Greetings, Citizens!
PARANOIA XP. AUGUST 2004. MONGOOSE PUBLISHING.
PARANOIA XP WILL BE FUN. FUN IS MANDATORY.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
Brought to you by The Computer's brilliant researchers in the R&D service firms of MNG Sector, PARANOIA XP is the entirely updated and perfected version of the darkly humorous RPG originally published by West End Games. The new edition's writers include PARANOIA co-creator Greg Costikyan, longtime paranoiac Allen Varney, and Famous Game Designer Aaron Allston. There are also devious and subtle new contributions from the original PARANOIA line editor, Ken Rolston.
Do not fileshare PARANOIA. Filesharing is Communism! Fortunately, The Computer's loyal Central Processing service firms have devised many innovative digital-rights management methods to shield you from temptation. The most promising methods manage your actual physical digits. Would you care to get your fingerprints remapped?
Citizens, do not read these words from creator Greg Costikyan, a known subversive and traitor (Rabble Rousing):
Paranoia XP, should that be what we call it, is not an attempt to bring back an old RPG for the nostalgic, or not only that. Today, distrust and fear of government is as high as it has ever been. The fear and uncertainty around digital technology is as great as it has ever been, although it has shifted; it is not, as it was in the mid-80s, so much fear of being displayed by this new thing, the desktop computer; more, it is fear that scumbags will hijack your computer for their own ends and steal your financial information and destroy your reputation; that the Powers that Be will monitor your online behavior, to sue you into submission, or to indict you as a terrorist, or a child molester. That companies like Microsoft and the record labels will limit and restrict your freedom in ways no one could previously have contemplated.
The basic themes of Paranoia--totalitarianism, fear of technology, mistrust, and loathing--are, if anything, more relevant than they were in 1984, or whenever the fuck it was we published this thing first.
.... Networking. Spammers. Scammers. Blackhat hackers. Weapons of mass destruction. Totally dysfunctional government. Paranoia XP is not an excercise in nostalgia. Paranoia XP is today. Paranoia XP is what we're living through--writ large, and excessively, and humorously.
.... We need to encompass everything that has happened with computing technology over the last twenty years: the universality of digital media, the Internet, the cultural struggle over intellectual property. Information wants to be free. But nothing is free in Alpha Complex.
Reading the PARANOIA blog is treason. Treason is punishable by summary execution. Have a nice day.
What hypocrites.
"we are all believers in the importance of 'the commons,' and the importance and value of making material freely available.... Indeed, the attempt by owners of IP to control it indefinitely at the expense of the public is going to be one of the main themes (or ongoing jokes) of Paranoia XP."
And then, in the terms of use:
"we reserve all commercial rights, and all rights to prepare derivative material on things posted here. In addition, posters of comments must be aware that we reserve the right to use whatever material they post here, and/or derivative works therefrom, in Paranoia XP, supplementary products, licensed products, or derivative work, without any compensation whatsoever, for all time to come and throughout this universe and any alternate universes that may be discovered."
The cutesy language doesn't change the fact that they're adopting exactly the same possessive and restrictive approaches that they mock in their oh-so-hip, superior style. Can you imagine the hue and cry if a big commercial site claimed the right to use all user comments and ideas without credit? But hey, because these guys are hip, and make the right noises about DRM and trusted computers, for them it's OK?
Posted by Cypherpunk on February 20, 2004 02:00 AM | Permalink to Comment