherless fiatocracy’s fanboy’s comments here, such entities are not allowed.

    Trinity: I know why you’re here, Neo. I know what you’ve been doing… why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You’re looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn’t really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It’s the question that drives us, Neo. It’s the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did.
    Neo: What is the Matrix?
    Trinity: The answer is out there, Neo, and it’s looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.

  • Gx1080

    Yup, the rising generation of your sockpuppets. Someone needs to get real instead of having desilusions of grandeur.

  • Dr. E

    dude–those sooooo aren’t my sockpuppets!

    While games view hookers as lowlifes, worthy of use, abuse and murder, this novel invention would foster games where the hookers have souls, and within those souls are the secrets of the games greater glory and ultimate victory over the fiatocracy and the Supreme Court which has sanctified the murder of tens of millions of innocent souls and plays GTA all day long [...] – by Elliot McGucken PhD

    Search for it on this page:
    http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=16433.msg675925
    http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9992.msg676329

    just ask them!

  • http://www.brokentoys.org/ Scott Jennings

    Truth is manly?

    What is womanly, then?

    (ps: “fiatocracy” is still not actually a word. also, the Austrian economic school was disproven in detail around October of last year, when the financial system nearly collapsed. As best as we know, no golden revolvers were involved.)

  • Dr. E

    Of Woman by Arthur Schopenhauer Part 1


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zmw3zpqoEA

    Not sure how much I agree with.

    Certainly there are both truthful and untruthful men and women, which is why it is unfair the feminist movement labels men as bad.

  • http://www.toblo.info Steve Chiavelli

    Unless I am mistaken, this guy is trolling the entire internet. He is quite a good fisherman

  • Dr. E

    @Scott

    Dude! The Fed created the bubble & the crash!

    No wonder you don’t get my research!

    Read the Harvard Historian!

    http://www.amazon.com/Meltdown-Free-Market-Collapsed-Government-Bailouts/dp/1596985879

    Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse (Hardcover)
    by Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Author), Ron Paul (Foreword)

    Product Description
    If you are fed up with Washington boondoggles, and you like the small-government, politically-incorrect thinking of Ron Paul, then you’ll love Tom Woods’s Meltdown. In clear, no-nonsense terms, Woods explains what led up to this economic crisis, who’s really to blame, and why government bailouts won’t work. Woods will reveal:

    * Which brave few economists predicted the economic fallout–and why nobody listened
    * What really caused the collapse
    * Why the Fed–not taxpayers–should have to answer for the current economic crisis
    * Why bailouts are band-aids that will only provide temporary relief and ultimately make things worse
    * What we should do instead, to put our economy on a healthy path to recovery
    With a foreword from Ron Paul, Meltdown is the free-market answer to the Fed-created economic crisis. As the new Obama administration inevitably calls for more regulations, Woods argues that the only way to rebuild our economy is by returning to the fundamentals of capitalism and letting the free market work.

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