I’ve been thinking about this game for the last couple of days. Which is, I suppose, the point. Lose/Lose is a basic shooting game… but: “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”. Oh, the humanity. More of what I’m sure will be termed art-wank in comments thread on the page. What I’m thinking about isn’t actually the questions it’s posing, but how it could be to have twisted to actually have proper gameplay appeal. You’ll find thought quick thoughts plus footage of the game in action below…
Here’s the baby…
DIE FILES.
The effect of the game deleting your files when you actually succeed in playing it, bar to illustrate some pretty basic points – Killing Just Because You Can Isn’t Necessarily Right – doesn’t really do anything. You’ll notice a list of high scores on the site, and they’re mostly really low. People are not playing it for obvious reasons. But they are a bit – partially for exhibitionist reasons and partially for absolute ludicrous iron-manisms. Yeah, I don’t give a fuck enough to do this.
Iron-man-isms are one of those trends which are interesting. The industry talks about opening games up to more and more people, but there’s a niche who absolutely adores the brutalisation. You’d actually create a particularly nasty Iron-Man game by flipping the mechanism. As in, files are deleted by you losing. So playing isn’t actually about being just masochistically self-destructive – it’s a statement that you believe your skills are enough that you won’t lose any files. With an actually compelling game, I can see some players (i.e. Quinns) actually being attracted to that.
Of course, there’s another, much more populist approach to the game. Just connect it to your Recycle Trash Bin thing, and you run the game whenever you want to empty it. You blast through enemies, each tiny victory permanently deleting the file they represent, and you win the game when the Recycle Bin is clear. Just a way to enliven a normal workaday part of your PC-life. And that I think you’ll find a lot of people playing, for exactly that reason. And, to be honest, I suspect would be a far more interesting work of art than Lose/Lose – of how making things a game can defeat tedium and remix reality.
I’m a fan of this kind of using your PC’s files as part of the game. There’s a 90s shooter which Richard Cobbett told me about – and whose name will, I’m sure, be mentioned in the comments thread in seconds – which uses random picture files from your hard-drive as wall textures in one level. Which is a brilliant concept, if only for the mental image of playing a game in front of friends and suddenly finding themselves fighting through a mass of pornography. Oh noes!
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I was doing really well, about to beat the hi-score, but then my computer bluescreened and now it won’t boot. :(
I’m now having to read RPS on my iPhone.
There’s an obvious lesson here kids. Don’t use iPhones.
I am reminded of psdoom for unix systems, where enemies are tagged with process IDs, and shooting them kills that process on your system. Watch out for monster ID 1! init is important!
VM your workstation, snapshot it, and get that high score (you can just revert your to your snapshot if you loose) !
Yeah I was just thinking I may fire this up in virtualbox, fill it with a few thousand 1kb files and have at it.
Then I realized it’s not worth the effort, just to play a poorly made, rubbish game that literlly has nothing going for it except that dodgy gimmick.
But that’s the entire point. You’re not SUPPOSED to play the game at all. It’s interesting and divisive solely BECAUSE of this point. The game is geared so that you’re not supposed to play it. There is technically a game there, but the point is not to make a good game. See, the problem with everyone’s assessments so far is that this is classed as a “game” and thus should be considered “bad” or “good”, since games should be made to entertain gamers. But that’s one KIND of game. The goal of this game is not to entertain, but to experiment with other types of games. This one is a game whose point is to make you not want to play it. It is technically a game, since a game exists, but you’re not supposed to actually interact with it or use it. It’s more of an interesting experiment than an interactive game, but it is nonetheless a TYPE of game. It’s not persay a “poorly made, rubbish game” with a “dodgy gimmick”, it’s a game that is bare-bones because you’re never supposed to play it for more than three seconds, and its gimmick is the entire point of the game.
In other words, what it is is an experiment with the gimmick of being a “game”, not a game with the gimmick of being an experiment. It should be judged as such.
So, wait. There is absolutely no criteria to judge it by, and anyone who says it’s rubbish just doesn’t understand it?
I am so going into avant garde game design. Twisp and Catsby, here we come!
No, no, you are missing my point. The point is that this isn’t game design at all. This isn’t an art game. This is an experiment which is COINCIDENTALLY a game. If this game was designed to entertain in any way, it would be a rubbish game. However, it’s not meant to entertain, and is only ALSO a game. Judge it on how successful it was at provoking conversation and strong responses, not as art, but as a social experiment.
How is it an experiment? The outcome is obvious: it will go mostly unplayed, because people like their files.
More importantly, what is the point of making this non-game? Generally when making an “experiment,” you’re trying to, y’know, experiment with something. If your assertion is that we can’t judge this as a game, then let’s judge it as an experiment and ask the important question of how does it fair at that? I don’t think it does much on either front, personally.
Hey guys I’m announcing my new game, Win-Win.
You put your penis in this hole right here and if you lose the game, it gets chopped off.
Women need not apply (girls don’t play games lol).
Viva la art!
For the last time, I’m not saying it’s an art game. It’s an experiment. It’s not even a game. If your game had actual gameplay and a point, then it would be a game that is just very punishing. This is an experiment with a game sort of tacked on that has no depth or point to the game at all, the “game” is just a way to inflict direct negative feedback on you. So if your game were where you press a button to chop off tiny slices of penis at a time and try to go for a high score before you pass out from blood loss, then it would be an experiment in how far people will go to get game for having the highest score and the most mutilated genitalia. And an exercise in how stupid people are. This is an experiment in negative feedback, a game that is not meant to be played and thus by most standards is not a game at all and just a psychological or social experiment.
Are we clear, because after explaining all that again I am not defending what I’m saying several times over, either you’re not listening or not understanding if you post another random comment on how horrible this game is without some context of what you mean. The same goes for snarky comments. Now, if you disagree with what I’m saying, than debate with me on the points because I could be very much wrong, but don’t just make a side comment that goes against a perfectly logical deduction without trying at all to explain why you think so. Then that’s just meant to be inflammatory. Which I guess if you want to do that go ahead, I’m just saying I won’t respond to it.
However, I do look forward to opposing viewpoints. The internet is a wonderful medium for a debate if everyone is at least mildly civil.
And in case any of the previous text seemed aggressive, I love you all. <3
Yet another stupid mastubatory indie game trying to be different for difference’s sake.
And why would you say it is a game, based on the standard accepted criteria for a game and the fact that this game does not fulfill them?
Because the author calls it a game.
We won’t try to excuse that shit piece of code by calling it something that even the guy that made it doesn’t.
If this were just a thought experiment, and had never been put together, it might have been a good deal more compelling, because it would have invited theoretical de/reconstruction and debate ala what Kieron took a swing at in his post. As it now actually, physically exists (and is not very good)…eh. It’ll fade away and be lost forever, and good riddance.
Also, Innerspace.
everyone seems to miss the point: you can play it successfully without losing any files at all (other than the game itself).
ppl just assume that the goals are to ’shoot the aliens’ and/or ‘get a high score’. the statement the game makers are trying to make is that games(and gamers) should look beyond those assumptions.
nothing stops you from peacefully flying through the level, avoiding contact with the aliens and reach the end.
Silly us, expecting to shoot in a shooter…
If they wanted us to look beyond assumptions, they should have offered an alternative way to use the “shooting” part of the shooter.
I think it’s more than a bit dumb, as a game or piece of art. It’d have the same effect whether someone left it as an idea or turned it into an actual game. As it is, it feels kind of useless because the people who will appreciate it will probably never play it; all you really need is to read its little blurb to get its thrust. I recognize its right to exist, but really, couldn’t Mr. Gage send a message that was a bit less pat, or communicate it more elegantly?
Many art games are dismissed by the gaming community, and for good reason: they’re generally not well-constructed games. What separates lose/lose from any other Klik & Play shooter? (I’m honestly a bit curious, as I don’t have access to a mac.) When an art game can bring itself to fulfill the necessities of a game, or leave them unfulfilled in an interesting way, that’s when I’ll actually play it, instead of downloading it, never unzipping it, and two months later deleting it.
I think I am going to give the game to a few “friends” that don’t speak english.
As an experiment, it’s interesting.
Maybe use it as a motivational tool. Miss a personal deadline and you have to go a round with the game, and it’s linked up to one of your entertainment collections- music, TV episodes, whatever.
I couldn’t even start up the fucking thing.
Hmm. Pretty ingenious way of getting rid of random porn to clear diskspace. If a bit over the top.
I really, really, really, REALLY hope you were being ironic/sarcastic, OP. This game is basically digital Russian roulette.
Also, the end boss should be boot.ini
But that’s the entire point being made.
You’re given a gun, you’re given a scoreboard, you’re told it’s a shooter, and you cannot find fun outside of that box.
For some reason, this didn’t reply to Gutter.
This sounds like a very cleverily made virus
Despite the bit at the end, nobody has mention Operation: Inner Space?
Am I the only one who immediately thought of ReBoot when reading this article? Winning a game destroys one’s computer? Ah, the memories.
pretty sure about ten people have mentioned innerspace!
Incidentally, the game which used image files off your drive as game content was in fact, called Virus. Hooray for irony! :)
Virus also used your directory file tree to construct the levels, i always thought thats cool.
Unt then I notice page -1- of the comments. More irony!
Malware, masquerading as a game, masquerading as art, masquerading as intelligent.
It’s not malware. Malware is not when you delete your own files for amusement, and I don’t recall it ever warning you that it will either.
I came up with this exact same idea when I was ten I demand th author put me in the credits or I will sue him for one (1) BJ.
Ahh, the intelligence that presides in this comments section is just overwhelming. :)
I actually quite like this, because I’m one of those wanky arty types.
The High Score board demonstrates how willing people are to destroy themselves for petty notoriety, and the fact that you can clear the game without killing cleverly turns our expectations on their head.
And like all decent art, it provokes discussion and divides opinion.
Dracko in ‘taking-things-too-seriously-again’ shocker.
If the creator had some balls every alien you destroy would destroy a file on the creator’s computer.
I was going to, but you beat me to it.
Okay, wow. Apparently replies are broken.
On a side note: Games that have real life consequences aren’t, strictly speaking, games. One of the defining aspects of games (at least according to Huizinga) is that they’re consequence free outside of the games space.
Which of course would mean that any kind of gambling or professional sports doesn’t fall under the category of “game”.
Actually the only reason I wrote this was to show that I know about Huizinga and that I’ve read Homo Ludens, so that I might appear clever in the RPS comments section.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Did anyone actually go to the website before posting on here?
The creator actually talks a bit about the point of the game. He said something to the effect of, Just because we have guns and are awarded for using them, does it make it right to do so. He mentions that the only reason you would kill the aliens is because its implied that you should through the weapon you have and the score you get for doing so. So really, the point of the game I think is to see if people were willing to delete files on their computer just so they could obtain an arbitrary number and feel better about themselves if they could get a higher one than someone else.
Which is what I’ve been saying all along.
Calling it an “art” game is stupid.
Calling it malware is stupid.
Everything peopel do is stupid.
(And Mulayim Sert, I already posted that on Tigsource, jerk! >_>)
If that were any boss, it’d be the final boss.
I really like KG’s Iron Man adaptation to poke fun at all those “hardcore” Darkfall types. The thing is the poor bastards would probably play it.
You’re off it if you think that any of those folks with the really high scores weren’ t playing the game in VMWare or something like that.
trolling is a art*
I’m pretty sure this hasn’t been addressed. A lot of outrage here comes from “if this crap is art, then why isn’t x art?” I think the problem here is that most folks seem to think that only good art is art! For what it’s worth, I think most important is the artist’s intent to make art — to creatively express. Love or hate from an audience probably has very little effect on a work being art or not and a lot more to do with an artist’s self-esteem. In that vein, substituting “This is bad art,” with “This isn’t art!” satisfies a critic’s intent to be mean more than be honest.
I’m confused, probably because I haven’t read Huizinga. How can anything not have consequences ‘outside of the games space’? What about emotional response: is it not a game if it puts you in a lasting good mood? What games that teach you things, or sports games that give you exercise (with presumably lasting effect on your body)?
Er, my last comment was meant to be in reply to Okami’s comment
Funny thing: quite a few viruses acquire permission for their installation by promising the user porn. Many who bring their computers in for repair after accepting these bargains are more concerned about where the porn they were promised went than about the condition of their machines. This isn’t a new critique of idiot end-users; it’s just leveraging a different stereotype. Then again, given the moderate success of Evony (where’s the queen? I was promised a queen…), perhaps this necrotic horse could stand a bit more flogging. Listen to Joshua: sometimes the only winning move is not to play.
Lose/Lose’s central point is essentially a straw man argument. Its statement about violence in video games drains the context out of video games in order to make its point. The ambiguity it tries to establish by linking real data loss with the loss of a virtual (fake/imaginary) life is a poor analogy for the ethical or moral argument it attempts to make. The heavy-handed message that killing things results in them being lost forever is a simplified morality taking nothing complex into account. There is also the implied argument about violence in video games that was almost certainly considered when making this. The long-stated, long-deflated argument that virtual violence desensitizes us to the violence of the real world.
The fact of the matter is that the video game audiences of today require more context than the video game audiences of the past. They want to know why things are happening. They want to know what the points are of the decisions they make are. They want their games to make them feel something.
Ironically, every question that the artist raises has been addressed and handled with far more panache and skill by video games themselves. Without any simplified “real-life consequence,” game audiences have felt the pressure of complex ethical decisions (torture or stay ethical and lose many of your powers in Fable 2), the surreal satire of the action genre’s sociopathic tendencies (the GTA series) and even the remorse of lives ended forever (the thousands that still mourn for Aeris in Final Fantasy 7).
Someone has already brought up the fact that the major question of the role of data as a cherished possession has already been answered; and once again, it was answered by video games themselves.
So finally I put my opinion in: this piece is not a quality artwork especially when compared to works that have covered the exact same ground as it has, some with bigger budgets, some with the same small budgets. The methods it employs to try and make its ethical arguments are heavy-handed and simplistic. In an attempt to “pare down” the concept of video game violence and distill it to an essential core, the artist has missed the point of video games entirely.
And at the very last, I offer this speculation: How will the artist feel when the Internet corrupts his work like so many others in the past? He has essentially written a terribly effective trojan horse malware program. A ridiculously simple hack is all that is required to strip or change the warning documentation at the beginning of the game. In an attempt to draw a simplistic analogy for the nature of murder, he may very well have empowered scores of real-world people who are real-life malicious to prey upon the unwilling.
The concept itself is pretty ancient. There was a classic comic about it in an issue of Knights of the Dinner Table magazine back in 1997:
http://javajack.dynalias.net/kodt/virtual-liabilities.jpg
Can’t name any, but I would be surprised if there weren’t real, or at least thought experiments describing it, equivalents going back to the 70s or 80s, on unix, etc.
i’ve setup a vm just for play this fucking game, then i find out that is a shitty mac app.
the creator should die in a fire.
twice.
As a game, it fails, obviouisly. It just isn’t very good.
As a work of art, it provokes dicussion and divides opinion, but if that’s all one looks for in art, then art is dead and has nowhere to go, having evolved into its ultimate form: trolling internet forums.
As an object lession in RTFM before playing, it’s a great success.
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