Pony Island is a game about internal programming.
It's an amazing and subversive game and you should play it, but it's not what I want to talk about. I wanna talk about Fortnight because Fortnight gets asses in seats. I even more specifically want to talk about how Fortnight gets asses in seats, by theft.
They stole intellectual property. They know they did. But I am guessing they had no idea that what they were doing was wrong at the time. No, well I'm guessing they had no idea what they were doing was wrong enough to have to answer for it. No, they will probably not have to answer for anything because that is how the world works.
Ok, let me back up for the one person out of the three people who read this digital diary and has not played Fortnight. Mom, Fortnight is a video game where children enter an arena and kill each other until there is only one person left. That's pretty much it. And no, I didn't make that one. And yes, it's the one with the dancing.
It's the dancing that is the theft. The creators of the game added the ability for a player to do a little dance whenever they wanted to in order to add some excitement to an otherwise bland murder simulator. As in, if you kill someone (in the game) you can literally stand over the corpse and dance. I know, sounds pretty morbid when typed out, but they use bright colours so it's ok. It's fine.
Thing is, the creators took inspiration for the dances from popular dances that already exist. For instance 2 Milly's ode to real-life battle royale, Milly Rock. The Milly Rock reached peak popularity with black folks in 2014, so in line with the cool half-life equation ( a.k.a. " raise the roof ---> decay") in 2018 dance is now cool with thirteen-year-old ADD riddled white suburban children tweeking on Go-Gurt. Is what it is.
The dance is 2 Milly's intellectual property, pretty apparent, as it came from his intellect. Epic did not bother to contact him before they decided to use it. They figured, "Better to ask forgiveness than permission. But also lets not ask forgivenessness because that would imply guilt." I guess. Which isn't so bad, all said and done. Except they also decided to charge children actual money to be able to use the dance in game. Which, is, theft.
Here is another example of what is going on. Donald Faison is an actor and a good dude. At work one day his bosses asked him to "vamp" during a scene where his character was supposed to do some dope dance to get on a dance squad. Donald was like, "bet, I lived through the '90s, ill knock this out the park." And he did.
Donald did not invent New Jack Swing. Hid did not invent those moves. But he did invent that particular configuration of those moves. And he did act out that configuration in front of a camera, for people who were paying him, for it to become the intellectual property of the show he was filming, for the show to receive money through advertisements upon airing of that show. Then Epic took that exact performance, converted it to another visual format, uploaded it to their platform, and charged money to view it. Wow.
I wonder how epic would feel if someone stole the exact assets from their game and sold them on another platform without sharing the profits? Pretty litigious, I am guessing. Joost thinks winter is coming for video games. He goddamn right. But business shitheads think it's coming because games don't sell the same. It's coming because of this shit, and loot boxes, and continuing to play fast and loose with integrity when integrity is min/maxed for footspeed. Winter will arrive cosplaying as government regulation. And when the taxman comes, fun don't hang around long. Bundle up, boppers.
I hope information didn't plan on seeing me in LA soon. Told you I fucked up the interview. Is what it is, just another Joffery Baratheon I need not bow to. Feel like this place is full of em though. Oh, and yeah I know I am late with Pony Island I felt bad so yeah whatevs. Also Jerbz.
The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Posh
