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The following story dated
Spurred By Protests, Criminals Speak Out Against "Grand Theft Auto"
"This game actually REWARDS players for killing independent drug suppliers," protests Joe Walsh, resident pusher.
FULL STORY
Influenced by recent protests by prostitutes against the controversial video game series "Grand Theft Auto", several other groups have started speaking out against the game and filing class-action lawsuits against Take-Two Interactive, the owner of Rockstar Games, the series’ publisher and developer.
“I’m joining with the nation’s sex workers to decry this game!” said resident drug dealer Joe Walsh in a recent interview. “Let’s just take a look at how independent drug suppliers are treated in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I mean, if you go and find a drug supplier on the street in the game, he asks you, loudly and in public, nonetheless, if you want some drugs. I mean, it makes me and others of my profession look unprofessional: I would never be that blunt, pardon my pun. Also, it is portrayed that we only supply crack cocaine, which is completely false. My stock of goods ranges from basic marijuana to acid, ludes, uppers, downers, heroin, powdered cocaine, various OTCs in surplus supplies, and most anything else you could think of.
“This game actually REWARDS players for killing independent drug suppliers,” Walsh continued. “If you kill a drug supplier, he drops two thousand dollars! Every time! I’ve never carried two thousand dollars at a time! I rarely carry more than a few hundred dollars on my person at any one time. This is just going to encourage people to go out, find drug suppliers, and kill them for their money, even though many drug suppliers aren’t overly wealthy. I fear for my very life because of the immoral behavior encouraged in Grand Theft Auto!”
“I lost count of the amount of drug suppliers killed in the game’s missions,” Walsh said, shaking his head disgustedly. “In one mission, you actually blow up an entrepreneurial enterprise and kill dozens of drug suppliers! And in the final mission, you invade an independent drug supplier’s place of business and ASSASSINATE him! This is possibly the most prejudiced, evil game I have seen in a long time, and that’s why I and others are filing a class-action lawsuit against Take-Two Interactive, the enablers of this filth. They endanger me and many of my colleagues every day by peddling this trash!”
Another protestor, retired gang-banger Kwamil Jordan, has decided to help fight against the moral dangers of Grand Theft Auto, despite being confined to a maximum-security prison-cell serving a thirty year sentence for armed robbery. “This game portrays Neighborhood Representation in a bad light. It’s the kind of stereotypes that are in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that caused the judicial system to send me to prison, when I have done absolutely nothing to deserve it. In the game, your Neighborhood Representation Group (NRG for short) is in constant warfare with other NRGs, often involving illegal gun ownership and activities. When I was a member of my NRG, the Skulls, I NEVER participated in anything remotely illegal, and neither did our friendly competitors, like the Gatos Rojos and the Hewitt Street Club. We’d go out and have enjoyable recreational activities like target shooting competitions and creative races in non-traditional places, and because of games like Grand Theft Auto, we’re called lawbreakers and thrown into jail!
“Despite my confinement, I am actively aiding the filers of the class-action lawsuit against the makers of GTA,” said
“Me and my colleagues, we’re out there every day, fighting the good fight against crime, and hey, sometimes you have to cut some corners,” said Officer Josh Tanner, one of the corrupt cops of a local precinct. “This game portrays a career as a law enforcement officer who happens to make a little money on the side by fomenting gang warfare as a bad thing. When I first saw San Andreas’ heroic duo and creative agents of good, I said to myself ‘Finally, a game that portrays my career as an officer on the take the way it really is.’ And then you end up killing one and forcing the other's vehicle off a bridge! What kind of example is this setting for our young ones?”
How will it all end? We can only speculate. In the meantime, Joe Walsh and his fellow crusaders for justice continue to fight for the rights of all career criminals to not live in constant fear.
“I have no idea how anyone can tolerate even the virtual portrayal of the killing of such upstanding citizens like me and the others filing with me,” said Joe Walsh. “This is the beginning of another Civil Rights movement, for the rights and safety of all non-conformist and non-traditional entrepreneurs. Go out there and fight the good fight, my friends!”
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The following news story dated 4/24/06
Electronic Arts Buys Rights To Everything
"It's a rare hat-trick for the company," says Joel Osmand, head of the newly created Usurption Division
FULL STORY
The video game industry was rocked earlier today when Electronic Arts announced it had bought the rights to everything, a new plan implemented after its successful purchase of the NFL license earlier last year, a plan that has prevented most video game companies from releasing a football game, due to the lack of support for a game not involving official teams. Electronic Arts advanced this new domination plan by purchasing the rights to everything else.
"We would've just bought the rights to video games and left it at that, but supposedly copyright laws prevent us from buying the rights to anything too general. However, I believe we've secured a position of superior financial succes by buying the rights to any- and everything we could," says Joel Osmand, head of the newly created Usurption Division of Electronic Arts. "It's a rare hat-trick for the company."
When asked the specific things Electronic Arts has bought the rights to, Joel continued, "Well, basically open up your copy of the Webster dictionary. It's all there in black and white. If you want a clear-cut example, we bought the right to cars."
When asked if this was not one of the "too-general" things that copyright laws do not allow the rights to be bought to, Joel laughed and countered, "Well, I suppose we don't own the right to EVERY car. Just Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, Lamborghini, Ferrari, etc. We don't own the rights to Geo--yet--so another company COULD create a game called 'Geo Rally: Economic Race of Destruction'--IF they could get around our ownership of the rights to the internal-combustion engine, that is. And our rights to racing."
After a further inquiry as to the generalization of THAT, Joel again countered, "Oh, yes, we didn't buy the rights to racing, I suppose. We did buy the specific rights to NASCAR, for example, but also the rights to 'racing in a circle' and 'racing in a straight line', along with a few other shapes. I believe dudecagon-shaped and higher tracks are still available."
When asked if this could possibly be construed as a monopolizing tactic, Joel shrugged. "Possibly, but we believe there are still many avenues for rival companies to take. Actually, we believe this is the only way to get the game industry out of its uncreative rut. Game companies will be forced to be more creative than ever just to create a game. To use Square Enix, for example, we couldn't buy the rights to Chocobos, so they could still do something with that, as long as it didn't involve racing or breeding or dungeons or collecting or anything along those lines. Of course, Final Fantasy will probably have to change quite a bit, since we bought the rights to 'Epic World-Spanning Quests'. And higher, so, you know, no 'Universe-Spanning Quests' or 'Dimension-Spanning Quests'. But they could still get away with a smaller, more menial quest. As long as it's not epic, either, that would be a clear violation of our copyright. I actually don't know what they're going to do with Dragon Quest, since besides the rights to quests we've also bought the rights to dragons, not specifically dragons but 'dragons of the reptilian variety', so I suppose there's a loophole there for them somewhere. As for our rival Take Two, we did buy the rights to the internal-combustion engine as mentioned earlier, but Grand Theft Auto could possibly evolve into the theft of something we do not own the rights to. Probably nothing that moves, as we've bought the rights to everything from bicycles to Jazzy Power Chairs, but surely SOMETHING can be found, as long as the thing stolen has no monetary value, at least not in American dollars, as we've bought the rights to the virtual image of such. Currency in general, actually, at least of the paper kind. A barter system, there's probably still something there. Maybe. We're buying more and more copyrights and licenses each day."
In closing, to answer the question of whether or not EA would be moved by the protests of gamers and other video game companies, Joel waved his hand dismissively. "We haven't bought the rights to protesting, but we have bought the rights to both 'vocal protest' and 'written protest', which covers any game companies, already proven when someone from Activision called here saying something about 'unfairness'. We took him to court as fast as you could blink. As for gamers, what could be the harm of us owning the rights to everything? Madden will still be out again. There will still be as much blood, sex, and swearing in our games as in others. The price of our games will probably increase only by a small increment of fifty dollars. We're going to relax. Everything will be just fine. We know gamers can't resist buying our games, even when a clear boycott is in order and we're attempting to create a terrible regime that will crush all of our competitors, resting on the fact that we're the only company with the actual licensed players and teams and use the fact to release the same game over and over again with updated rosters. What's so bad about that?"
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The following news story dated 4/8/06
NASA proposes plan to rent and lease computers for the playing of new game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as world cowers in terror
"We're not doing much right now and we're seriously strapped for cash," says Houston
FULL STORY
Earlier this week, leading space program NASA announced plans to rent and lease its powerful computers to the public to allow them to play the game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, for the general safety of the public. The new game has become extremely popular with gamers, quoted as being "freaking awesome, man, you can like, play as this tiger guy with dual axes or something. It's RAD." Unfortunately, the game is extremely taxing on the average computer, requiring processor speeds in excess of 10,000,000,000 JGW to function properly (Jiggawatz--Metric system equivalent approximately 2 Kabillion GHz) to properly run, possessing amazing mind-blowing graphics and non-linear, nearly never-ending gameplay.
"It's been insane the past few weeks. People screaming, running through the streets, setting themselves on fire, riots at Circuit City--the general public was NOT ready for a game like Oblivion," says expert Donald Stuart, a local Best Buy manager. "There's been power outages all over the place just because of the massive amount of pure power required to spin the disc in the disc drive. I don't even want to say what happened when someone actually brought up the main menu," continued Stuart, pointing outside to the blackened timbers of a decimated town house across the street from the Best Buy parking lot.
The game has had an undesirable effect on innumerable people across the nation, such as local internet cafe owner Troy MacMallon. "This guy comes in, asks to use a laptop, says he's in town on vacation and wants to do some quick gaming. So I give him one, he sits down, and pops in a disc. I should've known something was wrong when all the coffee percolated instantly even though the coffee pots were turned off the moment he closed the disc drive, and all the hair on my arms and legs and head stood on end. Then he brought up the main menu--I don't remember anything after that." Bystanders report that a loud noise like a sonic-boom ripped through the air and the large front window pane of the cafe exploded outwards, followed by a giant cloud of thick, noxious, and unnatural pink smoke. The laptop mysteriously appeared at a local nearby laundromat, supposedly displaced through the space-time continuum by a new phenomenon scientists are calling "Oblivion Flux", proof being provided that the laptop had belonged to the internet cafe--and had stickers from nine different countries pasted on it, along with a bumper sticker stating "Save the Snails" from a radical animal rights group situated in France, and only available there. Signs of the actual disc and the player have not been found, the disc and player displaced to places (and possibly times) unknown.
"It's a sign from God", says local cultist Vlad Karliminkoffziplipkowskikobanno, speaking by phone from his Zeppelin of Enlightenment, currently anchored in Nashville, Tennesee, a supposed holy site of his cult, the Esoteric Order of Oldskool, infamous for its part in the massacre of a hapless video game clerk who reported that "NO, FREAKING TWILIGHT PRINCESS ISN'T OUT, AND IT'S NEVER GONNA FREAKING BE FREAKING EVER!" and was then set upon by the fanatics. "Obviously we humans are interfering with a higher force, meddling with something we do not understand and cannot hope to control. The Lord CATS spoke to me in a dream last night, his voice echoing from the heavens, 'FOLLOW THE WAY OF THE FLAMINGO. DEATH TO KIX, THE CEREAL THAT IS KID TESTED AND MOTHER APPROVED. FLORAMI!' The meaning of his words is obvious: we should all go play Super Nintendo games and forget this ever happened."
"We hardly use these things and we're buckled for cash after the Columbia fiasco," says NASA engineer Reuben Janberg. "Rumors have it the Ruskies have already started feeling out consumer response for their computers, and we decided to beat them to it. NASA computers are capable of running Oblivion without cataclsymic results, or at least we hope so. Selling our state-of-the-art computers to the average gamer seems to be the only solution to prevent the collapse of society. Doing the space program the old-fashioned way, with an abacus and a protractor, is a small sacrifice that will save millions of lives," concluded Janberg.
Despite the proposed plan from NASA, or perhaps because of it, the nations of the free world and some of the not so free world have banded together to counter the threat of Oblivion to our planet, and are currently meeting in an undisclosed location to articulate plans for the coming battle. "We, the people of Earth, do not wish to go to war with the video game known as Oblivion. But we must protect our borders, we must protect our lives, and I plan to protect the lives of the American people by any means necessary," quoted President George W. Bush, dressed in full combat jumpsuit and flanked by Tony Blair and Fidel Castro with Kofi Annan furtively trying to squeeze into frame next to Jacque Chirac. "If we must dress in battle armor, find ourselves rune swords forged by ancient wizards of the past, battle terrible demons and beasts of the wilds to counter this threat while learning amazing new feats and abilities and honing ourselves into legendary heroes, we, America, and the rest of the world, will. To Oblivion, I have only three words to say--BRING IT ON."
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