Project Mithridates Preview

Preparing for the next generation of frontier games

Today, I’m announcing the Project Mithridates Preview program to provide early access to my new video game, Project Mithridates. I would love to tell you all about the game—unfortunately, even describing it would be dangerous. Let me explain.

As I was wrapping up development, I recruited playtesters on social media. Each tester was sent a copy of the game, and they all replied with an initial positive report, but nothing further. Radio silence. Sometimes people simply get busy, so when the first tester stopped responding, I didn’t sweat it. But after the second, third and forth testers did the same thing? I was worried. Was the game that bad? I couldn’t figure it out. Finally, I sent the game to a local friend—let’s call him Steve—mostly because I knew I could bug him in person, if I had to.

Steve followed the same pattern—he loved the gameplay, the storyline, the graphics. Steve’s normally a pretty subdued guy, but he was gushing. And then he went dark too. Same as the other testers—no updates, no responses. Finally, after a few days, Steve sent a bug report ending with, “Fix it now, or I’ll kill myself.” I dropped everything to push the fix, and then drove to his house. His wife—we’ll call her Clara—answered the door in obvious distress. For the first couple of days, Steve was able to handle it, but then it took over. He stopped going to work, he stopped showering. If Clara hadn’t been placing food and water in reach, he would have died. Steve will likely be let go from his job next week, and Clara is contemplating leaving him. If we interpret his euphoric exclamations correctly, Steve is unconcerned with either.

I feel terrible. I knew it was fun, but I had no idea it would be this fun. I was fortunate to play it during development and inoculate myself against the effect of its final form. This alone saved me from the crippling pleasure Steve is experiencing.

It would be irresponsible to release Project Mithridates right now—humanity can’t cope with a game this good. The irresistible and addictive joy people experience while playing would cause a widespread social breakdown and severe economic depression. My top priority is to keep this technology out of the wrong hands. Sadly, distribution of this game would not constitute a crime today, despite the obvious harm that it causes. Development of frontier games has moved significantly faster than the legal frameworks needed to contain them. I urge governments around the world to pass legislation for the effective control of advanced games, like Project Mithridates. I pledge to work with any lawmaker willing to put forth such legislation.

Less scrupulous game developers are working, even now, to catch up to Project Mithridates. We must understand how to counter the effect. The preview program is available to select researchers willing to develop the safety protocols necessary for games this advanced. It may be too late for Steve, but I know that together we can ensure my state-of-the-art game development skills are used only for good.