This is an interesting idea, but a utopian socialist one, and therefore a totalitarian one, and therefore should be outed.

Public spaces in liberal democracies are managed freely by a variety of actors — civic organizations, businesses, government offices. It’s a public good — but there is no abstract perfect “public” to manage it. There is only the communistic “vanguard of the worker” (in this game girl’s manifesto, the player), or there is the messy business of democracy — the worst system except all the others.

Elias is like the radical Islamists who make use of all the products of Western culture — free borders, box cutters, flight lessons, airplanes, mass television — but wish to destroy it and replace it with some sort of medieval utopia.

Why is she like such a horrible thing? Because she lives in the unconscious world of utopian socialism, so typical of the products of U.S. education, who never *think about where things come from*.

Where do games come from? They come from: investors, who pool money, take loans, take risks and assemble the time, talent, and treasure of the computing world to *make something*. Elias doesn’t talk about getting together some girls and *making her own game*. Intsead she talks haughtily about how “they” are using her as “free labor” — scarfing up her creativity in a game like, I dunno, rapacious capitalists eating up wildlife and forests to make houses for Ms. Elias’ suburban tract — and “restricting” her.

But when venture capitalists, game manufacturer, programmers, why, even *workers* get together and spend time and money to make a game, they aren’t mere abstract usurpers or suspected “proprietors” of a “public space”. *They have created and marketed a good.* What I’m talking about here is not the idea of the vast bazaar of the mall that Elias takes for granted and disdains by dismissing the argument some might give her of “going to another game”. I’m talking about a simple, human *appreciation* for people who accumulate capital, work hard, spend night and day tweaking a game like this, and make something. It ain’t easy. Now why is that so hard to admit? Why the squeamishness? Why the hatred?

When game companies put their riches and talents together to make a game, they enter a world of constraints. These are the constraints of REALITY, the kind of reality that a game player like Elias does not live in, the kind of rough and tumble of risk and try, try, again that is opaque to Elias sitting at her computer terminal. The company can’t do everything it wants. It has to do this, not that. It has to make *choices*. It has to put devices in the game to track people’s choices and perhaps even their consumer habits *so it can make back some of its investment*. It has to create rules. Maybe they seem cramped and stupid. The expulsion of Urizenus from the game seems like one of those kind of stupidities. But the company protects its ability to keep its time, talent, and treasure at a value. The instinctual or planned moves that it makes may not seem acceptable to a utopian socialist, much less an anything-goes hedonistic totalitarian, but there you have it, it’s *how you get products*.

What I’d like to see is all these squawkers and whiners who think their creativity is being stripped (um, in *TSO*? Where there are no custom objects? What, because you designed a pretty lot?) is to go out there and *make your own game*. No manifesto of freedom in a game is going to get my vote until I see the manifesto-criers go out and program, design, and sell their own game, by attracting investors, in the real world, where real money — not simoleons — exists.

I have heard this sort of selfcentred whinging in various forms on this Forum, about the only thing i can say for THIS version is, it is probably the most Florid and eloquently written, but it’s Arguements ammount to the same thing.

“I am a Law unto myself, B*gger everyone else.”

Say it any way you want, It is still Infantile.

Maria.

As you say “TBT, you are confused. If you say its a rule but you are going to break it anyway, then you are really saying that it isn’t a rule that doesn’t apply to you.”

No I’m far from confused and its so simple you couldn’t even get it! Just because I choose to break a rule doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to me because i’m a part of the EVERYONE that they DO apply to.. Its easy I do what I want and I also endure the reprocussions or punishments as well of my doings.. I have been caught and have been punished before. Will it stop me or anyone else like me? HECK no!

All I am saying is I know the rules exist, i know why they exist, i just choose not to abide by them..

Everyone else around here is so caught up in who has the right to dictate such rules/laws/tos/agreements and who has the right to enforce them and or the penalties of breaking them..

Does ANY of it matter? Not to me becuse I do what I do and nobody else in the game ever even knows I exist.. I’ve NEVER been to another persons property in the game.. I’m always on the move and I watch what I do.. I’m like Leonardo in “catch me if you can”.. By the time you realize I was here or there I’ve already made 3 moves ahead of you ;p

On your end, it is really pathetic how EA has treated the E&B customers. I note that EVE Online has instituted a policy in which they have offered a special evaluation program for E&B customers, and will have a volunteer show them around the game. EA wouldn’t do that for its customers (e.g. show them around TSO or UO) in a million years.

I have a different opinion on manifestos. To me a manifesto is nothing but masturbation. Pretty words don’t make a revolution. However well written a manifesto is, it does little to serve its cause and, often, neither does its author. Here we have a person trying to give a voice to a movement among online gaming. Good for her, but how is it helping? As a disgruntled Earth and Beyond player, I’m all for sticking it to EA. But is hacking the way?

What I was trying to get at in my last post was that the author is (if you’ll forgive the cliche) a rebel without a cause. I don’t quite see what she is trying to accomplish. There are better ways of letting EA know you’re dissatisfied with the game. Your anger is justified, but it is misdirected. Even though you are hacking the game, you are still paying for it. In the end, EA doesn’t care that you’re hacking it. Sure, they put up a front like they do, but they’re not completely stupid. They’re still getting your money. You’re paying for your rebellion. By continuing to pay for your “free gamer” status, nothing bad is happening to EA. If you’re so upset about the way this game works, quit and play another one, or even better, find a way to play for free. That’ll show those bastards at EA. I’m a veteran of Earth and Beyond. I’m very upset about its closing and I’m a full supporter of anyone who is deternmined to be a pain in EA’s ass, but I see this as a packaged, self-defeating rebellion.

I’m doing my part. I’m never buying another EA game again.

And not to drag this off-topic, but at that age it’s best to be oblivious, Uri.