A few days ago, I spotted a report on IndieGames.com explaining how Symantec decided to flag IGF entrant Lose/Lose as a Trojan Horse.
As The Internet would put it: “Ha ha ha, oh wow!”
To Symantec’s credit, they have a good reason: Lose/Lose showed up on the news circuits a little while back as an art game with a rather, er, destructive premise. And by destructive, I mean that every game enemy you shoot down is tied to an actual file on your system. Blast a baddie, and it equates to blasting some of your computer’s precious data to smithereens. No refunds, no takebacks.
I safely ignored it as a dangerous novelty when it first came out, but I was surprised to discover it amongst the 300-odd IGF entries this year, and I guess that’s what caught Symantec’s attention too. The company argues that the game code can easily be altered to, you know, deceive people and generate a few nasty surprises — which is fair enough. But this is probably going to create a headache for IGF judges who need to view it as an art game and not a virus, and I’m sure the game’s author has a few thoughts running through his head too.
Hope this interesting little snippet adds some colour to your end-of-week. “Light-hearted Friday news” today was a toss-up between reporting this gossip and gushing about how I’m being paid to review Heroes of Might and Magic 3. I’m going to play it all weekend, guilt-free. This game rocks.