Bah, keep giving more credit to pompous assholes, now we're gonna get more of them :(

Never was a fan of all these art game but this is the one art game I've felt has a very clever and well executed message.

I won't play it, that's probably to be expected of most people, but that's part of the genious.

Zach is quite honestly about the least pompous asshole I've ever met.

Wait, that didn't work quite right.

Either way, my point stands.

Hahaha. Thanks Brandon

meh, it's been done before http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_%28series%29#Myth_II_installer_bug

Well he says it very clearly what game will do so no one should blame it. And I think its pretty clever idea. As far as saying it an art game, I don't even understand what is art and what isn't, its all depend on individual viewpoint.

(and thanks konjak)

"The very first motivation behind the idea was that I wanted to make a game that made me feel an emotion that I'd never felt from a videogame before."

Deleting files on computer when playing a game is far from "creating an emotion".

You can create an emotion in game if this is linked in a way. The hero dies, a great character has some dramatic fate, ok, there you have emotion. But creating "emotion" by deleting files on my computer because i shot spaceships, that makes no sense, no one can "link" that emotionally. To me, it's just the program being an a**.

But of course, it all had a point, thanks to that, people talked about his program (you can't really call that a game). So I join the first anonymous comment, it opens wide the door for all pompous "game designers", who are making "concept games".

A bit like Tale of Tales, finally. And just like then, complain when their "concept" won't be understood.

Antivirus are right to put this as a dangerous software, as it harms your computer. They do their job, protecting the user from dangerous software that can do damage.

Because no matter how many times you will write about the "concept", or how many warnings you will put at the beginning of the program. People play games for fun, not for concepts, and when they see "this will delete files on your computer", they don't take it seriously, because, well, it's a game, for fun, what game would be stupid enough to harm your data ?

Really, Anon? In all my decades of playing games and the countless hundreds of thousands of 'enemies' I've killed, I have never once thought, "I dunno, if I shoot that dude, I could be destroying That One And Only Photo I Have Of My Ex-Girlfriend And I Happy Together", and that's a pretty powerful and directly linked emotion -- one that's kept me from ever even downloading Zach's game, and in that respect, I think I'm winning.

Luckily I didn't play this game, but I cant believe some of you guys defend this guy's idea as "clever" or "genius" etc. This is malicious software that destroyed people's precious files. It not that far from creating some game with a little more vague description that will break something or change settings.

I think no one posting here got their files deleted so maybe its an emotional disconnect from the seriousness of the issue.

Like someone said, people will be encouraged to make more malicious indy games and there will always be suspicion on honest projects.

RE: "A bit like Tale of Tales, finally. And just like then, complain when their "concept" won't be understood."

He isn't complaining at all, stupid. You're the one complaining that people appreciate it!!

"I dunno, if I shoot that dude, I could be destroying That One And Only Photo I Have Of My Ex-Girlfriend And I Happy Together"

That's very specific considering what I presume is a random selection of a files on your system. The chances of that happening would be so slim I wouldn't expect the emotion to have any weight to it. I suppose it depends on how much shit you have on your hard drive to balance the chances!

The game would have to explicitly show the said file hanging in the balance before you would experience that sort of specific emotion.

It's an interesting concept though.

Regarding the comment about Myth II: Soulblighter - that was a BUG ie. not intended.

I don't need laser sights on a Russian Roulette revolver to know that it's very likely going to destroy something I hold at least somewhat dear!

The fact that I _do_ have a kajillion files and no idea where it might strike first actually ups the risk to me, because its in-game display doesn't have near the granularity to show me exactly what it just blipped. I'd either be constantly scrambling to wonder what it got, or worse, wouldn't realize until much later when I went looking for something that it was gone.

In fact, doing it the opposite way -- showing you what was hanging in the balance -- would completely undermine the risk: "Would you like to delete this photo of Courage Wolf for +1 pts? [y/n] What about the only copy of your 3/4ths finished novel? [y/n]"

I played this game on my Commodore 64, and as a result it won't boot Windows any more. I just get a blue screen with some BASIC stuff whenever I turn it on. :-((((((((

jelous faggots.
i want a scroll shooter that wen you die a file is lost, but you can kil enemies without pennalties, that would be hardcore

If indiegames continues to clutter itself with this kind of crap, I'll just have to stop visiting

Thank you Zach for having the guts to make a honest thought experiment, even though it was obvious from the start, that most zombies would be too dumb to get it.

P.S.: As for the majority of the comments, i only have one reply:

"Imagine you'd take your life in your own hand. And what's gonna happen? You've got no one to blame it on."

I just realized how funny it is that you can just run the game in virtualization (VMWare, or whatever the Mac equivalent is), and it's completely safe.

Yay, I just won Lose/Lose.

I actually like the idea of displaying on screen the files you are about to delete. Or perhaps pulling up, say, 6 random files, so you can make more specific choices.

I like the idea of the game but would never play it.

If I leave a gun in a room full of people and tell them it's a real gun and dangerous, would I be in trouble if somebody gets shot?

A disclaimer, a Eula, a contract, does not legally insulate you from the results of your actions. Just ask the cigarette companies.

I hope you have a good lawyer.

I think the gun analogy is misleading, there are specific laws and regulations about guns.

For instance what if you changed your example to:

"If I leave a banana in a room full of people and tell them it's a real banana and could choke someone, would I be in trouble if it kills someone? (e.g someone chokes on it by accident, or maybe someone else commits murder by forcing the victim to choke on it)"

So clearly neither analogy really works, because software is weird and different in a lot of ways compared to physical objects.

Some googling seems to show that the legality of EULAs in general and liability clauses therein is the subject of much confusion and varying interpretations.. so the only thing you can really say for sure is that it's impossible to say for sure.

I think one thing that many indie developers forget is that when you put your game on the internet, you're releasing it to a global audience that won't necessarily understand your language. What about Russian, Polish, Japanese, etc. visitors to sites like TIGSource, who just click on the link to play whatever game is presently featured? Or other visitors who don't even use the Latin script, much less understand English? My main concern with Lose/Lose and similar games is that the warning will be lost to such players, and they won't be aware that they're putting their computers at risk. I think that in general, indie game developers should keep the diversity of their audience in mind during the game design process. For example, I like how the contents of Machinarium's speech bubbles are universally coherent.

@P.M.: Ignorance is not considered an argument in law for a reason. If someone downloads a program they know nothing about and do not understand how it works, they are fully resposible for their acts.

The major problem here is that people do not want to take responsability for their acts. They want to have someone to blame in case they do something they shouldn't, like playing a game without reading the instructions - that in case, explains clearly how dangerous playing it is. NO ONE IS MAKING YOU PLAY THE GAME. If you play and lose a file, it is YOUR FAULT because it was result of your actions! Someone made a gun example before, so lets make another: anyone holds the weapon industry guilty for all the people that is killed by their products?

The fact that not a single one of the comments that attacks Lose/Lose have an legible nick but "anonymous" shows how clearly people don't want to take responsability; it is easy to do whatever shit you want and hide on anonymousity...

Why the fuck does this guy get an interview? Are there so few indie developers out there, are so few things happening in the indie scene that we have to fill space with this idiot's game that can only be found artistic if you are high on drugs or have a dubious understanding of what art is?

You create emotions, impressions and expressions within a video game by cleverly and artistically implementing its content. If you can't do that, than at least make the game fun to play. If you can't do that, than you need to learn more about video games and their design.

Games are more than just fun, they should be. They should still be fun, but they should step beyond that.

If a game damages my computer, it is not a game, but malware. If someone's idea of art is creating malware than he's an attention-seeking hack, plain and simple.

Every interview, every article about this hack will only feed his ego by praise and attention that he does not rightfully deserve.
Don't tell me that there is no developer out there that isn't developing a more promising game and is less deserving of attention because I won't believe it.

I can understand if Lose/Lose was just a joke that got overblown, but this guy is serious. He really is trying to say that he had a legitimate artistic statement by creating a game that no one should play if they value their OP system integrity.

That's it, that's what Lose/Lose is: a game that no sane person should play. Watching a video about it on youtube only confirms it: it is nothing special or particular. It's a 2D space shooter where the enemies won't shoot back. That's it. There is nothing more to it than an attention-seeking gimmick.

@failrate - I had exactly the same thought. It'd be kind of fun to set the game up in a VM and just keep playing until the OS completely collapses.

@P.M. that's actually the first argument against Lose/Lose's morality that kind of makes sense. If I were Zach and I heard some dude in Russia or wherever lost his files because he just likes playing games linked on TIGSource, I'd feel bad about it. Not that it really makes it a bad game, just an interesting thought.

I wouldn't say I think Zach is wrong for making Lose/Lose, but I would feel disappointed if he is a finalist at IGF or a similar contest. I don't really like how many small thought experiment games like this are getting a lot of press and attention considering how many other indie devs are still toiling in obscurity simply because they aren't thinking of some weird hook like random file deletion.

Making an art game that no one can even really play is pretty much the pinnacle of Conceptual Art. Where can you go from there? It would be like if Duchamp's critically acclaimed urinal was additionally COMPLETELY INVISIBLE.

We have a winner.

Why is it that basically all criticism has in common (as i previously implied, and as terrivel expanded) that it is built on the premise, that the user is not responsible for his part in the interaction?

You know what? The IT-world and especially the inet has become so full of people who do not want to take responsibility for their actions (i.e. learning a few simple basics about computers and trust), as well as providers who play big daddy for those people, that it has become an accepted state. It is considered normal, that the user is a slave, and that others need to tell them what to do and take responsibility for them. Heck, it isn't even uncommon today, that i see technically knowledgeable people call for banning of all executable compression (because virus-ven... er, i mean ANTI-virus vendors say so, and if they say so it must be true)... or even banning of executables on all mail providers ("It's for security.").

Here is a piece of active program code which clearly states what it is going to do. Who is resposible for ignoring that warning?

What? The warning isn't translated to every language on the planet? Well, who is responsible for running something written in a language which he doesn't understand? Who is -executing- an application blindly without being able to understand the website text nor the app-text? That would be like running something without having any clue what it is except of perhaps a screenshot.... and seriously.... who is using a computer without being able to understand the words "warning", "delete" and "file"???

If you go that route, what is the user there for anymore anyways? Just there to make requests about what media-output or -processing he wants?

I'm not a fan of linus, but to quote him: "If you ever did something in security which didn't involve the concept of trust, then you weren't actually doing security work." - and i may add: No machine is able to judge trust... all machine-made decisions are fed by guidelines and decisions made by humans.... the question is just "who" and "how efficient"...

The Japanese people is a perfect example.. of people trying the game without knowing.

I don 't get any 'message' from a game like that..

About the gun example:
yes you are guilty cause u must take care of your gun lol

Sure it's not a trojan, even if i don 't think normal games can access read-write without user approval or system files (ye probably mac has a different permissions thing)

Congratz to Zach Gage for being included on Norton Commander (whatever its called i never use that shit). Cya

If only the interview had ended up with a big slap on the guy's face, that would have been a useful interview.

"...anonymousity..."

lol :P

The emotional side of the game is making you choose between playing the game or losing your files which may have some meaning to you. That's the pain/fear/regret you feel when you play. It was very cleverly implemented, and it did invoke a response. Guess it was too deep for you maggots.

but Lyx, if I go to his lose/lose website and I do not speak/read English but I click the trailer and see a a video game being played..would I really be at fault for wanting to play it? it IS after all, linked by a website that has a reputation of NEVER harming peoples computers (I have never received a virus from IndieGames.com, as an example)

Hypothetical:
So here I am, a foreign speaking visitor, who frequently downloads games off of IndieGames.com. I have never had an issue, so I download this decent looking shmup and all of a sudden random files are deleted?

Now the chances of this happening, are very very slim. But to say the person is at fault is quite stupid.

The reason why I've not chose Lose/Lose as a Freeware Game Pick is because it could damage someone's Mac, and I wouldn't want that to happen to anyone.

I don't know how other sites conduct their reviews, but over here I personally test, scan, and try to beat every single game before writing about them (just to make sure there are no naughty or unwanted political content). I would still recommend that everyone get at least some sort of anti-virus protection though (even AVG Free will do).

There were one or two games posted here in the past that have been falsely detected as virus, but the reason is usually because the file names are in Japanese and could not be read properly by some operating systems. And I have a preference for games in .zip files, because installers still tend to leave one or two registry entries on PCs (e.g. high scores or game configuration settings).

Personally I don't like art games that much either (if you know me you'd know what my gaming preferences are), but it's not right to practice selective coverage just because of likes and dislikes.

To Z: Sorry to hear that we're going to lose you as a regular visitor, but I do hope that you'd find it in your heart to forgive us and come back some time. :)

For those criticizing this game for being malicious and harmful: To play it is ENTIRELY the player's choice. It's their choice to read about it, to or not to download it, to or not to run the program, and to or not to fire at an enemy in the game. Only the player is to blame for their own losses. Negligence and ignorance have real consequences in the real world, and this game only reinforces that for those careless enough to pay no attention to the warnings, and to play this on a computer that contains files they care about.

As the developer himself said - this game is merely a proof-of-concept; meant more to be talked about than to be played.

For those who say it arouses no emotion, I'm pretty sure that you're frustrated or angry that a game would delete your files. In this way, emotion has already been aroused in you by the mere *concept* of the game. While you may not have immediate emotional reactions as you play the game, you sure as hell will once you find that something important to you is missing from your computer. =P

@brandonnn What if the game displayed the descriptions/names of the files that were deleted, but only after the corresponding enemy was destroyed? =) That'd conjure a more immediate emotional response, heh.

@fucrate I completely agree with your second paragraph. Zach Gage doesn't particularly deserve any kind of award or special attention, as it didn't necessarily take a lot of talent, expertise, or effort to create Lose/Lose. I believe that his creation is to be noted and discussed in its logic, but not to be praised.

@Kepa The likening of this to Duchamp's "Fountain," is actually pretty accurate. I'd never heard of that act before, but it's interesting. I've pulled a few quotes from an article on that, to use in reference with this game:

"Whether Mr Mutt made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object."

"Duchamp described his intent with the piece was to shift the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation."

^^^ Is pretty similar to what Gage has done.

@Lyx Completely sensible; I utterly agree. At the heart of all the quarreling over Lose/Lose seems to be the lack of some users' willingness to accept responsibility for themselves, and vice-versa in other users. Is it safe to say that others being more responsible for oneself could save this world from a lot of stagnant arguments, headaches, and lack of progress?

@Anonymous who @'d Lyx: True, the person is not necessarily at fault in that situation, but surely they must've known some English to at least have made it to- and to have begun to understand what this website is about?

>>>>As the developer himself said - this game is merely a proof-of-concept; meant more to be talked about than to be played.

lol, that says it all. It's a game not meant to be played, it's just for snobs to have something to discuss about.

Btw, someone should do a little GAME in which you'd slap that puppy-sad guy's head. I'm even ready to lose a couple of my files for each hit.
It shouldn't take more than 20min to do, so maybe it's something for Cactus, although something tells me he must be of the ones loving this "game" :)

I will make Slap Zach Gage: The Game, with realistic lip-wobbling! And for every slap an anonymous bot replies to your Twitter/Facebook/Wordpress telling you Slap Zach Gage: The Game sucks and is a dumb concept game and you suck for paying it any attention.

The only way to win would be to get over your burning hatred of a five minute game with a weird gimmick some blogs just happened to post about, and not play it.

IGF 2011, BABYYYY

41 comments, just beautiful. i have to make one of those games

Wanker.

Regarding those who consider this "experiement" weak, because it didn't require much "technical" competence:

Art media typically, but not always, is a synthesis of innovation in ideas, and technical expertise to implement it. Typically, the perceived quality depends on the quality of both aspects. But not always. In this case, the idea simply didn't require much technical knowhow to work well.

You could raise the same argument against some artist, who did nothing else than put a cover on things. Thats it: pick any item, then put a towel over it. Cheap? Technically, yes. So what? The intent never was technical excellence, but instead to communicate something to you and make you THINK ABOUT IT.

And that last sentence gives a good indication of what kind of creator we're dealing with here, and what kind of critics: The creator merely had the intend to stimulate thought about something... the critics in turn were simply interested in combat for prestige... so much, that they didn't even notice the discrepancy in intentions anymore, when they projected *their own* strive for prestige onto the creator by labeling him "pompous".

http://i49.tinypic.com/vzzv3b.jpg

How difficult do you think that was to paint?

Listen.

By communicating a different type of idea, through a different type of model (i.e. a game like Lose/Lose), the medium can expand its legitimacy by generating a larger public. And guess what? Every second you spend on this page, and every word you type on this forum, lends Lose/Lose legitimacy. The internet, as I'm sure you all know, is an economy of language and time. The more you engage with this page, regardless of what you say or do, not only causes this very page to come up earlier in search engine results, but it also boosts the actual monetary value of search terms like "Zach Gage" and "lose/lose." So, in the act of trash talk, you're actually engaged in the tender (professional, monetary) cultivation of a young professional. So keep on talking, dudes. Maybe you'll actually learn something.

Actually, the idea of someone who doesn't understand the consequences due to language barriers or inattention playing the game raises even more interesting ideas. You know how, when they bury and seal away radioactive waste, they need to keep people away from it for over 10,000 years, but they have no way of knowing what languages might be spoken by people who stumble on it, so they have to stick pictorial information on it, skulls and crying puppies and stuff, things that say "Do not go here. No. No. There is nothing cool here. You will die."? Isn't that how that works? Maybe Lose/Lose should open with some kind of equivalent, pictures of skeletal Macs or something, or a comic showing some girl who plays it and then dies of cancer, of the computer.

Man.

First of all, it's kind of a stupid concept. I understand the idea, but it's like so many commercials: you can imagine the 'brainstorm' that led to it's creation and it's pretty bland. Poorly executed as well, making an emotional connection is a very subtle and careful process. Getting a reaction by doing something boorish and annoying as randomly deleting files is a poor substitute.

It's also not really throught-provoking. I see a lot of people explaining and defending it who read a lot into this game, but every single thought they come up with is something they've obviously decided on (long) before playing this game and seem to be limited to patronizing generalities.

Some of the supporters here seem to hype up the 'artistical and/or philosophical' ideas behind this game want to associate themselves with someone interesting very badly. (HI Brandonn! You don't know anyone less pretentious? That sure is a point of consideration).

ps: I'm completely ok with the interneteconomics behind this reaction. Let's just hope he uses the whole boost to make something of value.

Eh, sorry about the typos.

If this game is meant to be discussed, rather than played, this project is a success.

Then again, you can make a game that's worth being discussed because of it's qualities, rather than a rather simple malicious concept that's bound to annoy.

Since most of the disapproving comments seem to be from people who haven't played this game, the whole discussion about responsibility loses viability - The annoyance isn't a projection of one's own frustration with a personal mistake. It's more a general dislike of the arrogance it takes to generate attention for yourself in this way.

To me, it evoked the image of Caleb, Hank's bully, in that particular episode of King of the Hill.

Hi RobertP! I _definitely_ never said I didn't know anyone less pretentious than Zach.

Besides, I chimed in with that little blip only when it briefly appeared that this post wasn't going to warrant more than one comment of cheap, anonymous drive-by slander.

It was only after that that we got the extra two+ days of infinitely more misguided cheap anonymous backbiting, from the very community that you'd expect would respect and support someone coming forward with games experimentation of any kind.

I didn't like those quick one-liners by anonymous commenters either. It's fine if some thought were put into it, but I read all comments submitted every day and it can be rather annoying to see another 'cave story rip-off' mention.

I've banned one or two repeat offenders already though, hope that will deter them from doing it again.

It was a bit of a shoddy comment.

Anyway.

Expecting people who like independent games to be happy with Lose/Lose sounds a bit naïve. You can consider the idea an interesting experiment, or something entirely different, but you can't say this particular product has anything to offer to people who enjoy the experience of playing a game.

My reason to respond is in there, too. It's just kind of presumptuous to expect more respect and support for this game than it's receiving now.

Zach gets an indiegames interview, in which he's approached with respect. He gets a lot of space to talk about his work and himself. I'd count this as attention, respect and support.

Then there are people who comment. From what I've seen, there's plenty of respect and support going around in the indie scene for people who attempt to contribute something worthwhile. Anonymous flaming aside, There may be reasons for people not to support this game and they're not necessarily a dislike of experiment or responsibility.

As the developer himself said - this game is merely a proof-of-concept; meant more to be talked about than to be played.

The problem with a lot of reaction to this (and getting coverage) here is a misunderstanding of this aspect of it.

The downloadable program Lose/Lose isn't an art game. Rather, the design, creation, and release of the game itself is performance art. It's not a proof of concept of what a game could be; the entire action is a demonstration of what we expect games to be or not be, culturally.

To my mind, that's not really very interesting for a games site (we all know we wouldn't want to play it, woo hoo, so what?). It may be interesting in performance art/conceptual art circles, but www.indiegames.com isn't a conceptual art site. It's an indie game site.

Lose/Lose isn't an art game (and isn't a noteworthy indie game), it's just the byproduct of that piece of performance art.

Wow, some people have been banned for ranting against this crap, while the author of this crap is being praised?
(& plz stop with the "anonymous", giving your name doesn't make you less anonymous as no one knows each other here)

This game is then not "more meant to be talked about than to be played", it's "more meant to be praised than to be played".

Bye stupid blog, now I only hope that tigsource won't turn as snobbish and still keep listing real games.

Sean B, you make a good point.

But it has a place here. For the performance (intentionally?) and for fairness sake.

This experiment involves malice, and it is directed at players. The suggestion is that it's a way to add tangible pain to the actions in the game. It's easily avoided: don't play the game. In a way, we get a poisoned piece of cheese. The enjoyment is for people who enjoy watching and discussing the whole ordeal.

Personally, I felt that the people who defended the game were very condescending, implying that all the negative response to this game came from personal frustrations or inadequacies. That there was no real valid reason to dislike this experiment, or our part in it, that people were just being jealous, or dumb.

According to the interview, Zach did well, got positive feedback, met interesting people, who think lose/lose is great. That's actually pretty cool, but I think it deserves it's share of dissatisfaction as well.

Now, by raging at the implications of this game and how useless it is to the scene, we're all adding our share to the experiment. But I don't think the point of the reactions is to hinder Zach's career as a conceptual artist. It's about being the rats and it's about the cheese.

"Bye stupid blog, now I only hope that tigsource won't turn as snobbish and still keep listing real games."

real games like lose/lose?

Ah, the Nerd's Dilemma... Playing this game DELETES MY ALL IMPORTANT FILES! Oh no! I killed an alien and all my pirated comics are gone! QQ

Perhaps the true art experiment here was about the Anguish of the Dork?

Or the art of self-importance.

It's not that we get a dilemma - I don't really think anybody cared about the game - it's that we're expected to give it approval. It's great that it got him places, but it's just arrogant to think everyone who doesn't care about that is somehow inferior and less interesting than you.

We get it, we're the dorks and you're interesting. You use your computer in a stickly ungeekly fashion and you're capable of great wit, when you get over that tendency to windbag stereotypes.

Robertp: Really, it's more the hyperbolic reaction. I think this game is dumb as well - it's a barebones Galaga clone - and the idea that deleting files is high concept art? Please. But people screaming about it as if it was a horrible thing just strikes me as weird and unnecessary.

I agree quite much with Lugh, this game is really not much, and only is to be talked about. Endless comments of people praising or hating it is the same, it's attention. What this """"concept"""" should get is simply staying ignored. And anyway, they complain for nothing, because in 3 months, nobody will even remember who Zach is. Not even as "that jerk who did the killing files game", no, just forgotten.

Lugh, you're right. There are some good points and lot of shouty irrelevance. I feel like a tool for getting into it, with more indignation than necessary(and I like to have), but that's how blogdiscussions seems to work: people annoy each other, use defective analogies and overstate themselves.

Still, I enjoyed the discussion in a way and some reactions made me reconsider my point.

Zach's going for some kind of succes, an audience and attention, which is cool. He gets a stage here and he gets the audience reaction.

It's a very interesting concept, and it does something many video games these days fail to do - it makes the player think about the ramifications of their actions. For that alone, it's worth discussing.

I think Zach Gage is a genius. The game design is a great idea. It's not just a game but more of a real-life battle. It's like the monsters get their revenge in the long run. But if I had designed the game, I would have made it the other way around. (You die, Files deleted)