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I got the news shortly after I woke up this morning, via Kotaku on MTV:
Morpheus is Dead. Morpheus was put to sleep. Morpheus took the death pill. Yes, gaming oriented websites were informing me every hour via my newsreader that this fine man has escaped this mortal coil.
The only problem? Morpheus is just a creation from the minds and pens of the Wachowski brothers. He's currently no more than a character in an online game entitled The Matrix Online. He's not real. So why is it being reported far and wide that he's dead?
Sadly, it appears that the gaming enthusiast press is confusing reality for the gamesphere, or whatever they may want to affectionately call it in the upcoming years. While game journalists have been reporting on massively multiplayer role-playing games for years now, typically they're only concerning items that are instigated by, and hold meaning to those outside and separated from the context of the game. A distributed denial of service attack on Final Fantasy XI is the equivalent of a company under attack, and is of intrisic interest to anyone that cares about SquareEnix, or the state of online games in general.
Morpheus does not carry this weight. Morpheus is a fictional character that now resides in a morgue (or so I presume) in an online game. The only people that care about his existence are the people playing the game, and those at Sega that issued the press release about his death. What's next, Gamespot covering the latest land reports from Second Life? Will I have to pick through my daily gaming news, trying to figure out what articles only pertain to World of Warcraft gamers? Will 1UP end up looking like The Crossing Guardian?
Gaming journalists, please re-evaluate your priorites. You wouldn't report the story of an non-online game as news; there's no reason to give Morpheus the same stature as a real elected official.
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#1 K1dS3ns4t10n May 28, 2005 03:28am
Yes, he is not real. Yes, events in the gamesphere should not be reported on as actual events. News such as this does have its place. I was/am a fan of the Matrix trilogy who followed the story through the Animatrix and Enter The Matrix. I am not a huge fan of MMORPG's, so I decided to pass on The Matrix Online. I am, however, still interested in how the actual storyline will progress. Therefor, I was intrigued when I saw the headlines, and is a great way for me to stay abreast of the on going world of The Matrix without having to actually play the MMORPG.
#2 Glenn Turner May 28, 2005 12:17pm
I'm personally interested in the ramifications in relation to how a game's storyline can become 'canon' for a work that existed outside of the game, but Morpheus's death doesn't matter one whit. Just because a lot of gamers liked The Matrix doesn't mean that the news of his death should be picked up and distributed throughout gaming newswires everywhere.
Simply put, game journalists have no business reporting the plot points of a game as 'real news', regardless of the convenience for its readers. If these sites are going to report about it, they may as well actually address some its concerns to the world of gaming because, otherwise, his death has absolutely nothing to do with the world of gaming at large.
There's a reason why many massively multiplayer online games have their own newspapers (or news sites): because the news is only relevant within that world. If you'd like to follow the ongoing story within The Matrix Online, I'd suggest checking out one of The Matrix Online news sites or forums instead of expecting Gamespot or 1UP.com to do it for you.
#3 Namons May 28, 2005 02:29pm
I heartily concur with this point of view about keeping things seperate. I don't want to sit down at a website about what games are coming out or what new hardware is being picked and panned only to find out that some online creation of one of these games is "dead". It goes beyond the scope of what I have come to the website or news service looking for.
That said it's a great coup by Atari. Taking advantage of the media to push the game, which in all honesty is needed to generate interest if its "actor" based quest system is to take off, was a slick move. It is unfortunate that companies do this but it is a sign of the times. Much like that XBOX:360 infomercial.