  |
|
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||
majestic: the welcome intruders by Jeff Halpin (jeff@disinfo.com) - July 22, 2001 |
||||
The suspense thriller that infiltrates your life through the Internet, telephone and fax, then leaves you guessing where the game ends and reality begins. This is the tag line for one of the gaming world's most secretive and anticipated new offerings in years. a new game from Electronic Arts that claims to be the most immersive experience offered on the Internet. Part role-playing game, part suspense thriller involving an as yet unspecified goverment conspiracy, Majestic could possibly start the biggest new craze for online "gaming" we have seen yet. Continuing the trend towards distributed, multi-player games, Majestic will give players the opportunity to compete against as well as work with other players on the trail of a shadowy international organization. "Majestic will be the first PC game I've seen that will fax you or phone you," said President and COO of EA, John Riccitello. "It will actively interact with the player at unprecedented levels. You'll hear a little more about the game in spring 2001." Modeled loosely on The Game, directed by David Fincher, Majestic will be a subscription based game that uses real time communications between players and characters within the framework of the story to create a web of intrigue that is designed to blur the line between fiction and reality. Users will aid the Majestic Alliance in their pursuit of the truth and uncovering a massive conspiracy with the use of real time clues disseminated through conventional instant messages, email, fax and yes, telephone calls. The Alliance is made up of a confederation of online groups, individuals and organizations. The purpose of the Alliance is to encourage people to use the power of the Internet to find each other and create a new society, based upon those new principles that emerge through this new immediacy. The logical extension of the distributed game phenomenon, Majestic puts the user in charge of discovering the truth regarding the good, the bad and the downright chilling invasion of the user's life that is possible through the game. Offering varying levels of character/player interaction, from menacing phone calls to frantic Instant Messages from other players/characters in the Alliance or worse, Majestic takes advantage of a key part of the user that other games do not cater to: imagination. In a development that has uncanny timing, there are rumors regarding the safety of some early testers/developers who worked on the project, and EA says contact has been lost with other people who were key in getting the project off the ground. Conceivably, EA has likely planted these stories to generate increased interest in the game, but now that Federal agencies are supposedly involved, it appears that concerns for the well being of some Anim-X and EA employees may be more than just hype. Details regarding an attempted kidnapping and a possible car bombing have been difficult to verify. The larger questions of course, are how much of Majestic's content is reality dressed up as fiction and what if the game itself is not a game at all? If there are in fact some problems behind the scenes at EA and Anim-X, it would obviously be in the best interests of the company to keep such information far from public eyes, with the imminent launch of the game being so close. EA and Anim-X have made a large investment in the project , and so close to launch, adverse publicity could harm initial market penetration."Having had a good look into the underpinnings of the conspiracies and methodology used in Majestic I find it very plausible for such situations to be occurring in real life." This quote by Professor of Political Science at Berkeley, Edward Leighton, has stirred feelings within the news media and the gaming community that the scenarios outlined within Majestic are too real to be fiction. With launch of the game due in mid 2001, there will be only one way to find out for sure . . . |
||||
|
||||
 |
||||
|
||||
|
Majestic The Majestic Alliance Electronic Arts Anim-X Conspiracy.net: Majestic Warp Drive Majestic Preview: Majestic ZDNet Gamespot: Majestic Majestic: The Truth Out There EA's Majestic AIMs to Shake Things Up Something Wicked This Way Comes Preview: Majestic Online Game Blurs Reality Majestic Invades Your World Advertisers Play on Allure of Online Games Majestic: The Game That Will Own Your Life FGN Online Multiplayer Games Quietly Amass Legions of Subscribers and Millions in Revenue Man With a (Talent) Plan EA's Majestic: The Online Game that Plays You Disinformation Dossier on Hacking the Master Game: E.J. Gold and Quake Disinformation Article on Weird Science |
||||
|
||||
|
