
New App Lets You ‘Assassinate’ People in Real Life - xilei
http://business.time.com/2014/01/03/new-app-lets-you-assassinate-people-in-real-life-2/
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jrockway
5 cents per bullet?

What ever happened to just paying $40 for a game and getting to use it
forever? (This killed Candy Crush for me. I love the gameplay dynamic and the
graphics, but the constant upselling just makes me want me smash my phone into
a fine paste and then feed the paste to the game's developers.)

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weixiyen
If you are good you can keep getting bullets by killing people and stealing
their bullets.

If they charge $40, nobody is going to play the game.

Not a supporter of the app, but it's pretty obvious the pay for bullet
business model is the correct decision. It's hardly much at all considering
the potential entertainment value for those who play it. Consider how much you
would have to pay for paintball.

It's strange, it seems like on every single topic, nobody on HN wants anybody
else to make any money at all.

~~~
jrockway
Doesn't every serious video game cost like $60?

~~~
catch23
I guess it depends on the game. Starcraft 1 "Broodwars" is pretty cheap, but
only super-serious gamers play it.

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vezzy-fnord
This appears to be a digital variation of an already famous and commonly
played game called Assassin:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_%28game%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_%28game%29)

That said, considering the negative attention received by the latter, which is
remarkably benign, I don't know how Dustcloud will fair with authorities.

~~~
dpcan
Yes! And the old creative way was so GREAT - all these new "toys" seem very
unnecessary.

This had to be one of the most fun role-playing games we did in my first year
of college. Looking over my shoulder going into the Library for Nerf packing
friends, then having to scan the dorm room for watches with timers or booby
traps. Or the worst - making sure my soda didn't have a blob of Tobasco at the
bottom of it at lunch :)

Awesome memories.

Can kids these days still play this type of game in college? Or do they end up
getting expelled or arrested or something? I was in college a couple years shy
of kids having cell phones, and South Park and Jerry Springer were the world's
worst (and best) evils. It was a great time.

~~~
InXorWeTrust
There is a similar version that I know a friend plays at a large university.
It's Humans vs. Zombies. If you get "bit", you are a zombie and have to wear
something that identifies you as such (normally a bandanna tied around an
arm). If you're a human, you carry a nerf gun with you. If you hit a zombie
with a nerf bullet, they can't bite you for a while (next time you see them,
or such).

~~~
nammi
Yea, this is a popular game. For a while (at least at a big state school), the
rules were similar to "Assassin", but have since been changed. At my
university, the game is only 'on' during defined sessions, typically after
classes have ended. So people aren't sprinting through large groups of
students waving fake guns, and campus police know when the game is being
played. It works out because the people with Nerf guns are in large groups,
and the people hiding and sneaking around don't have guns.

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PhasmaFelis
Whoa whoa whoa. You have to pay for the gear, and _also_ for each bullet?

~~~
girvo
Just like an actual gun, only virtual!

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anu_gupta
Given the prevalence of gun ownership and concealed carry permits in the US,
this is a tragedy waiting to happen.

~~~
runjake
I have several rifles, including an AR-15 "assault" rifle and an Yugoslavian
SKS with a bayonet and primer-fired grenade launcher on it[1]. I also have
several handguns which I very often carry concealed.

I have no desire to shoot someone. I don't fantasize about power trip,
fatalistic shooting sprees. I'm not afraid of being out in society. I don't
pose in the mirror with my guns. I don't buy all the latest accessories I see
in Call of Duty. I score _way below_ average on all those psychopathy tests
floating around the Internet.

So what's the catch? Nothing. I'm the same as the next dude.

1\. Disclosure: I may end up using the grenade launcher some day. They have
some great aftermarket grenade cages that happen to be compatible with tennis
balls.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"I also have several handguns which I very often carry concealed."

I'm curious - why?

I don't generally carry around stuff that I don't think I'll need,
particularly if those things have to go on my person (e.g. in my pockets)
rather than in a bag that I can put down when I'm stationary.

~~~
runjake
It's good to have, "just in case". Carrying in comfort is an art form (aka
"hard"). I live in an area where we have one law enforcement office, and law
enforcement response times are ~20 minutes for violent crimes (I know this
because I'm working on a data research project that produces statistics for
local crimes, and it includes report vs response times).

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greatergoodguy
That sounds like you're fantasizing about a power trip.

~~~
davidtanner
How do you square that with the fact that there are roughly 8 million
concealed carry permit holders in America today?

Are they all on power trips?

[http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/592552.pdf](http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/592552.pdf)

~~~
rahimnathwani
permit to do something != doing it

However, I agree that's a LOT of people. Even if only half are holding at any
given time, it's 1% of the population... Scary.

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ianmcgowan
It seems like the "guns and bullets" aspect of this are a) going to be a
problem with the authorities, and b) an unnecessary cost.

Why not just an app that lets you play spy vs spy or zombie vs human based on
proximity? Shaking your phone at another player within 3m counts as a kill.

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anigbrowl
Amusing concept until the cops show up with real guns and the wrong idea.

~~~
zhemao
Yeah, that's what I thought. These days you can't even carry a rice cooker
around without people freaking out. Imagine the chaos that would ensure from
people carrying around concealable "guns" and "shooting" each other.

~~~
ericcumbee
Maybe make them look more like Star Trek Phasers palm phaser (TNG,DS9,
Voyager) and less like a gun.

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joe_the_user
My shallow Google search seems to indicate smart phones with IR are not common
(though clearly I'm a smart phone ignoramus).

If phones with IR were common, you could just download an Assassin app or any
of a variety of other apps for impromptu game playing.

Custom made IR toys clearly are a step backward in any case.

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sonier
Here's their kickstarter: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enter-the-
dustcloud/dust...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enter-the-
dustcloud/dustcloud-turn-your-street-into-a-battlefield)

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caio1982
So they basically made a real
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotcha!_(1985_film)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotcha!_\(1985_film\))
app and stuff. I wonder how many developers of the app watched the film when
they were kids... I mean, if they're that old :-)

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Hrodban
Will wait for new news headlines where some poor chump gets shot by the
authorities because of aiming a device at someone else (like James Bond).

As with kids with toy guns in the past. Just google for "officer shot 13 year
old with toy gun"

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WhiteFoxx
Clever, but it will never take off. These real world type games always tank.
Why? Because no one wants to go running off randomly looking for a stranger
whilst looking like a complete twat. And making actually pay for this? pfft

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lowglow
If you want to know where they stole the basic idea from, my friend Yutai Liao
created [http://www.streetwars.net/](http://www.streetwars.net/) years and
years ago.

~~~
veemjeem
I doubt this idea was ever "stolen". It's such a simple game that I'm sure
there have been hundreds of variants ever since the start of the computer
revolution.

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lowglow
Can you point me to some evidence to support your claims?

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hngiszmo
ok, sorry but if you can't "shoot" with the app but require a custom tool, it
will never ever reach saturation in any area (outside New York) for it being
fun to play against strangers.

~~~
btown
It doesn't need saturation if, say, someone buys them for their entire
office/fraternity/club as a team-building exercise.

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FellowTraveler
Cops are going to shoot these people.

