I.
It’s four in the morning when you realize you’ve done it.
Five years.
Hundreds of thousands of lines of code.
It’s finished.
II.
Your company’s only been around for a few years, and the industry doesn’t want to risk anything too good or too innovative. Finding a publisher wasn’t easy. There’s a system.
But you manage.
III.
The beta testing is incredibly successful. There are a hell of a lot less bugs than you expected, and players seem to adapt easily to the intuitive game-play. The interface works, the zones work, and the chatting works.
“Hope this works” says your lead designer.
IV.
This is it. Launch day.
You couldn’t afford as much magazine coverage as you’d like, but a few of the big websites are picking it up.
Cross your fingers.
Hope for the best.
V.
Nobody cares.
VI.
A couple months later, sales start to pick up. Word of mouth is traveling fast, and a Podcast host describes it as “easily the best cult hit in years”. Ah well. Could be worse.
VII.
“6 out of five”
-Computer Gamer
“Revolutionary. Perfect.”
-Massively Online Weekly
Holy shit.
VIII.
It’s everything you’ve dreamed of, and more.
Sales double and triple and quadruple and then your sales team starts using words like “exponential” and ultimately “ridiculous” to describe earnings. You reach ten million subscribers internationally, and the magazines continue to give rave reviews.
IX.
As your bank account seems like it will burst at the seams, your fame only grows. Every major news station does a story on your success, and new weekly magazines are published to guide players and discuss the game. Everyone on your programming staff has carpal tunnel, but they can be replaced.
X.
80 million subscribers.
Christ almighty.
XI.
Rehab clinics have already opened.
Churches are doing sermons on the evils of your masterpiece.
A major games magazine polls players across America, 86% of which list playing your game as “more important than real life”.
For the first time in years, a server goes down, disconnecting millions. The papers (or at least, which ones are left; the real money goes to magazines that cover your game) report mass suicides all over the world.
Your brother killed himself when he was fifteen because some girl dumped him and he was experiencing a bad trip. All his future, all his past, everything he would ever do, was destroyed in that simple, stupid act.
How powerful can your game be if it can end a life?
You need a cigarette.
XII.
One billion.
XIII.
Your girlfriend no longer returns your calls. They find her a week later, slumped in front of her computer. She hadn’t eaten or slept in a week, and there was a pool of dark liquid surrounding her chair. The one cop on duty says he found her character still logged on, in the middle of a quest. As you leave, he sits down to finish it.
She hated computer games.
XIV.
Two billion.
Three billion.
XV.
You walk to the supermarket, and there are no cars in the streets, no people on the sidewalks.
No one in the store. They didn’t even bother to lock the door. The last newspaper is from two months ago, and you have to hold your nose because of the smell of rotting fruits and meat.
XVI.
Four billion.
Five billion.
More. More. More.
Every other software company has long since gone bankrupt.
XVII.
You try to check your email, and the website is down.
You try to check the news, and the website is down.
You see a fire start down the street. It continues to burn long into the night.
You notice your garbage sitting idly near your doorstep.
XVIII.
You go to your office and your entire team is gone. No one answers their phones. At one point, you call the police, just for kicks, and find them equally unresponsive. You see a recent paper on the desk of one of your colleagues, something you haven’t seen in over a year: The United Nations has collapsed, and martial law is in effect.
You can’t even feign surprise.
XIX.
A smug smile spreads across your face.
On your way home, one of the same churches that was speaking against you is now filled with termites and rats.
The smile soon fades, and self-loathing begins to well in your gut.
XX.
You sit down at your computer.
For a minute, if that long (time is meaningless to you now), you wonder where all the people have gone.
You wonder why there are so many animals in the street, and why there are no more planes in the sky.
Whatever.
You boot up, log in, and begin to play.
Author notes
Right. I wrote this in a bout a half hour without really knowing what I was doing. Opinions would be much appreciated.
A contest entry
- realistic by LostSoulOfRage.
199 points, ended April 20, 2007, 16 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Concept Short Story by otnemem.
139 points, ended May 25, 2007, 10 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 17 of 17
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Holy shitballs! This is a great fucking story. The pacing was fantastic. The imagery and description of this world was awesome. Dude, you got it going on, brother!
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o fuck me that is good! i like that, while some people have said there needed to be more, for what i wanted in this contest it is perfect, this is now the heavyweight contender, i love the narrative style, the nihilistic, apocalyptic, pessimistic, oh-my-god-istic nature of the story, this rocks, end of story. o and that reminds me nice way to end the story. i do agree with other posters, by including quests and chat you make it a little too WoW but i know someone who has a serious addiction that rivals drug addicts so i dunno, maybe you could make the game slightly more vague, but maybe not, o and i know this is a bit petty to bring up after all this praise but
"Your brother killed himself was fifteen" there should be "when he" in the middle there, otherwise great story -
This is a good job, nice and set out. Has a good flow and description.
Lady Madeline. -
interesting, very interesting. i dont know that i could be killed like this.. because i love to read! but over all, wonderful great story. keep up the great work!
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Eh?
See, that's why I hate computer games! I would not doubt for a moment if something like that could actually happen. My brother is an avid gamer, so I'll have him read this and see what he thinks.
Kudos
Trinity Dragon (TD)
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I wanna play!
Come one, anything that good
Nice read, I enjoyed it. Reminds me of Lemmings actually. -
Once the churches start preaching its evils, you know it's a hit.
OMG. If not by nuclear bomb, that is how the world will end. It reminds me of book 4 in Pendragon - 'The Reality Bug'. I liked that. I like yours, too. And it moves fast. Great for a person with a
-24397% attention span, yup.
Well... technically the world's not ending. just the human race is. So it's sort of cool... once the fires go out, no more global warming! We'll have all sucessfully completed the Kyoto thingy... and... saved the environment. Yeah. Shutting up now.
*Xineph is so awesome!*
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ooh, not bad at all. I like the short, sharp sentences that describe the flow of events without getting bogged down.
I don't think describing the game in more detail would have been a good idea. In fact, you could even make it more ambiguous: part three mentions 'quests' and a 'party system' - which is obviously going to have people think of WoW straight away. You could change them to make the actual game even more vague.
I personally didn't find it particularly realistic, but who the hell reads stories for realism? -
Haha, the future of WoW I tell you
Exellent writing here, with a thought provoking and original story... Also realistic
Very well done!
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Good
Amazingly well written. -
Dude!
This is so fucking awesome! Seriously! This is the greatest short story ever. I absolutely love it. It is so friggin awesome.
Things I particularly liked:
~The timing of the sentences.
~The satirical story line.
~The 'twist' at the end.
~Short and sweet.
One grammar note:
"Your brother killed himself was fifteen because" - there should be a 'when he' stuck in there somewhere, shouldn't there?
Okay, I really like everything you've written that I thus far have read. It's completely unfair. No one should be this great of a writer. ;-)
Great job.
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I appreciate that...
But one of the points was for it to be minimalist. I could have made it longer, and probably could have made it a novel if I wanted to add enough detail. I definitely don't want details on the game, because the point is that it could be any game that could do this to the world.
Thank you! -
thnx for entering.
okay wow this is really good. i enjoyed reading this. but it lacks details. you never discribe the game. like the suicides, u could have made much more of that, discribe more and it will bring the story out more. but of course it still great how it is, those are just suggestions.
anyways great story. good luck and keep up the amazing work. i hope u write more of this, it would make one great story. if u ever do write more tell me please.
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thought-provoking
it's obv World of Warcraft...lol no, seriously. In the past we've had stories about the end of apocalypse, but one caused by a computer game? Truly inspired. It's like Omega Man, but with Shigeru Miyamato as Charleton Heston -
Fab-alous.
Reminds me of the story I wrote about a book that was so strange that no one could finish reading it. It was great just as is. Great concept. I liked the idea of the short parts it was written in. Game on!
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I agree with Totem, it's an amazing start, but you're lacking slightly in the storyline. Not a lot, I mean, it kept me reading through the entire piece. It's very well written. I really hope you expand this, I'd love to see where you're going with it.
~Kami
♠
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It's got an interesting core idea but the overallstory is a little lacking. it feels that there's much of the story that's lacking, no description of the game or why it's so addictive. What makes it such a "need" game? Otherwise it's a good start. I hope you expand on it. Welcome to SW.
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