Electronic Arts Debuts SOPA & PIPA 12

Back of the Box Description: "Have you ever wondered what it would be like to surf the interwebs without the fear of seeing your favorite websites? Straight from China comes the phenomenon that is sweeping world! Help Comcast, Nintendo, Sony and hundred s of other wealthy copyright holders track down the heartless thieves that stole their material. It's a new experience every time you log in, making SOPA the must-have product of 2012 ... and beyond!"

Brief Synopsis: After a contentious bidding war between some of video game's biggest players, Electronic Arts will be bringing SOPA and PIPA to home consoles and personal computers across the United States. If all goes well, the publishing giant will change the way we view the internet from here on out, a goal thought unattainable until only recently.

Although the back of the box is vague, the premise is to turn the internet into a giant game of Gotcha. Your goal is to peruse the interwebs looking for links to pirated movies, licensed music playing over videos of kittens and anything else that might be considered a copyright infringement. Will you be the one who successfully takes down sites like Facebook, Google, Reddit and YouTube?

The great thing about SOPA is that players don't even need credible evidence to bring a site to its knees. Here the rules have been written to protect the players at every step, from giving the attorney general new authority (block domain names, delisting search results, etc.) to offering broad immunity to any service provider who "accidentally" over-censors the internet. It's the Wild West of internet games, and now the power is in your hands.

After feeling the heat from last year's release of Battlefield 3, Electronic Arts has wisely decided to release two separate products aimed at the growing divide in the video game market. This spring EA will introduce SOPA to the home computer market. This version is said to be approved by some of the oldest, whitest computer nerds the U.S. Congress has to offer (a big selling point, I'm told). Although the version I tried out was for a Windows-based PC, I'm informed that SOPA will also come to Apple, iOS, Linux and all other computer platforms.

Bringing this exciting new product to the console had its own unique set of obstacles to overcome, including the fact that not all game consoles allow players to freely surf the internet. After trying out a few ideas, the development team decided on a competitive sports-like game called PIPA 12. Electronic Arts is hoping to turn this into an annual series, allowing gamers to compete in small teams to defeat the evil torrent seeders and their friends at Alta Vista. EA is committed to this brand, so expect to see future iterations that take advantage of new consoles and handhelds.

Sample Review: "SOPA's vague rules are certainly enticing, but they came with a few minor side effects. While writing this review I went to look up information about Electronic Arts' past titles, but sadly somebody had already shut down Wikipedia. So instead of research, I decided to ask a guy who knows somebody who thinks they worked at Electronic Arts in the 1970s. He told me that EA is known for this kind of innovation, pointing to the successful launch of the Jaguar and Power Glove. On the other hand, Electronic Arts was able to erase 4Chan from the internet ... so it's hard to find any real faults with this Call of Duty-killer."

Fun Fact: Some of the biggest companies in the world have signed on to help Electronic Arts make SOPA and PIPA 12 the biggest products of the new year. Video game enemies like Nintendo and Sony have come together, as well as News Corp., Time Warner, Comcast, Viacom, NBC Universal, The Walt Disney Company and even the WWE. Ironically, with all this support behind it, SOPA has yet to get more than one or two mentions in the media. According to a Media Matter's report, SOPA/PIPA are lagging behind mentions of Casey Anthony, Kim Kardashian and Alec Baldwin playing a game of Hanging with Friends. Sounds like this might be a tough sell for Electronic Arts.


[Think you can come up with something worse than HALO 3 COPD? Maybe you should send Defunct Games your idea! If the panel votes that you have the worst game idea possible, we'll send you one of the worst games of all time. I'm talking about Darkest of Days or Mortal Kombat Advance. Something truly awful that you will never forget. Something so bad that you'll curse the site every time you turn on your game system. If your idea is that bad, then we need to see it immediately!]