Clearly malware. Even if you warn them beforehand, the average user is very likely to ignore the warning, in this case because it is a game.
Try sending people low power letter bombs that will merely damage their hands, but with a red letter warning that reads "Letter Bomb, open at your own risk". Someone is bound to open the letter at some point.
Then good luck telling the judge it was a social experiment and you gave adequate warning.

Enjoy mac boys and girls you are now in the club.

lol. I wonder if he got an A.

wow, i suddenly want to put mac OSX in a VM and play this game, once to get points, once to see how long i can dodge the aliens until i die

What I would like to do is see if it would be possible to play without getting killed before all my files have been deleted and the OS crashes, sounds like fun to me, Brilliant piece of software really, and it is without a doubt electronic art in its purest form.

And if you read the warnings and still play knowing full well it will delete your files then its your own fault and that is just tough luck for you.

I tried it out on my MBP on little while ago ( I was wiping the HDD anyways). It does what he says, and its a sombering feeling knowing that the better you doing the worse off your computer/files are.

Wait a second let me make sure I get this correct. Someone wrote a game for a Mac?!?

What a ridiculously fartsy idea... Digital art??

How does it possibly explore what it means to kill in a game? You aren't hurting other people like real killing, you're destroying your own computer. This is an exercise in masochism, not morality.

A video game with real life consequences would harm others through the player's aggression and harm the player for being injured or destroyed etc. If you're going to try and simulate real life consequences at least pick a reasonable scenario.

@ amplexis

There's quite a few games for mac, its not like the Linux situation.

I bet there are plenty of Mac people out there who will disregard that warning because they think their Mac is immune to any viruses or malware...little do they know...

hey, there are plenty of games for linux, most of them open source, but we have them

This is an awful comparison. Think of it more like an innocent moron, walking up to someone's house, and finding a 'letter bomb' which clearly has warnings written all over it. They then take the letter bomb, bring it into their own home full of valuables, and open it just to see what's inside.

I'd love to see someone trying to explain to a judge that they purposely downloaded a clearly marked virus, ignored their anti-malware software warnings, and deleted all their files simply because they were too ignorant to understand what "USE AT YOUR OWN RISK" means.

How are you even accessing the internet?

At least it's not another WW2 shooter

Alien's fire at you in lots of those top down arcade shooters.

So in my opinion i think that its not malware, thats like getting a toy with assymbly instructions, if you fail to read the instructions then you put yourself at risk of destroying the product, i say the warnings are valid and it has many applications of study and psychological advance, but thats just my opinion

This concept is very deep if you think about it. Our brains are programmed to automatically start playing this game as a classic starshooter, and now we have to fight our impulses and think about the consequences of our actions before we actually start playing. I'll be rolling this article around in my head for a few hours now. =p

@Curnel_D

Could'nt have put it better myself.


Another point though... Windows/Linux alternative? Sounds like fun =]

Moricon is absolutely right. Just like with anything else in life, if you can't read the warnings, you get what you deserve.

I SORT of understand where you're coming from, but the consequences of our actions when playing video games differs extremely from the consequences of our actions in real life.

The whole point of video games, in addition to entertainment, is that those consequences are....inconsequential. We go into them knowing we can abandon reason, morality (if we so choose) etc.

Looking back on that one time I dressed up in a clown costume and unloaded an assault rifle at a water park, I really don't think having played this game would have made me thought about the consequences.

While very funny, this isn't quite true. The game probably deletes files belonging to the user that is playing, or asks to run privileged so it can delete other files too. There is no exploit there...the user is already supposed to able to delete files they have permissions for.

So, I agree that this should be flagged by a/v software...but I don't really think you can count this one against mac or osx. You could just as easily write a Windows game to do this.

(and I'm usually the first in line to make fun of apple products)

They got this wrong. Surely it should be if you lose a life then it deletes a file. Play this on your work computer and it will be like playing Russian Roulette.
Gives it a Tron like feel. Lose a life - lose your life, or at least your job.

Are these tendencies ingrained in us because of these other games, or is it something more primordial? It would be interesting to find a pool of people unexposed to video games but otherwise computer-aware, and see how they deal with the concept.

His website has a clear warning - not sure if the software when run shows a similar clear warning (fine print does not count IMHO). I don't agree with producing a game that could render a machine badly crippled. However, if his program moved a file to a documented location, allowing one to get it back, I'd be a bit less hostile to the concept.

Actaully it is a small conversion to get Mac games to work on Linux. Windows games can work on linux as well with the use of WINE or other such emulators.

And people wonder why it can be hard to get a job with a Fine Arts degree.

I like the piece. It throws the user into a war situation where you are the only aggressor. The creatures don't really try to harm you, if they hit you the application just deletes itself. So you are responsible for your own aggression. I know I wouldn't want to play it though because of the damage it could do.

A Fine Arts degree with the skillz to program a game in a Mac land. Sounds like this cat has some real broad capabilities. I don't expect to see him sitting in a cubicle answering to some stressed out "checkbox" middle-manager anytime soon.

copperbottoms "How does it possibly explore what it means to kill in a game? You aren't hurting other people like real killing, you're destroying your own computer. This is an exercise in masochism, not morality."

Oh that's right. It's completely impossible to kill brain cells too. Killing is only OTHER things! This could NEVER be similar to what real viruses do, attack and kill immune cells in the body. Holy crap! What a completely inauthentic game!

Welcome to the jungle! LOL @ the tools who spend astronomical amounts on Macs and have this false sense of security. Hey guess what... you guys shoulda kept it a small group of people. Now you have to deal with the same issues as Windows except - oh thats right - you haven't had the years of dealing with jerks like this guy in the article.

Except he's not forcing it into your hands, or even telling you to take it. He's sitting on his lawn with a stack of letter-bombs saying anyone who wants one can take it. Kind of like a lemonade stand, but the sign says, "LETTER BOMBS!" in big, bold, red letters.

If you look at the site, it says right above the download link, in big, bold, red letters, "KILLING ALIENS IN LOSE/LOSE WILL DELETE FILES ON YOUR HARDDRIVE PERMANANTLY."

Being stupid should not mean it's someone else's fault.

This may be a very fun way to delete files for which you do not have access! (guest account)?