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Can technology change human nature? Marcin Sergiusz Przybyłek, the sci-fi author and creator of the dystopian universe you can admire in Gamedec RPG, has a very strong opinion on this. Read an article that he wrote for us from an… unconventional perspective.

The end of the 22nd century is a strange time. People live in cities - cages, separated from the aggressive ecosystem by ABB barriers. The emigration to Gaia continues. Hundreds of thousands of sensory worlds allow you to choose another reality, live in it, and even work. Zoenets practically do not leave the network.

Has human nature changed? We just came out of the caves and finished off six other species of Homo sapiens. No, we haven't changed. We still steal, lie, manipulate, kill. Only the circumstances, the tools, the backgrounds have changed. Human nature has remained the same.



I'm a gamedec. I know what you're thinking: weird profession. Not serious. I'd withhold judgment if I were you. I'll tell you a few words about what I'm dealing with, and then I'll ask you if you still judge me that way, okay?

You know that when you go online, your body gets devitalized, right? You lie like a log on a virtual bed. You can't move. You can't hear what's going on in your apartment. You only feel and see what the game offers. The game is in your brain, not in Realium. You are the perfect example of a victim. What could be more vulnerable than a man who lies up to four days as if paralyzed, unaware of his real surroundings?

Yes, you've locked your doors with digital and mechanical locks, but will that defend you from a break-in? Any lock can be hacked, and any lock can be broken. All it takes is for someone to know that you're a player, that you're currently riding a dragon in the Way of the Dragon, proudly raising your sword. All they need is your actual address. That's possible with the illegal but effective Investigator app.



If it turns out not that you live on the other side of the globe, but that you reside in the same polis as him, he will visit you in your place and...

The possibilities are endless.

He can kill you the traditional way, he can hack your helmet and burn your brains out, he can rob you of both real and digital goods, he can drag a corpse into your apartment and frame you for murder, he can have an orgy in your apartment, or he can plug a chip into your computer. When you get out of bed and log on to your bank to buy your next shipment of gamepills, he'll access your account and regularly debit you either in small amounts or one specific amount.

When you play, you use a helmet, a suit, a bed, and a computer. Each of these objects can be illegally modified, tweaked, turned into a death trap. Of course, this requires expert knowledge, but humans have always been exceptionally inventive in ways to inflict suffering. The modified action of the suit can chill your body. Sounds innocent? Pneumonia after spending three days in cold temperatures without moving sounds good? With our highly virulent bacteria? A suit can overheat you and produce perhaps even worse consequences. A hacked helmet can cause you to start tripping over your own feet in realium, to cripple you. A broken bed will lead to bedsores, and a computer that someone hacked into can cause all of these things at once.



As you play, you're using a gamepad that modifies your metabolism, and you're also plugging infusion fluid into your nanosocket, aren't you? Think about it, what harm would you do to yourself if you ingested something illegal and injected into your veins something that looks like IV fluid but is a hallucinogen, a substance that causes panic anxiety? Would you want to get out of bed as a person with developed psychosis?

Did I scare you? My friend, I'm just warming up. I've only talked about the basics: the hardware and the chemistry of gaming. A million games are waiting online, hundreds of millions of players, guilds, companies, and each has its own goals, its own causes, its own agendas, each fighting in the eternal dance of survival.

Games are hacked in dozens of ways. Cheats can prevent you from logging out. They can lock you into an endless loop of events, and they can break sensory gates and make every sword swipe in an innocent clan game feel like someone stabbed you. Cheats can cause you to lose a race that could have made you a fortune, digital cheats can disrupt your perception during a noted esports game, and it could determine your career.



Companies make games. As a rule, these companies compete with each other. Sometimes they sabotage each other's creations, making players feel bad about playing the X or Y game without knowing why. Is it hard to do that? Did you know that we have good and bad mood centers in our brain? How do you think a virtual helmet can stimulate them? Start thinking.
Not to mention the Thomas vibe, which triggers the player to believe that God himself is watching. Do you think I've told the whole story? Not at all. I just licked the surface. But such is when everything has to be "short," or the interlocutor will fall asleep.

So, let me come back to the original question: do you still think gamedec is an unnecessary profession?

Don’t hesitate – dive into the fascinating world crafted by Marcin Sergiusz Przybyłek with the help of talented visual artists and game developers. Gamedec is an RPG where nothing is what it seems and your every decision counts! Also, be sure to check out the list of inspiring games, chosen by the author himself.
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"What crimes will dominate the 22nd Century"

Selling DRM games on a DRM-free platform?
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Machinators: Selling DRM games on a DRM-free platform?
That`s it! and a GameDec could resolve it nicely who`s idea was it!
also, I hope that 22nd-century internet would not look like this https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=gog.com
and stealing someone else's saves would be the lowest what people could do : )
and there is a list of yet another participant of Hold on to the Pole promotion
a creator of the above game(dec) (game) Marcin with translated to English description here.
Much is happening lately.
What crimes will dominate the 22nd Century? Glad you asked...

The true crimes of the future won't be classified as crimes because the people standing to gain the most will be
doing their best to keep themselves in positions of wealth and power. That crime, will be using the technology (and the
knowledge of human behaviour and genetics) that was once seen to have the potential to enhance our lives, against us.

How? Every f*cking thing as a god-damned service.

"You think thats' air you're breathing?"

Thats how the advert will start the moment you awake, streamed directly into your mind on a device you spend 25
years of your life paying for the privelge to have been installed just so you can now 'semi-effectively' function
in a society well enough to work to pay it off, buy food, water and air, and earn the right to have a domicile of the
barest minimum required to park your body while it regenerates for the next shift you are due to work. And that's
a good life. You want better? Maybe if you are brutally oportunistic enough, but since most people look to f*ck
the next guy over for the slightest advantage, its a chain of f*ck or be f*cked that keeps most people below a certain
threshold of existance, carefully defined by the checks and balances put in place thanks to decades of human engineering.
This keeps the majority of the workforce engaged while ensuring the people further up the hierarchy are more or less
safe from losing their priveleges ... until they screw up ... and there is always someone willing to advance.

The advert continues...

...it's a shallow reference to old movies that you unknowingly have an affinity towards - the ad companies know this
and more because they know more than you do, including about yourself. Thank the generations before you for
volunteering so much information during the social media era, followed by their capitulation to the surveliance era
that remains to this day.

"You think that's air you're breathing? A figure clad in black vinyl does a backflip and deftly catches a bottle of
'GoG Gamer Air' and smugly proclaims "No it's better than air - and it's now in new DRM flavor"".

What does DRM taste like? Who know, who cares, it's a meaningless term in this era, where you own nothing including
your own body - "just the right too exist is enough", surely, or so you are told on a daily basis. Once again thank
the generations before you that gave away each and every right their ancestors ever earned for them, and more, all because
they were convinced that each and every little thing was inconsequential ... and oddly they were even convinced it was
what they wanted or in their best interests. Humans ... f*cking humans.
Post edited October 02, 2021 by MacCraigus
avatar
Machinators: "What crimes will dominate the 22nd Century"

Selling DRM games on a DRM-free platform?
Ooooh fell right into that one eh GOG.

But seriously, how you guys negotiate with IO interactive about this? You know it's not really a big game seller here because of that bullshittery. It's not a well calculated risk, it's more like parachuting in Market Garden kind of bad idea.