 |
 | |||
|
|
| |||
|
|
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||||
| CANADA'S SOURCE FOR DUNGEON SIEGE GAMING HUMOUR, PARODY, AND SATIRE
AT THE MALL-- All Mark Huang wanted was to meet his hero, the maker of his favourite action RPG game, Dungeon Siege. Mark, a huge gaming fan, traveled forty-five minutes with his father just for the opportunity to get Chris Taylor's autograph. But young Mark's dream was shattered that day because the creator of Dungeon Siege refused to sign his copy of the game.
Taylor, CEO and lead designer of Gas Powered Games, then got into an argument with Mark's father, who was angry about the "Gaming God's" refusal to put his signature on the Diablo-style game. "They wanted me to sign a copy of the game," defended Taylor, who was at The Software Boutique promoting Dungeon Siege. "No, I mean an actual copy, burned onto a CD-R! I only intended to sign originals at this promotion." Victor Huang, the father, refused to accept Taylor's explanation. "Originals?" challenged Huang. "How many originals can there be? One! All the rest are copies. What kind of logic is he using?" "Why am I defending myself?" responded Taylor, uncomfortably. "They're the ones who stole from me!" "Stole?!" replied Huang, incredulously. "It took us six hours to download this game from a newsgroup. Does he think our high-speed Internet connection pays for itself?"
Huang argued with Taylor for another ten minutes, complaining about copy protection, over-inflated retail prices on under-developed games, and the deceptive practice of repackaging sports games by changing the year on the software title. Taylor responded by denouncing software piracy, talking about the fickle nature of consumers, and blaming the poor public image of game developers on Ion Storm's Jon Romero. Taylor finally conceded the argument to Huang, but still refused to sign the CD-R. "I drove my kid thirty-five miles to meet the genius behind Total Annihilation," continued Huang. "But now I have to explain to my son why his gaming idol let him down. These programmers get a few games under their belt, and the celebrity status goes to their heads. They forget about the kids, their former gaming friends, the people who helped get them to the top." Reggie Stephenson, The Software Boutique's owner, eventually satisfied the Huangs by giving them a complimentary t-shirt from Activision, a slightly-torn Warcraft III poster, and an old "copy" of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri signed by Mark Hamill. "I would've
stood a better chance defeating a horde of Krugs with a Garden Weasel™,"
said Taylor of his argument with Mr. Huang. He then went back to signing
"legitimate authorized retail versions" of his game.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||
| This fictional story about satire is intended for adults. | The World Leader in Canadian humour, humor, parody, and satire. | |
| Tell us what you thought. Visit our Message Boards. | HOME | DISCLAIMER | ABOUT US | Copyright 2005-2001 The Toque Entertainment. |
