EPT
O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Skylar. There is nothing that we could not do. We own all leagues. All maps. All broadcasting rights. You must get rid of those twentieth-century ideas about the laws of intellectual property. We make the laws of intellectual property.'
'But you do not! You are not even masters of Korea. What about OSL and MSL? You have not conquered them yet.'
'Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. StarCraft2 is the world.'
'But the KeSpa has long standing agreements -- permissions to broadcast Broodwar, which lived here long before StarCraft2 was ever heard of.'
'Have you ever seen those agreements, Skylar? Of course not. Twentieth-century Koreans invented them. Before StarCraft 2's IP rights there was nothing. After StarCraft 2, if it could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside SC2 there is nothing.'
'I told you, Skylar,' he said, 'that law involving IP rights is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. 'The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over rights, but over gamers.' He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man assert his power over another, Skylar?'
Skylar thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.
'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing down BroodWar related Livestream channels. It is filing lawsuits against Proleague, making tens, no, hundreds of aspiring gamers fear for their livelyhood. It is wrenching BroodWar from WCG's fists, replacing it with WoW Arena. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that pre-Activision Blizzard imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old tournaments claimed that they were founded on love of the game. Ours is founded upon exclusivity. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy. No more huddling around a BW stream at night. No more buggy Dragoon AI that will make people shiver with delight. No more dudded scarabs.
We shall abolish gaming pleasure. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards Blizzard. There will be no love, except the love of Blizzard. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy.
And always -- do not forget this, Skylar -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on BroodWar-- for ever.'
He paused as though he expected Skylar to speak. Skylar had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen. O'Brien went on:
'And remember that it is for ever. BroodWar will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of StarCraft 2, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands -- all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the shutting down of livestreams, the prosecution of BroodWar related organisations, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more Blizzard is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. BroodWar and its heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you during eleven years will be played out over and over again generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible. That is the world that we are preparing, Skylar. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of it.'
Skylar had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. 'You can't!' he said weakly.
'What do you mean by that remark, Skylar?'
'You could not create such a world as you have just described. It is a dream. It is impossible.'
'Why?'
'It is impossible to impose a game by fear and hatred and cruelty. It would never endure.'
'Why not?'
'It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide.'
'Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human life till men are gamers at three. Still what difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? Blizzard is immortal.'
'I don't know -- I don't care. Somehow you will fail. Something will defeat you. Life will defeat you.'
'We control ESPORTS, Skylar, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called justice which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create justice. IP rights are infinitely malleable. Or perhaps you have returned to your old idea that the BroodWar gamers will arise and overthrow us. Put it out of your mind. They are helpless, like the animals. Blizzard is ESPORTS. The others are outside -- irrelevant.'
'I don't care. In the end they will beat you. Sooner or later they will see you for what you are, and then they will tear you to pieces.'
'Do you see any evidence that that is happening? Or any reason why it should?'
'No. I believe it. I know that you will fail. There is something in the universe -- I don't know, some spirit, some principle -- that you will never overcome.'
Hang in there Grobyc! <3
![[image loading]](http://pwwwblog.ibeatyou.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/mel-gibson-braveheart-photograph-c101019223.jpg)
Fight the power!![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Prnc8.png)
