Ok, this is bullshit. While I appreciate a well crafted fake backstory as much as anyone, these assholes decided they would poison the well of our collective memory to make a buck. No thank you.
Ok, this is bullshit. While I appreciate a well crafted fake backstory as much as anyone, these assholes decided they would poison the well of our collective memory to make a buck. No thank you.
Ever seen Fargo? It famously began with the text: Of course, none of the events as they were depicted actually happened—and there was never a moment where the movie came clean and called its own...
Ever seen Fargo? It famously began with the text:
This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.
Of course, none of the events as they were depicted actually happened—and there was never a moment where the movie came clean and called its own bluff. As a result, it gave Fargo a unique, mysterious element that few films really had. I consider it valid artistic expression rather than deceit, and I don't see how that's any different to what this game is doing.
If you think their primary motive is lying to make money, I don't see how "remaking" an obscure title from the 80s that nobody remembers (obviously) really boosts sales in and of itself.
I don't think there's any problem with simply lying and saying that it's a remake when it's not, as long as it's contained inside the game and its official materials. The problem is that they...
I don't think there's any problem with simply lying and saying that it's a remake when it's not, as long as it's contained inside the game and its official materials. The problem is that they attempted to get that false information included into sources of knowledge, which was an attempt to damage their accuracy for the sake of marketing.
Imagine if the people behind Fargo had done things like creating Wikipedia pages with fabricated citations to try to make it look like the events of the movie really had occurred.
You've got a good point, that is a key difference. In balancing between deception for profit and deception as artistic expression as their motive, I tend to lean toward the latter—but you...
You've got a good point, that is a key difference. In balancing between deception for profit and deception as artistic expression as their motive, I tend to lean toward the latter—but you certainly have an argument about damaging the accuracy of records. Maybe the Internet Archive stunt was too much.
And that's all well and good, but did they go to Fargo and add information on the characters to the public databases there? Did they create records of the fake stores? No, of course not.
And that's all well and good, but did they go to Fargo and add information on the characters to the public databases there? Did they create records of the fake stores? No, of course not.
I don't think they are poisoning the well at all here. The article even mentions that the press kit says explicitly game is an effort to “achieve something that gets as close as possible to the...
I don't think they are poisoning the well at all here. The article even mentions that the press kit says explicitly game is an effort to “achieve something that gets as close as possible to the dream-game [the developers] wish they could’ve played when they were kids.”
Making a "remake" in the feel of a retro 80s game is really neat to me and actually has been a pretty rising trend in my opinion. You look at titles like Celeste, A Hat in Time, Yooka Laylee, Undertale, and Owlboy and they are all clearly inspired of games in the past. I think building up a backstory like this is a neat twist on the retro indie trend and I think adds an interesting layer of lore on top of the game.
I love this kind of ARG-ish stuff... I would’ve been fine with this if they didn’t upload stuff to the Internet Archive and if they made it clear, maybe at the end of the game, that Eternal Castle...
I love this kind of ARG-ish stuff... I would’ve been fine with this if they didn’t upload stuff to the Internet Archive and if they made it clear, maybe at the end of the game, that Eternal Castle never existed.
Given the degree to which the truth is a slippery thing to pin down and the fact that we can't go back to the past to see how it really was, we depend upon the documentary evidence of the time to...
Given the degree to which the truth is a slippery thing to pin down and the fact that we can't go back to the past to see how it really was, we depend upon the documentary evidence of the time to know how things were. This case is mild, but it shows how people will try to rewrite history for their personal gain, and that is deeply offensive.
Ok, this is bullshit. While I appreciate a well crafted fake backstory as much as anyone, these assholes decided they would poison the well of our collective memory to make a buck. No thank you.
Ever seen Fargo? It famously began with the text:
Of course, none of the events as they were depicted actually happened—and there was never a moment where the movie came clean and called its own bluff. As a result, it gave Fargo a unique, mysterious element that few films really had. I consider it valid artistic expression rather than deceit, and I don't see how that's any different to what this game is doing.
If you think their primary motive is lying to make money, I don't see how "remaking" an obscure title from the 80s that nobody remembers (obviously) really boosts sales in and of itself.
I don't think there's any problem with simply lying and saying that it's a remake when it's not, as long as it's contained inside the game and its official materials. The problem is that they attempted to get that false information included into sources of knowledge, which was an attempt to damage their accuracy for the sake of marketing.
Imagine if the people behind Fargo had done things like creating Wikipedia pages with fabricated citations to try to make it look like the events of the movie really had occurred.
You've got a good point, that is a key difference. In balancing between deception for profit and deception as artistic expression as their motive, I tend to lean toward the latter—but you certainly have an argument about damaging the accuracy of records. Maybe the Internet Archive stunt was too much.
And that's all well and good, but did they go to Fargo and add information on the characters to the public databases there? Did they create records of the fake stores? No, of course not.
I don't think they are poisoning the well at all here. The article even mentions that the press kit says explicitly game is an effort to “achieve something that gets as close as possible to the dream-game [the developers] wish they could’ve played when they were kids.”
Making a "remake" in the feel of a retro 80s game is really neat to me and actually has been a pretty rising trend in my opinion. You look at titles like Celeste, A Hat in Time, Yooka Laylee, Undertale, and Owlboy and they are all clearly inspired of games in the past. I think building up a backstory like this is a neat twist on the retro indie trend and I think adds an interesting layer of lore on top of the game.
Ok, that that's fine for the press kit, but that warning isn't attached to the things they seeded elsewhere.
I love this kind of ARG-ish stuff... I would’ve been fine with this if they didn’t upload stuff to the Internet Archive and if they made it clear, maybe at the end of the game, that Eternal Castle never existed.
Yeah, everything else about this I love. But falsely uploading stuff to the Internet Archive is a step too far.
Given the degree to which the truth is a slippery thing to pin down and the fact that we can't go back to the past to see how it really was, we depend upon the documentary evidence of the time to know how things were. This case is mild, but it shows how people will try to rewrite history for their personal gain, and that is deeply offensive.