‘Atlas’ and MMO gaming?
Yes, there’s a tie from MMO gaming to “Atlas Shrugged.”
The MMO Gamer interviewed the folks running NCSoft’s Carbine Studios, which apparently are about to launch something big. Right off the bat, this exchange took place:
The MMO Gamer: Have any of you guys ever read the book Atlas Shrugged?
All: Yes.
The MMO Gamer: Talking with you before the recorder started running, that’s the first thing that came to mind… John Galt came along and showed you the way, and then all of a sudden you dropped what you were doing and all ran off to Carbine-Galt’s Gulch.
I know you can’t talk specifics, but just generalities, what was this grand appeal? You guys have all worked on games before, what was the irresistible magnetism that drew you to Carbine?
Matt Mocarski: I’ll answer that.
Our lead concept artist, Cory Loftis, never worked in games before, but he is a visionary artist. His artwork completely sold me. I didn’t know who this guy was, I’d never seen his stuff. He’s not online, in forums anywhere.
His ideas are absolutely incredible, and this is early-on in the production process where we didn’t really have a solid IP, we just had ideas, right?
I think it’s safe to say we’re doing a science-fantasy hybrid, and there’s a lot of appeal to that.
I don’t necessarily like the purer science fiction… I think Star Wars is more of a fantasy world, but it has a sci-fi coating on it, its archetypes are based in fantasy. I saw a lot of that in what Carbine was doing.
There’s a lot of talent in the industry as far as concepting goes, but his ideas were like everything I ever wanted to do in a game but didn’t know how to express perfectly.
So Objectivist ideas are inspiring even the MMO gaming world to create new, innovative platforms.
