Who is Virgil Tatum

[Alex Handy]

I found this site as an ad on metafilter. http://www.virgilkingofcode.com/

Who is this guy, and why does reading this site make me scratch my head and go "Who?"

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Whoever he is, assuming he is serious, he is no shrinking violet.

From Nisha the Game (http://www.virgilkingofcode.com/nisha.html):

"Designed by the video game legend the creative pioneer

Whose own masterpieces repeatedly revolutionized video gaming

Who sent out into the world more classic games than any two designers in the U.S.

Virgil Tatum is back

That's right, Virgil Tatum

He's back and he's at the top of the top of his game"

His credentials (http://www.virgilkingofcode.com/gameography.html) seem to be a bunch of games that I've never heard of, but maybe they are really big in Europe.

Troy

[Alex Handy]

See, that's why I asked. those game screenshots on his site look.... Well, kinda fake.

[John Many Jars]

Very fake. Look at the 2D textures on "Lazer Baby." No game in 1985 looked anything like that. Also, "Yabai," the name of the publisher, turns out to be Japanese slang for "Oh, shit!"

Looks to me like someone's creating a character parodying Cleve-type self-declared geniuses.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Yeah, this has to be parody or something. Lots of Nietzsche quotes and the fortune cookie daily thoughts are pretty absurd. I like this entry:

"For a good long time, it’s true; I’ve had the distinct pleasure of being treated by those in the know in the industry as a pioneer. Put up there on the pedestal when they see me around. Don’t get light-headed up there, Virgil, up in the thin air. I’ve heard people whispering to one another at conventions. At E3, last year. There he is."

And the Nisha game is tied to some outfit called Last Resort Retrieval which I guess is some sort of cat burglar art theft recovery thing - also not real, I suspect.

A lot of work is going into this, but once you get the joke, there's no real reason to keep coming back. Not like The Hulk's blog.

Troy

[Chowhound]

Nothing on Moby Games. :P

[FlamingSheep]

Very fake. Look at the 2D textures on "Lazer Baby." No game in 1985 looked anything like that. Also, "Yabai," the name of the publisher, turns out to be Japanese slang for "Oh, shit!"

Looks to me like someone's creating a character parodying Cleve-type self-declared geniuses.

Also, the Yabai logo is almost the Atari one upside (minus the middle part).

[Sanjuro]

This smells like a viral marketing campaign. Also: teen spirit.

[Peter Olafson]

Nothing on Google either.

Peter

[Matthew Gallant]

Who is Virgil Tatum

A: Alex Handy's new job?

[Alex Handy]

Who is Virgil Tatum

A: Alex Handy's new job?

Heh, if only. A paycheck would be a nice change from the mail-watching lifestyle I now know. I remain, as ever, completely unemployable.

I think this site is either someone trying to hoodwink a publisher into picking up this jewel thief game, or it's part of an ARG.

Either way, not sure why they'd pay for an ad on metafilter.

[SpoofyChop]

Lileks figured out that this has something to do with Audi.

www.lileks.com Click on the bleat.

[Royal Fool]

Lileks figured out that this has something to do with Audi.

www.lileks.com Click on the bleat.
But he only manages to 'solve' half of the mystery. He linked that Last Resort thing to Audi, but he still couldn't find a connection between Audi and this Virgil guy. Please don't tell me Audi is trying to sell cars by advertising a fake game developer's site on some random blog advertising system and expect people to actually explore it deeply enough to find that Last Resort site and supposedly find Audi from there? Sorry, that's too far-fetched.

[Sanjuro]

This smells like a viral marketing campaign. Also: teen spirit.

I win.

[Jason McMaster]

If both sites were registered within a week of each other, I don't really see why there's this much question. You know, most detective agencies I've gone to have had their user info filled in where you can just go snoop around for the shits of it through their email.

There's more to this thing than we've seen yet.

[Peter Olafson]

A thought: Is it possible this is part of some Missing/Majestic type game?

Peter

[Matthew Gallant]

There's a game coming out this month called "Stolen" about a lady who steals things by using high-tech gizmos. It's published by Hip Games, and there's been a lot of PR noise about it, enough to stick the name of it in my head even though I have zero interest in it. So I have no idea if it's possible this is related. I would say it is just from how annoying the PR for it has been up until this point.

[Peter Olafson]

I really oughta get into the habit of reading through threads. It's part of an Audi ad ... as Google reveals (via http://heist.smirkbox.com/) and as someone else already revealed above.

As I wrote earlier, I feel like the kid in A Christmas Story who decodes a message using his newly-acquired ring only to get a message like "Drink more Ovaltine" (or words to that effect).

Peter

[worm]

This is like starting up a thread titled "Who is Ugoff?" about the Burger King Commercials except it's about a guy on the Internet.

[SpoofyChop]

It's "Be sure to drink your ovaltine" you mundane noodle.