Tag Archives: video game

Bot

Nationality: USA
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2/20/2023
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Background:
The Informant is a video game player. They play multiplayer games online.

informant: If I got paired with a really bad player, I would say that this guy is such a bot. It means that they are bad at playing the game as if they are the practice bot that the game provides in the beginning stage. Sometimes I would say that they are Artificial Intelligence bot because they are talking to you in the chat, but they play like a bot.

Analysis: This simile is broadly used by video game players, especially when a player cannot choose their teammates. It’s a saying to express frustration. This also shows how people believe AI bot is worse than human when it comes to gaming, which is a debatable statement.

Club Penguin Iceberg Flip

Context:

J is an 18-year-old from Canada who has parents from the Philippines.

This conversation took place over a discord call with my friend group when I brought up old games from our childhoods. We talked about club penguin and were discussing the club penguin “secrets.”

Text:

J: I remember like… when everyone was playing club penguin, there was this one rumor that you could flip the iceberg if you had enough penguins standing on one side of the iceberg. I think it was… the left side? I can’t really remember.

Me: yeah yeah, I remember that! I tried so many times.

J: Yeah exactly! But then people started thinking that like.. you needed to use the- the, what was it called. ummm…. the- Oh the jackhammer. I think.

Me: The one with the like orange hard hat that you got in the mines right?

J: Yeah that one! Everybody was convinced that like the reason it wasn’t flipping was because you needed to do that on a side of the iceberg with enough people. But it just like, never like flipped. BUT! I think on the final day of club penguin when the servers were getting shut down, I’m pretty sure it flipped over and there was like… a dance floor or something like it was a huge deal because everybody wanted to flip it so bad. And it like- finally happened.

Me: No because I like remember that happening and I like lost my MIND!

Reflection:

Like many childhood games, there were many rumors and secrets that were propagated over the internet and the game community. I think it was nice that at the end of the game, the developers were aware of the rumor and made it actually happen as a nod to everyone finally getting some closure to it. Rumors and secrets like this help to distinguish the game and make it more interesting for children. Especially when children could not get club penguin premium accounts, the secrets and rumors helped to make every player feel like they were part of something exclusive.

The Cult in worlds.com

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student

Description: There are rumors of a cult developing within a MMO game that no longer has a large enough player base. People believe there to be a recruiter and people have reported strange content appearing in certain areas of the game.

Background: The informant learned about this from browsing Reddit.

Transcript:

BD: This one I don’t remember in extreme detail, but there was a rumor that there was a cult in worlds.com. It was an old mmo from I think 90s era where it had just like a bunch of “worlds” you could go to and eventually lost the majority of its player base. But the servers were kept up (and I think still might be up?) despite having no players. The reason why cult started to float around was for a few reasons; one that there was a user that would float around and try to recruit you (this is the one that was debunked) ((also tbh I think this started bc the guys avatar looks like a goat iirc)). Another being that there were worlds floating around that had questionable content.

Me: Questionable as in illegal?

BD: Not illegal, but weird. It was naked photos of people in a room with their names under photos I believe. Actually it might have had some personal info on them too. But not 100%.

My thoughts:

Surprisingly, video games are considered by some as some of the most effective ways of secret messaging. For example, someone can shoot massages in the form of bullet holes. Looking at the circumstances, it’s interesting to think about a cult being created inside of an abandoned server. There is a level of creepiness in being in a server with so few people when they are meant to be filled to the brim. This rumor, while debunked, is not unthinkable especially since the server is still operational despite having no players. Of course, the reports of questionable content furthers the narrative. Seeing strange things on the internet often leads to extreme speculations because of the crazy things that happen on the web.

Sad Satan

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student

Description: Sad Satan is a video game that resides inside the deep web. It is said that the game contains numerous real images of gore, violence, and other illegal content. The existence of the actual game is undetermined.

Background: The informant obtained the information from a youtube channel.

Transcript:

BD: I have another video game one in mind, it was another retro style “indie” game called Sad Satan that made the rounds a few years ago. Essentially a youtube channel that focused on obscure horror games released a multipart playthrough of the series

Me: Is it a real game?

BD: Yes, but it’s also one of those situations where the “true” version is murky. Basically the guy that played it heard about it from a subscriber, and the subscriber said he found the game on a deep web forum board that was unrelated. I don’t know too much about the gameplay because I didn’t watch the gameplay videos myself, but from the looks of it everything looks very dark/surreal. The guy who made the original playthrough started posting his video around online asking for help on finding info about it, and as more people got involved the more the rumor developed. The rumor being that the game also contained images of gore, violence, and other extremely illegal images. Basically, the reason why this gets murky is bc of this:

-the guy “linked” a downloadable version in his youtube video but the link was broken

-said guy does an interview saying it did not contain those kind of images but later recants and says it did

-right before said guy publicly recants, someone going by the same name as the person who posted the game on the deep-web(who’s believed to be the developer) says that the rumors were true, and provides a downloadable link

-link does not work for many people, with some saying it went so far as to break their computers (but keep in mind this is happening on 4chan), but for those who do manage to open it, they say it does contain said images. It’s kind of complicated and confusing to explain. I was trying to think how to summarize it best. But yeah essentially it’s a creepy retro indie game that someone recorded in hopes of having people help him figure out the meaning of the game, which blew up into a bigger thing as more eyes found it.

My thoughts:

The deep web is often a source of illegal and unsettling activities. An example would be the red rooms. Because of this, there are many scary tales that come from the deep web, real or not. These kinds of tales, real or not, serve to entice our morbid curiosities. Of course, it’s entirely possible that such a game or multiple such games existed. The internet, with minimum security, is a place where anything can exist. The game itself existed but its the rumors of the gory and dark imagery that keeps it going around communities.

Polybius

Nationality: American/Greek
Age: 22
Occupation: Student

Description: Poybius is a possibly fictional arcade game that was created during the 90s. There are people who recalled that such a game cabinet existed but no physical copies exist. There are those that believe the cabinets were a part of the MK ULTRA secret experiments 

Background: The informant obtained the information through internet videos.

Transcript:

DT: The supposed creation of an arcade cabinet during the 90s called Polybius. Someone thought it existed, and it spread from there like a Mandela effect, of people remembering something that didn’t actually exist but potentially vaguely similar to it. It’s an urban legend that lasted for a while, and even got assumed it was a part of the MK ULTRA secret experiments. With conspiracy theories coming up that the cabinet was created by the government to give people nightmares as a way to test stuff that leaked from MK ULTRA.

Me: So it(the cabinet) didn’t really exist?

DT: It’s still kinda unclear if a cabinet of the like actually existed or not, but the video I saw concluded that it most likely wasn’t real. I forget the specific evidence to prove this but it’s still kinda up in the air. But regardless of its existence, the crazy effect it had on if people remembered it or not was what really got people involved with it.

My thoughts:

The 90s were a time where rumors about digital media were abundant. Things that come to mind were numerous video game rumors such as the Mew under the truck in pokemon. At the time, the internet was still in its infancy and information was not easily accessible nor entirely accurate. The coupled with the introduction of new technology gave rise to many rumors and theories. Polybius is an example of a product of that time, when people didn’t have ready access to information and when any kind of information can be spoken from anywhere.