title: Frankenstein's monster

text: The best-known image of Frankenstein's monster in popular culture derives from Boris Karloff's portrayal in the 1931 movie "Frankenstein," in which he wore makeup applied and designed by Jack P. Pierce, who based the monster's face and iconic flat head shape on a drawing Pierce's daughter (whom Pierce feared to be psychic) had drawn from a dream. Universal Studios, which released the film, was quick to secure ownership of the copyright for the makeup format. Karloff played the monster in two more Universal films, "Bride of Frankenstein" and "Son of Frankenstein"; Lon Chaney Jr. took over the part from Karloff in "The Ghost of Frankenstein;" Bela Lugosi portrayed the role in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man;" and Glenn Strange played the monster in the last three Universal Studios films to feature the character – "House of Frankenstein," "House of Dracula," and "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." However, the makeup worn by subsequent actors replicated the iconic look first worn by Karloff. The image of Karloff's face is currently owned by his daughter's company, Karloff Enterprises, secured for her in a lawsuit for which she was represented by attorney Bela G. Lugosi (Bela Lugosi's son), after which Universal replaced Karloff's features with those of Glenn Strange in most of their marketing. In 1969, the New York Times mistakenly ran a photograph of Strange for Karloff's obituary.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: Since Karloff's portrayal, the creature almost always appears as a towering, undead-like figure, often with a flat-topped angular head and bolts on his neck to serve as electrical connectors or grotesque electrodes. He wears a dark, usually tattered, suit having shortened coat sleeves and thick, heavy boots, causing him to walk with an awkward, stiff-legged gait (as opposed to the novel, in which he is described as much more flexible than a human). The tone of his skin varies (although shades of green or gray are common), and his body appears stitched together at certain parts (such as around the neck and joints). This image has influenced the creation of other fictional characters, such as the Hulk.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: In the 1957 film "The Curse of Frankenstein", Christopher Lee was cast as the creature. The producers Hammer Film Productions refrained from duplicating aspects of Universal's 1931 film, and so Phil Leakey designed a new look for the creature bearing no resemblance to the Boris Karloff design created by Jack Pierce. For his performance as the creature Lee played him as a loose-limbed and childlike, fearful and lonely, with a suggestion of being in pain. Author Paul Leggett describes the creature as being like an abused child; afraid but also violently angry. Christopher Lee, was annoyed on getting the script and discovering that the monster had no dialogue, for this creature was totally mute. According to Marcus K. Harmes in contrasting Lee's creature with the one played by Karloff, ""Lee's actions as the monster seem more directly evil, to judge from the expression on his face when he bears down on the helpless old blind man but these are explained in the film as psychopathic impulses caused by brain damage, not the cunning of the literary monster. Lee also evokes considerable pathos in his performance.""


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: In this film the aggressive and childish demeanour of the monster are in contrast with that of the murdered Professor Bernstein, once the "finest brain in Europe", from whom the creature's now damaged brain was taken. The sequels to "The Curse of Frankenstein" would feature the Baron creating various different creatures, none of which would be played by Christopher Lee.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: In the 1965 Toho film "Frankenstein Conquers the World", the heart of Frankenstein's monster was transported from Germany to Hiroshima as World War II neared its end, only to be irradiated during the atomic bombing of the city, granting it miraculous regenerative capabilities. Over the ensuing 20 years, it grows into a complete human child, who then rapidly matures into a giant, 20-metre-tall man. After escaping a laboratory in the city, he is blamed for the crimes of the burrowing kaiju Baragon, and the two monsters face off in a showdown that ends with Frankenstein's monster victorious, though he falls into the depths of the Earth after the ground collapses beneath his feet.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: In the 1973 TV miniseries "," in which the creature is played by Michael Sarrazin, he appears as a strikingly handsome man who later degenerates into a grotesque monster due to a flaw in the creation process.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: In the 1994 film "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," the creature is played by Robert De Niro and has an appearance closer to that described in the original novel, though this version of the creature possesses balding grey hair and a body covered in bloody stitches. He is, as in the novel, motivated by pain and loneliness. In this version, Frankenstein gives the monster the brain of his mentor, Doctor Waldman, while his body is made from a man who killed Waldman while resisting a vaccination. The monster retains Waldman's "trace memories" that apparently help him quickly learn to speak and read.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: In the 2004 film "Van Helsing," the monster is shown in a modernized version of the Karloff design. He is tall, has a square bald head, gruesome scars, and pale green skin. The electrical origin of the creature is emphasized with one electrified dome in the back of his head and another over his heart, and he also has hydraulic pistons in his legs, with the design being similar to that of a steam-punk cyborg. Although not as eloquent as in the novel, this version of the creature is intelligent and relatively nonviolent.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: In 2004, a TV miniseries adaptation of "Frankenstein" was made by Hallmark. Luke Goss plays the creature. This adaptation more closely resembles the monster as described in the novel: intelligent and articulate, with flowing, dark hair and watery eyes.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: The 2005 film "Frankenstein Reborn" portrays the creature as a paraplegic man who tries to regain the ability to walk by having a computer chip implanted. Instead, the surgeon kills him and resurrects his corpse as a reanimated zombie-like creature. This version of the creature has stitches on his face where he was shot, strains of brown hair, black pants, a dark hoodie, and a black jacket with a brown fur collar.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: The 2014 TV series "Penny Dreadful" also rejects the Karloff design in favour of Shelley's description. This version of the creature has the flowing dark hair described by Shelley, although he departs from her description by having pale grey skin and obvious scars along the right side of his face. Additionally, he is of average height, being even shorter than other characters in the series. In this series, the monster names himself "Caliban", after the character in William Shakespeare's "The Tempest". In the series, Victor Frankenstein makes a second and third creature, each more indistinguishable from normal human beings.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: As depicted by Shelley, the monster is a sensitive, emotional creature whose only aim is to share his life with another sentient being like himself. The novel portrayed him as versed in "Paradise Lost", "Plutarch's Lives", and "The Sorrows of Young Werther," books he finds after having learnt language.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: From the beginning, the monster is rejected by everyone he meets. He realizes from the moment of his "birth" that even his own creator cannot stand the sight of him; this is obvious when Frankenstein says "…one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped…". Upon seeing his own reflection, he realizes that he too is repulsed by his appearance. His greatest desire is to find love and acceptance; but when that desire is denied, he swears revenge on his creator.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: The monster is a vegetarian. While speaking to Frankenstein, he tells him, "My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment...The picture I present to you is peaceful and human." At the time the novel was written, many writers, including Percy Shelley in "A Vindication of Natural Diet", argued that practicing vegetarianism was the morally right thing to do.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: Contrary to many film versions, the creature in the novel is very articulate and eloquent in his speech. Almost immediately after his creation, he dresses himself; and within 11 months, he can speak and read German and French. By the end of the novel, the creature is able to speak English fluently as well. The "Van Helsing" and "Penny Dreadful" interpretations of the character have similar personalities to the literary original, although the latter version is the only one to retain the character's violent reactions to rejection. In the 1931 film adaptation, the monster is depicted as mute and bestial; it is implied that this is because he is accidentally implanted with a criminal's "abnormal" brain. In the subsequent sequel, "Bride of Frankenstein", the monster learns to speak, albeit in short, stunted sentences. However, his intelligence is implied to be fairly developed, since what little dialogue he speaks suggests he has a world-weary attitude to life, and a deep understanding of his unnatural state. When rejected by his bride, he briefly goes through a suicidal state and attempts suicide, blowing up the laboratory he is in. In the second sequel, "Son of Frankenstein", the creature is again rendered inarticulate. Following a brain transplant in the third sequel, "The Ghost of Frankenstein", the monster speaks with the voice and personality of the brain donor. This was continued after a fashion in the scripting for the fourth sequel, "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man", but the dialogue was excised before release. The monster was effectively mute in later sequels, although he refers to Count Dracula as his "master" in "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein". The monster is often portrayed as being afraid of fire, although he is not afraid of it in the novel, even using fire to destroy himself.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: Scholars sometimes look for deeper meaning in Shelley's story, and have drawn an analogy between the monster and a motherless child; Shelley's own mother died while giving birth to her. The monster has also been analogized to an oppressed class; Shelley wrote that the monster recognized "the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty". Others see in the monster the dangers of uncontrolled scientific progress, especially as at the time of publishing; Galvanism had convinced many scientists that raising the dead through use of electrical currents was a scientific possibility.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: Another proposal is that Victor Frankenstein was based on a real scientist who had a similar name, and who had been called a modern Prometheus – Benjamin Franklin. Accordingly, the monster would represent the new nation that Franklin helped to create out of remnants left by England. Victor Frankenstein's father "made also a kite, with a wire and string, which drew down that fluid from the clouds," wrote Shelley, similar to Franklin's famous kite experiment.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: In discussing the physical description of the monster, there has been some speculation about the potential his design is rooted in common perceptions of race during the 18th century. Three scholars have noted that Shelley's description of the monster seems to be racially coded; one argues that, "Shelley's portrayal of her monster drew upon contemporary attitudes towards non-whites, in particular on fears and hopes of the abolition of slavery in the West Indies." Of course, there is no evidence to suggest that the monster's depiction is meant to mimic any race, and such interpretations are based in personal conjectural interpretations of Shelley's text rather than remarks from herself or any known intentions of the author.


title: Frankenstein's monster

text: In her article "Frankenstein, Racial Science, and the Yellow Peril," Anne Mellor claims that the monster's features share a lot in common with the Mongoloid race. This term, now out of fashion and carrying some negative connotations, is used to describe the "yellow" races of Asia as distinct from the Caucasian or white races. To support her claim, Mellor points out that both Mary and Percy Shelley were friends with William Lawrence, an early proponent of racial science and someone who Mary "continued to consult on medical matters and [met with] socially until his death in 1830." While Mellor points out to allusions to Orientalism and the Yellow Peril, John Malchow in his article "Frankenstein's Monster and Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain" explores the possibility of the monster either being intentionally or unintentionally coded as black. Malchow argues that the monster's depiction is based in an 18th-century understanding of "popular racial discourse [which] managed to conflate such descriptions of particular ethnic characteristics into a general image of the "Negro" body in which repulsive features, brute-like strength and size of limbs featured prominently." Malchow makes it clear that it is difficult to tell if this alleged racial allegory was intentional on Shelley's part or if it was inspired by the society she lived in (or if it exists in the text at all outside of his interpretation), and he states that "There is no clear proof that Mary Shelley consciously set out to create a monster which suggested, explicitly, the Jamaican escaped slave or maroon, or that she drew directly from any person knowledge of either planter or abolitionist propaganda." In addition to the previous interpretations, Karen Lynnea Piper argues in her article, "Inuit Diasporas: Frankenstein and the Inuit in England" that the symbolism surrounding Frankenstein's monster could stem from the Inuit of the Arctic. Piper argues that the monster accounts for the "missing presence" of any indigenous people during Waldon's expedition, and that he represents the fear of the savage, lurking on the outskirts of civilization.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Prey is a first-person shooter video game developed by Arkane Austin and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was released worldwide on 5 May 2017, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: The game takes place in an alternate timeline in which an accelerated Space Race resulted in humankind taking to orbital stations far earlier. The player controls Morgan Yu while exploring the space station "Talos I", in orbit around Earth–Moon L, where they were part of a scientific team researching the Typhon, a hostile alien force composed of many forms with both physical and psychic powers, such as shapeshifting into a clone of any inanimate object. As the Typhon escape confinement, the player uses a variety of weapons and abilities, some of which are derived from the Typhon themselves, to avoid being killed while looking to escape the station. The player gains access to areas of the station by acquiring key items and abilities, eventually allowing the player to explore the station in an open world setting. The game combines elements of role-playing video games, stealth games, immersive sims and Metroidvanias in its design.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Arkane's "Prey" is largely unrelated to the 2006 game "Prey" developed by Human Head Studios. While "Prey 2", a sequel to the 2006 game, had been planned by Human Head, it fell into development hell following transfer of the intellectual property from 3D Realms to Bethesda Softworks, and was eventually cancelled in 2014. Arkane's game does not use any of the planned sequel's assets, and only incorporates the previous game's name and the broad theme of the protagonist being hunted by aliens. Arkane built "Prey" as a spiritual sequel to "System Shock", providing the player with several potential means of progressing within the game, while considering the "Talos I" station a thematic reinterpretation of their underground dungeon of their first game, "Arx Fatalis".


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: "Prey" was positively reviewed by critics at release and considered one of the best games of 2017 by several gaming magazines and websites. Two expansions were released: "Mooncrash", a procedurally-generated mode inspired by various roguelike games, and a multiplayer "Typhon Hunter" that incorporates the Typhon shapeshifting abilities in a hide-and-seek style game.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: "Prey" is a first-person shooter with role-playing and stealth elements set in an open world environment. The player takes the role of Morgan Yu, a human aboard a space station with numerous species of hostile aliens known collectively as the Typhon. The player is able to select certain attributes of Morgan, including gender, and decisions made by the player that affects elements of the game's story. To survive, the player must collect and use weapons and resources aboard the station to fend off and defeat the Typhon. According to creative director Raphaël Colantonio, the station is completely continuous rather than having separate levels or missions, at times requiring the player to return to areas they previously explored. The player is able to venture outside of the station in space and find shortcuts connecting parts of the station. Colantonio stated that the aliens have an array of different powers that the player character can gain over time; one such alien has the ability to shape shift into everyday items, such as a chair. The player can acquire aliens' abilities by using a device called a psychoscope. Recyclers can be used to break down almost any object into raw materials.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: The game has multiple endings, according to lead designer Ricardo Bare; the endings fall into three major narrative structures depending on how the player broadly interacted with the station and surviving humans, but Bare said there are "tons of little permutations" based on specific events.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: The "Mooncrash" expansion, released in June 2018, is a separate game mode built atop the setting and gameplay of the base "Prey" game. It is a roguelike mode in which, while the levels of the expansion remains the same, placement of enemies, weapons, and other items are randomized on each playthrough.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Narratively, the player takes the role of Peter, a hacker aboard a satellite orbiting the Moon, forced by his employer the Kasma Corporation to figure out what happened at the Pytheas Moonbase. Peter does this by running through simulations, in which he takes the place of one of five known survivors of the attack. The player, as Peter, must figure out how each of the five survived through the five various escape routes. This is presented by leading one character through the station, fighting off the Typhon, collecting equipment, hacking terminals, and other actions. If the player can lead that character to safety, they then must lead the other characters, one at a time, through the same gameworld to find a different escape point, with all of the changes on the gameworld from the previous characters still in place. Players may reset the simulation, randomizing the world elements and effectively starting a new run. However, the player gains credits that they can use within the simulation to improve how any of the character start, such as with better weapons or additional health packs, and they can permanently unlock skills for each character within future simulation runs by collecting certain objects within the gameworld.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: The "Typhon Hunter" expansion contains two game modes. One is designed as a single-player virtual reality experience, challenging the player to various escape room scenarios aboard the "Talos I" station. The second is an asymmetrical multiplayer mode for up to six players. One plays as Morgan while the others are Mimic Typhons, which can disguise themselves as nearly any object within the game's environment. The player as Morgan is challenged to find and kill all the other players within a limited amount of time, while the Mimic players can rearrange items in rooms, disguise themselves, and when the Morgan player is close, jump out and attack them before seeking another hiding place.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: "Prey" takes place in an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union encounters a species of eusocial aliens, called the Typhon, aboard one of their satellites, the "Vorona 1". The Soviet Union works together with the United States to fight off and capture the aliens, unbeknownst to the general population. Together, they build the space station "Kletka" (Russian for "cell") to be used as a prison for the Typhon situated in orbit around the Moon. After a failed assassination attempt on United States President John F. Kennedy, the United States wrests full control of the "Kletka" satellite from the Soviet Union. Research of the Typhon continues under the name "Project Axiom". After the "Pobeg Incident" in 1980 where some scientists aboard the station lost their lives to the Typhon, the American government shutters Project Axiom, leaving the captive Typhon alive.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: By 2025, the newly founded TranStar Corporation acquires "Kletka" and by 2030, has refitted it as "Talos I", a fully operational research laboratory to study the Typhon and develop advances in neuroscience; this leads to the creation of Neuromods that harness the Typhon's physiology to restructure the human brain to grant the user new abilities, including superhuman ones. TranStar grows financially successful from sales of Neuromods on Earth. At the time of the game's setting, about 2035, TranStar has further expanded the station to make for suitable living quarters for its staff that spend up to two years on the station between regular shuttles to Earth.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Because of the numerous agencies that operated and expanded "Talos I" over the decades, the station includes a large mix of architectural designs, ranging from retrofuturism that was popular in 1960s America, to brutalist styles that were common in the Soviet Bloc in the mid-20th century, to opulent Art Deco put in place by the wealthy TranStar executives.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: In March 2032, Morgan Yu is recruited by their brother Alex to join TranStar's research team on "Talos I". Prior to leaving for the station and while taking a series of tests including the Trolley problem and the Rorschach test, one of the supervising doctors is attacked by a Typhon and Morgan is knocked out. Morgan wakes up in their apartment, but finds out that it is a simulated environment. It is 2035 and Morgan has been living on "Talos I" for three years. Morgan is contacted by January, an Operator artificial intelligence that claims to have been built by Morgan. January warns Morgan that the Typhon have broken containment and taken over the station, killing the majority of the crew. It reveals to Morgan that they had been testing neuromods for the past three years, with Morgan continually adding and removing them. While these neuromods allow for instantaneous learning of complex skills and abilities, a side effect of removing a neuromod is that the user loses all memories gained after installation of that neuromod, explaining Morgan's memory loss. January claims that Morgan built it to help destroy "Talos I", taking the Typhon and all of its research with it. Alex contacts Morgan and suggests instead building a special Nullwave device that will destroy the Typhon but leave the station intact, citing how their research is too valuable to lose.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Morgan travels through the station and encounters other survivors, with a choice of whether to help them or not. Alex tasks Morgan with scanning the Typhon "Coral" growing around the station, and discovers that the Typhon are building some sort of neural network. Their attempts to study the neural network are interrupted when the TranStar Board of Directors learns of the containment breach and sends a cleanup crew to eliminate both the Typhon and any surviving station crew. After the cleanup crew is dealt with, Alex further analyzes the data and concludes that the Typhon are sending a signal into deep space to summon something. A gargantuan Typhon called Apex appears and begins to devour "Talos I". Morgan is given the choice of activating the station's self-destruct sequence or building the Nullwave device to defeat the Typhon.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: If Morgan chooses to activate the Nullwave device, all of the Typhon on "Talos I" are destroyed and the station is left intact to allow further neuromod research. If Morgan chooses to activate the self-destruct, the entire station explodes, destroying all of the Typhon with it. Morgan either finds a way to escape the station or is stranded and dies in the explosion, based on earlier choices in the game.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: In a post-credits scene, Morgan wakes up in a lab and learns that it is not the real Morgan, but instead a captured Typhon implanted with Morgan's memories in an effort to teach it human emotions and empathy. The Typhon have invaded Earth; Alex and his Operator assistants judge "Morgan" based on the choices it made throughout the game. If "Morgan" failed to show human empathy, Alex destroys it and starts the experiment over. If "Morgan" did show human empathy, Alex lets it go, whereupon it can choose to accept his offer to bring peace between the Typhon and humanity, or kill him.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: In 2036, Peter is stationed in a remote satellite orbiting the Moon and is forced under contract by the Kasma Corporation, a rival to TranStar, to undergo numerous simulations reliving a Typhon outbreak on Transtar's Pytheas Moon Base. As he completes his assigned tasks, his handler Basilisk warns him that Kasma will betray him once his mission is complete and helps him make preparations to escape. When Peter fulfills his contract, Kasma congratulates him but claims that due to tight budgets, they cannot retrieve him from the satellite and shut off its life support. With help from Basilisk, Peter overrides the satellite's controls and crashes it near the real Pytheas facility, where he commandeers a shuttle and returns to Earth. In a post-credits scene, it is revealed that a Mimic has stowed away on Peter's shuttle.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: The success of the original "Prey" led to the announcement of a sequel "Prey 2" in August 2006, with continued development by 3D Realms. However, the project faced a number of issues, including the transfer of the intellectual property (IP) rights to Bethesda Softworks (under ZeniMax Media) sometime by 2011. In March 2011, Bethesda announced that "Prey 2" would instead be developed by Human Head Studios using a modified id Tech 4 engine.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: On 31 May 2013, "Kotaku" reported rumors that development had moved to Arkane Studios and that the development had been rebooted, scrapping all of Human Head Studios' work on "Prey 2" with a targeted release of 2016. After about a year of further rumors, Bethesda cancelled "Prey 2". Arkane had started working on a "Prey" game that would be considered a reboot rather than a sequel, using none of the "Prey" concepts and none of Human Head's previous development.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: On 12 June 2016, Bethesda announced the "Prey" reboot at its E3 press conference. The game's development was led by Arkane Studios CEO and director Raphaël Colantonio and his team in Austin, Texas. The new "Prey" is not a true sequel but instead "a re-imagining of the IP", according to Colantonio. The teaser trailer shown during E3 2016 showed the game's protagonist in something like "a space horror version of "Groundhog Day"", according to CNet's Seamus Byrne. Bethesda's vice president of marketing Pete Hines explained that the new game has no elements from the cancelled "Prey 2" outside of the player facing against aliens. Colantonio said in later interviews that calling their game "Prey" was a "non negotiable compromise" with Bethesda, a decision that no one on the Arkane team was pleased with. Colantonio said it felt bad to lie that they were continuing the "Prey" series, and was an insult to Human Head, the developers of the original "Prey". He expressed that it was a "sales mistake" that would turn away fans of the original "Prey" and fail to attract other players.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: "Prey" came out of Arkane Studios' own ideas; as explained by Colantonio, after they finished "Dishonored", roughly around 2014, they split their team to work on two projects, one being "Dishonored 2" and the other a new intellectual property based on similar gameplay ideas which would be "in first-person, with depth and simulation and narration". According to lead designer Ricardo Bare, Colantonio had suggested they look back towards what they had done with "Arx Fatalis", a fantasy title produced by Arkane in 2002 which featured "this big, inter-connected dungeon that the player could roam so long as they could unlock everything". They took this "mega-dungeon" concept, but set it as a space station filled with hostile aliens, and would require the player to consider the "full ecology" of the game's world to overcome obstacles. They did not want the player to solve singular-solution puzzles, such as simply finding a key for a locked door, but instead "think of this as a living, dynamic world, where there are tons of solutions possible", according to Bare.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: As Arkane started developing this concept, they recognized the similarities to the original "Prey". Realizing that coming up with a name for a new property can be difficult, and that through Bethesda that they would have the ability to use that name, they opted to go with calling the game "Prey". Hines explained that Arkane evaluated the "Prey" property to its core and built up a new game around it, calling it more a psychological game rather than a horror one.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: According to design documents from early in the project's history published by "Kotaku", the game was developed at Arkane under the name "Project Danielle". Three different concepts had been presented, all based on the nature of "System Shock" and involving the player-character named Danielle Sho (considered by "Kotaku" as a reference to SHODAN from "System Shock") to find that there was a false reality in their apparent world and dealing with an artificial intelligence that has a significant influence on events; these settings included a futuristic lab set on Earth set just prior to the "System Shock" time frame, a secret lab on a remote island, and a retro-futuristic setting. "Kotaku" observed that this final setting was closest to what the released "Prey" looked like.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: "Prey" incorporates numerous gameplay concepts from "Dishonored", which was itself inspired by the Looking Glass Studios' games "" and "System Shock", where players are encouraged to find creative solutions to overcoming obstacles. Borrowed elements from "Dishonored" include giving the player enough agency to determine how they want to proceed at the game, having in-game consequences for certain actions taken by the player, developing a game world based on a pre-established lore that can be learned by examining notes and computer terminals throughout the station, and a simple user-interface. However, Colantonio said that "Prey" would be less focused on stealth as "Dishonored" was, and would provide a more role-playing video game-style improvement system through in-game chipsets that allows the player to customize their abilities for more tactical fast-paced action sequences in contrast to "Dishonored"s bone charm system. While "Prey" has been likened to a Metroidvania, its lead designer Ricardo Bare has said that he actually was not familiar with the sub-genre and that "Prey"s world design follows in the footsteps of games such as Arkane's own "Arx Fatalis" and Looking Glass Studios' "System Shock", which featured interconnected worlds where to make progress, obstacles had been overcome through abilities the player could acquire. Bare considered the "Talos I" setting to be "like an open world" that is fully explorable as the player gained abilities and equipment. However, according to Colantonio, calling it an open world "might have the wrong associations." The developers also took inspiration from "", considering the complexities of the various gameplay systems and how fast that a situation can go wrong if the player did not sufficiently plan ahead. Bare said they wanted to include that "chaos of systems", and keeping in mind that "Talos I" is a functioning space station, populated the station with a number of hazards like gas pipes and oil spills that can both been a boon to the players in defeating the Typhon, but also can cause unforeseen consequences if the player is not careful. Arkane had considered including procedural generation within the main campaign, so that different areas may have different hazards when the player encountered them, but they recognized that this would become a point of frustration for a single-player game that may caused players to leave the game uncompleted. They dropped this approach, and instead worked the procedural generation aspects into the game's downloadable content "Mooncrash", which takes place outside the main game's campaign.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Emergent gameplay was a goal of Arkane: while they had given the players abilities to take on "Prey" in a full action mode or full stealth mode, they wanted players to find a way to complete the game in their own manner. They recognized players may take one specific set of skills and weapons, and avoided including any enemies or obstacles that would be impossible to surpass because they did not specialize in the right skills, providing a means to bypass such areas. Arkane restricted how many horror elements they would include, since they could not predict where the player's attention would be throughout the game, providing another reason why they opted not to consider "Prey" a horror game. Some elements supporting emergent gameplay arose during testing of the game's various systems. One of the Typhon aliens, the Mimic, was inspired by the creature of the same name from "Dungeons & Dragons", and was programmed to take the form of any object smaller than itself in the room, avoiding the use of scripted events and allowing the alien's artificial intelligence in the game's software decide what to replicate. Separately, one of the tools developed by Arkane was the psychoscope, which allows players to scan an alien and learn and then use its powers; when the programmers learned of this, they quickly found that having players be able to copy the Mimic's power created a depth of new gameplay options, such as taking the form of a small object to sneak into small places, or taking the form of a non-flammable object to roll through fire-laden areas. Enabling emergent gameplay in "Prey" allowed for speedrunners to take advantage of the game's tools, particularly the Gloo Cannon that is able to create platforms on surfaces to access areas Arkane did not intend to be accessed without other tools.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: The narrative concept for "Prey" came to Colantonio during one of his airline flights while on travel; on return, he started to engage with the Austin studio to flesh out the ideas for the narrative, design, and gameplay, looking to build as detailed a world as they had for the city of Dunwall used as the setting for "Dishonored". Colantonio said that it took about a year from this initial concept to come up with setting the game in an alternate timeline that helped support this detailing. They considered how the future would have been different if Kennedy survived the assassination attempt, allowing them to flesh out the narrative and design of the space station. This itself directly attributed to the styles used in the various parts of the station, with the team considering what architecture would have influenced those most responsible for operating "Talos I" at the time. This ranged from considering what Kennedy would have seen frequently were he alive in the 1960s and 1970s, to envision how those funding contemporary commercial space efforts like Elon Musk or Google would style a space station. As "Talos I" is a relatively small space, Arkane was able to detail the station in depth, such as naming each non-playable character, including those already dead by the story's present, and fleshing out background stories for them, as to make the game's world more cohesive.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: The narrative directed them to the types of weapons that would be available to the player. Arkane recognized that as a research station, their security forces would only likely have common weapons, such as pistols and shotguns, and would not have the equivalent of super-powerful gear like "Doom"s BFG. What advanced weapons are available were designed to look like prototypes and have flaws associated with them being only in their testing phase.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Arkane's Harvey Smith is credited with establishing the Typhon and the reason for their existence in the story. The player as Morgan follows in the threat's wake, finding survivors that have no idea what just happened but need their help. Arkane wanted a more unique design to the aliens, and opted to use designs inspired by paranormal elements rather than stereotypical insect- or lizard-like species.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Austin Grossman, also of Arkane, helped with establishing the early plot details with Morgan's awakening at the start of the game. Bare had reached out to Chris Avellone circa 2013 to gain his help with the story, though at the time, Avellone was committed to other projects but wanted to work with the studio. Once Avellone was able to, he contacted Arkane to offer his help on the narrative. Besides other parts of the narrative, Avellone was responsible for designing the non-player characters and the various missions that would involve these characters. Avellone felt these characters and their missions created dilemmas for the player to determine how to proceed, helping the player to define their version of Morgan as well as expanding on the game's universe. Avellone worked with Arkane on the story from June to about November 2016.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Among other works, "Prey" was influenced by the films "Moon", "Starship Troopers", and "The Matrix". As part of the game's promotion, Bethesda partnered with the Alamo Drafthouse to show these three films during April 2017. Avellone also cited "Aliens" as part of his inspiration, describing it as an action-suspense film which has moments of comedy, even in the midst of heavy action sequences, and something he reused in writing for "Prey".


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: The original score was composed and produced by Mick Gordon, who had previously composed the soundtrack for "Doom". Additional music was composed by Ben Crossbones, Matt Piersall, and Colantonio, with each one providing a single track. The soundtrack was released for live-streaming music services a week before the game's release.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Prior to "Prey", Arkane had just released "Dishonored 2" which used the studio's internally developed Void game engine. At release, many players reported performance issues with the Windows version of the game, which Arkane fixed through patches, but led to some lingering doubts as to Arkane's ability to develop for the Windows platform. Colantonio said that Arkane wanted to remove that stigma for "Prey", with the goal to produce a "really flawless" version for Windows on release. The game was developed using CryEngine 4, an established third-party game engine, eliminating many issues related to performance. Colantonio said that they "doubled our thoroughness" in the areas of quality assurance testing to eliminate other possible issues.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: During the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018, Bethesda announced a free update released on June 9, 2018 that added two new game modes to "Prey", including a New Game Plus mode, and a Survival mode that adds modifiers, such as weapon durability, that make it more difficult. Bethesda announced the game's first downloadable content, "Mooncrash", which is a procedurally generated adventure that was available that day. They announced plans to release a multiplayer "Typhon Hunt" mode, where some players play as Typhon Mimics that can disguise themselves. The "Typhon Hunt" mode was inspired by the "Prop Hunt" mode that came about from "Garry's Mod"; as Arkane started to show initial details of the main game, including the Mimic enemies, players responded that they were reminded of "Prop Hunt". Bare had not been aware of what that was, but after researching it, felt it was ideal for a multiplayer extension of "Prey". Both "Mooncrash" and "Typhon Hunt" were modes prototyped within an internal game jam following the release of "Prey", looking to see how they could easily extend the game.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: The "Mooncrash" expansion was further updated in September 2018 with a free patch that provided in-game customization skins that celebrated the team's favorite roguelike games, which included "Spelunky", "Rogue Legacy", "Risk of Rain", "Don't Starve", "Darkest Dungeon", and "Dead Cells".


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: The "Typhon Hunter" mode was released on December 11, 2018, along with a virtual reality-based escape the room set of puzzles set before the events of "Prey".


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: "Prey" was released on 5 May 2017. Arkane and Bethesda provided a game demo for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles about a week before the game's launch, covering about the first hour of gameplay. The studio did not opt to provide a demo for Windows systems, citing that they had to choose between either the consoles or personal computer for demo release. Colantonio said that with the game's release through Steam, interested players can try the game for up to two hours under Steam's return policy, effectively treating this the equivalent of a demo. Regardless of this, the Steam version eventually received one.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: On release, "PCGamesN" reported that the Windows version of "Prey" lacked those technical issues that has troubled "Dishonored 2", and called the game "the best performing triple-A game" they had seen in several months. "Eurogamer"s Digital Foundry found the computer version of "Prey" to run exceedingly well across even low-end computers, in contrast to problems it saw for "Dishonored 2" at release.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: However, some reviewers and players found that after several hours of playing on the computer version, their saved games would become corrupted, and the game would crash when transitioning between areas once this started to occur. Restoring from older saves would eventually cause those to be corrupted as well, making the game impossible to complete. Bethesda reported it planned to release a patch to fix this issue in the week following the game's release.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Just prior to release, No Matter Studios, the developers of an upcoming video game "Prey for the Gods", announced that, due to trademark objections from ZeniMax Media, they had to change the name of their game to "Praey for the Gods". ZeniMax reported that they had to defend the "Prey" trademark to avoid losing it in taking objection to No Matter's trademark filing.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: "Prey" received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: Critics praised the fully realized atmosphere of "Talos I", with some labeling it a "luxurious sci-fi playground". On the other hand, combat proved divisive. "GameSpot"s Tamoor Hussain found fight sequences "rewarding", while "IGN"s Dan Stapleton considered combat "Prey"s "biggest weakness" partly due to periods of AI unresponsiveness. Concerning the story, "GameSpot" found protagonist Morgan Yu's journey somewhat "thin", and TrustedReviews called the storyline "lacking". "Eurogamer" ranked the game 12th on their list of the "Top 50 Games of 2017", "GamesRadar+" ranked it 11th on their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017, and "Polygon" ranked it seventh on their list of the 50 best games of 2017, while EGMNow ranked it ninth on their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017. It was nominated for "Best Setting" in "PC Gamer"s 2017 Game of the Year Awards, for "Best Xbox One Game" in "Destructoid"s Game of the Year Awards 2017, and for "Best Shooter" in "IGN"s Best of 2017 Awards.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: "Prey" debuted at No. 2 on the weekly sales charts in the United Kingdom, trailing the Nintendo Switch port of "Mario Kart 8". These figures were considered disappointing due to a lack of competition from AAA new releases and the fact that the opening week sales were 60% down from Arkane's previous title, "Dishonored 2". Additionally, Bethesda's decision to hold review copies until the release date was mentioned by outlets as a factor for the weak launch.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: "Prey" captured the top spot in its second week of release, besting "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe", a rise partially attributed to the positive reception the game received from critics, though sales were down 32% from its debut week. In doing so, "Prey" became the first Bethesda game since 2016's "Doom" to reach number one on the United Kingdom weekly sales charts.


title: Prey (2017 video game)

text: In Japan, "Prey" debuted at No. 5 on the weekly sales charts when it released in late May with 7,105 copies sold for the PlayStation 4. The Xbox One version did not make the charts.


title: Foster the People

text: Foster the People is an American indie pop band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 2009. Its members are singer Mark Foster, guitarist Sean Cimino, and keyboardist Isom Innis.


title: Foster the People

text: Foster founded the band in 2009 after spending several years in Los Angeles as a struggling musician and working as a commercial jingle writer. After Foster's song "Pumped Up Kicks" became a viral success in 2010, the group received a record deal from Startime International and gained a fanbase through small club shows and appearances at music festivals. After releasing their debut album "Torches" in May 2011, "Pumped Up Kicks" became a crossover hit on commercial radio in mid-2011 and eventually reached number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The record also featured the singles "Helena Beat" and "Don't Stop (Color on the Walls)". The group received three Grammy Award nominations for "Torches" and "Pumped Up Kicks".


title: Foster the People

text: After touring for two years in support of "Torches", Foster the People released their second album, "Supermodel", in March 2014. It was preceded by the lead single "Coming of Age". In July 2017, the band released their third studio album, "Sacred Hearts Club", with the addition of Isom Innis and Sean Cimino, both former touring members, to the official lineup. From this album, their song "Sit Next to Me" peaked at number 42 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and was certified double platinum by the RIAA.


title: Foster the People

text: Mark Foster graduated from Nordonia High School in the suburbs of Macedonia, Ohio, in 2002. With his father's encouragement, Foster moved in with his uncle in Sylmar, Los Angeles, California to pursue a career in music. Foster worked various jobs and at night, he attended parties in Hollywood to expand his social network. He said, "I felt like an 18-year-old Hunter S. Thompson. I was just diving into this Hollywood Hills subculture and taking it all in. I wasn't shy about taking my guitar out at a party. I wanted to be the center of attention." Foster struggled with drug addiction during his initial years in Los Angeles, saying, "It got pretty dark. My friends thought I was going to die. I was blind to it. When I was 19 years old, it got to a point where I said, 'Enough is enough' ... I saw time was just passing me by. I wasn't being productive."


title: Foster the People

text: Foster played in several bands, including one with which he auditioned for a record deal in New York. After turning 22, he says he was contacted by Aftermath Entertainment about showcasing his musical talents, but the opportunity ultimately fell through. Foster's first professional experience as a music artist was as lead vocalist on the 2006 song "Breakdown" by the Toques. For the next few years, Foster waited tables at a cafe while dealing with writer's block, but he remained in Los Angeles after landing a job as a commercial jingle writer for Mophonics in 2008. He said of the profession, "I definitely learned from the commercial standpoint what works," and he credited it with reviving his confidence in performing. The music Foster wrote spanned a wide range of genres, but he had difficulty reconciling his eclectic compositions. He explained: "I'd write one song and it'd be a hip-hop song. I'd write another and it'd be heavily electronic. Another would be like a spiritual, and another would be classic piano song. I was constantly trying to pull those elements together. It took me six years to do it." He still wished to be part of a group; reflecting on a residency he did at a venue performing electronic music, he said, "It was just me and a laptop. Really, it was terrible. I knew I needed a band."


title: Foster the People

text: Foster the People was born out of a nascent relationship with drummer Mark Pontius, a film school student who left his group Malbec to found a band with Foster in Fall 2009. At that time, Foster had released and was playing shows supporting a solo album; Pontius was impressed by the number and diversity of songs that Foster had written to that point, saying, "Some were on the guitar, and some were on the computer. But it was this really awesome singer-songwriter thing with a tricked-out beat, and I felt we could go wherever we wanted with this."


title: Foster the People

text: Foster the People (as "Foster & The People") played their first show on October 7, 2009 at the Dakota Live Music Lounge; they played many of the songs that Foster had written for his solo record. The first iteration of the band was Foster, Pontius, and producer Zach "Reazon" Heiligman. The group soon added a bassist, Foster's long-time friend Cubbie Fink, who had lost his job at a television production company during the recession. Early on, the band performed as a quartet with producer Reazon. Reazon performed live music programming and appeared in some of their early press photos. He broke off from the group in mid-2010 and is credited as a co-writer of the song "Miss You".


title: Foster the People

text: Mark Foster originally named the band Foster & the People, but people misheard it as "Foster the People". Eventually, he took to the nurturing image it evoked of "taking care" of people, so the name stuck.


title: Foster the People

text: Not long after the group formed, Foster wrote and recorded a song at Mophonics called "Pumped Up Kicks", which eventually proved to be the band's breakthrough. After Foster posted the song on his website as a free download in early 2010, it drew considerable attention; "Nylon" magazine used the track in an online advertising campaign, and through various blogs, it went viral. The group, yet to be signed, garnered buzz with performances at the South by Southwest music festival in March 2010.


title: Foster the People

text: Foster was emailed by many people about "Pumped Up Kicks", and needing professional guidance, he contacted artist manager Brent Kredel at Monotone, Inc. in March, saying, "Everyone is calling me and emailing me—what do I do? Who are the good guys, who are the bad guys? Kredel recalled that "He went from the guy who couldn't get a hold of anyone to being the guy who had hundreds of emails in his inbox." Kredel and Brett Williams were subsequently hired to co-manage Foster the People, and they arranged meetings for the band with several record labels, including Warner Bros., Atlantic, Columbia, and Universal Republic. In May 2010, the band was signed to the Columbia imprint Startime International in a multi-album deal. The deal did not involve ancillary rights. Foster controls publishing of the songs in North America, while a separate 2010 deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing controls publishing outside of North America.


title: Foster the People

text: After Foster the People signed their record deal, Kredel said, "The focus was to stop everything and not work on any marketing or touring, but to make an album that backed up 'Pumped Up Kicks.'" Wishing to avoid burnout, Startime allowed the group to pace themselves and not rush an album that would cash in on the popularity of the song. Isaac Green of Startime said, "You can't control everything, but you can be meticulous about the music." From July to September 2010, the group wrote new material that would appear on their debut album, and they chose Paul Epworth, Rich Costey, and Greg Kurstin to co-produce the record with Mark Foster. In September, "Pumped Up Kicks" was released as the group's debut single.


title: Foster the People

text: Without much experience as a live act, Foster the People were booked in October 2010 to play several club shows "to help them get their sea legs". At this point a trio, the band recruited musicians Sean Cimino and Isom Innis to tour with them. Booking the group proved difficult, as concert promoters were hesitant about an artist without previous touring experiences. Foster the People promoted these concerts by emailing fans who had downloaded "Pumped Up Kicks" from their website about the shows. In early 2011, the band was booked to perform in a much sought-after tent at April's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Meanwhile, the group continued to grow its fanbase with a month-long residency of concerts in January at The Echo nightclub in Los Angeles. According to booking agent Tom Windish, by the group's third show at the venue, "there were hundreds of people trying to get in outside... It was an obvious turning point that could be measured in numbers." The residency also drew the attention of music supervisors in attendance who would later help the group license their music.


title: Foster the People

text: Foster the People issued its first commercial non-single release in January 2011, a self-titled EP featuring "Pumped Up Kicks", "Houdini", and "Helena Beat" that was intended to hold fans over until their first studio album, "Torches", was completed. Fans who purchased the EP through the iTunes Store were able to apply it toward the purchase of their full-length debut album. The EP drew the attention of organizers of March's South by Southwest festival, as well as executives looking to license music for upcoming season finales of television series. Columbia senior director of creative licensing Jonathan Palmer said, "The plan helped us a great deal to set up more opportunities rather than chasing the release date. So by the time we put the record out in May, we had already placed several songs." Half of "Torches" songs were licensed—among them are: "Pumped Up Kicks" ("Gossip Girl", "The Vampire Diaries", "Friends with Benefits", "Entourage"), "Houdini" ("Gossip Girl"); "Helena Beat" ("The Vampire Diaries"); "Don't Stop (Color on the Walls)" ("Suits", Nissan Motors commercial); and "Call It What You Want" ("FIFA 12"). Palmer commented, "I haven't seen this kind of a range of song licenses from one album since we worked the first Ting Tings record three-and-a-half years ago. That was an album where we licensed nine or [all] 10 songs on the album. We're kind of in a similar situation [with "Torches"]."


title: Foster the People

text: Beginning in July 2010, Sirius XM satellite radio's Alt Nation channel began playing "Pumped Up Kicks", followed by many alternative radio stations including Los Angeles terrestrial stations KROQ-FM and KYSR in January 2011. Mark Foster credits Sirius XM's airplay with the song's success, saying, "Alt Nation played our music before any other radio outlet in the country." On January 29, the song debuted on "Billboard"s Rock Songs chart and a week later, it debuted on the Alternative Songs chart. In May, the track debuted at number 96 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and later that month, the group released their first full-length studio album, "Torches". The success of "Pumped Up Kicks" and appearances on many late-night talk shows, including "Last Call with Carson Daly", "The Tonight Show", "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", and "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson", helped the record debut at number eight on the "Billboard" 200. To promote the album, the group undertook a concert tour in the US and Europe for much of the second half of 2011, with most dates sold-out. By the time the group took a break in December, they had toured for 10 consecutive months.


title: Foster the People

text: "Pumped Up Kicks" proved to be a crossover hit, charting across several different radio formats; in addition to peaking at number one on the Alternative Songs chart in June and number three on the Rock Songs chart in July, the song broke into the top 40 of the Hot 100 in late July and appeared on the Adult Top 40 and Mainstream Top 40 charts. Columbia senior VP of promotion Lee Leipsner said, "It was one of the only alternative bands I remember in a while that you could actually dance to. And the fact that the record has a groove and rhythmic feel to it—not heavy guitar-based at all—gave us a wide opportunity to cross the record." He credits the song's crossover success and push into the top 40 to a June presentation of new music by Tom Poleman of Clear Channel. According to Leipsner, "After we showed our presentation, we had so many Clear Channel major-market programmers come up to us and say, 'The record I want to play besides Adele is Foster the People.'" "Pumped Up Kicks" peaked at number three on the Hot 100, spending eight consecutive weeks at the position. According to Nielsen Soundscan, over 321,000 copies of "Torches" have been sold in the US. "Pumped Up Kicks" finished 2011 as the sixth-best-selling digital song of the year, with 3.84 million copies sold.


title: Foster the People

text: The band was named in a lawsuit filed by Brandon Dorsky on May 24, 2011, alleging a breach of an oral contract between him and Foster, and that Dorsky had named the band. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount in July 2011.


title: Foster the People

text: Foster the People appeared as the musical guest on the October 8, 2011, episode of "Saturday Night Live", playing "Pumped Up Kicks" and "Houdini". Kenny G appeared as a guest performer on the latter song. At the end of the year, the group received two Grammy Award nominations: Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for "Pumped Up Kicks" and Best Alternative Music Album for "Torches". At the awards ceremony, the band and Maroon 5 performed with The Beach Boys, one of Foster's childhood idols, in a medley of songs to celebrate the Beach Boys' 50th anniversary. Reflecting on Foster the People's sudden rise to success, Foster said, "For so many years, it was slow, playing in front of rooms full of 10 people and trying to get your friends to come... And then all of a sudden, it kind of took off. It's been a fast incline, so we've had to just work really hard, keep our heads down and just stay grounded. At the same time, we've had a lot of fun during the process." The group continued to tour throughout 2012. By the time the group's final US tour for "Torches" concluded in Los Angeles in July 2012, the group had played 295 shows in the previous 16 months.


title: Foster the People

text: Mark Foster and unofficial bandmate Isom Innis debuted their electronic music side project, Smims & Belle, at Hard Summer in August 2012. ("Mister") "Smims" is Foster's DJ name, while ("Southern") "Belle" is a moniker used by Innis. The duo's songs include "Ghetto Blastah" (with a music video directed by Michele Civetta), and "Beat Illuminati". Smims & Belle released an official remix of Lana Del Rey's "Blue Jeans", featuring a bespoke rap verse from Azealia Banks. The project's unreleased material includes remixes of tracks by Little Dragon, Florence + the Machine, and The Internet. Smims & Belle have been inactive since around 2015, coinciding with increased production responsibilities for Foster and Innis within Foster the People.


title: Foster the People

text: At the 2012 Brit Awards, Mark Foster said that Foster the People's second album would be released in 2013. In June 2013, the band played at the Firefly Music Festival—as well as at a secret show at The Troubadour in Los Angeles, performing four new songs: "A Beginner's Guide To Destroying The Moon", "Pseudologia Fantastica", "Fire Escape", and "Coming of Age". Their second album was supposed to be released in November 2013, but Columbia decided to delay the release until January 2014 because they "didn't want them to be stumbling a hurtle too intense like that fourth-quarter competition. The record's so beautiful, we didn't want to take a gamble of potentially losing it in the rush." Foster told "Rolling Stone", "This record still has the joy that our first album did, but it's been thrown into a pit and forced to dance among wolves." Foster said that the new album, which is "more organic and more human", would be released in early 2014. He hinted at a few new tracks, including "A Beginner's Guide to Destroying the Moon" and "Are You What You Wanna Be?", and stated that the first single should be on radio by January. Foster also told "Rolling Stone" that, "In the first record, I was looking at my vision for the project through a piece of opaque glass," and that the next album will be "a clearer picture of what I've had in my head when it comes to that vision."


title: Foster the People

text: The first single, "Coming of Age", was digitally released on January 14, 2014. The group's second studio album, "Supermodel", was released via digital retailers on March 18, 2014. The album was followed by three more singles ("Best Friend", "Pseudologia Fantastica", and "Are You What You Want to Be?") and an extended play titled "Spotify Sessions", which featured recorded versions of five songs off of their album.


title: Foster the People

text: The band promoted "Coming of Age" by releasing a time-lapse music video of a seven-story mural of the "Supermodel" album cover being painted in downtown Los Angeles. Young and Sick, who also designed artwork for "Torches", designed the mural. The painting took over ten days to complete. Although Young and Sick designed the mural, the actual painting was done by artists LeBA and Vyal under the guidance of Danial Lahoda, the owner and director of LALAarts. Foster explained that the mural wasn't intended to be a promotion for the album cover: "it's meant to be a piece of art for the city that happens to be an album cover." On January 23, 2014, the band played a free show in front of the mural. Following some legal controversy, the Supermodel mural was later painted over.


title: Foster the People

text: On March 24, 2015, during an interview in Paraguay, Foster the People announced that they were working on a third album. When describing their upcoming record, they said that "the first record was more, kind of, electro-pop, the second record was more of a rock record, and I think this one is going to be a little more hip hop."


title: Foster the People

text: On September 23, 2015, Foster the People announced that Fink would be leaving the band to pursue other opportunities. He stated, "I would like to express my extreme gratitude to our fans for your incredible love and support over the last four years. It was a true gift getting to perform for such loyal, passionate, and heartfelt people. I will miss playing and seeing all of you on the road. God bless you all." During an interview in 2018, Mark Foster admitted that Fink's departure had been less than amicable and that they have not since kept in touch. He said, "That was really hard. He’s like family. We were friends before I started the band. I dated his sister for over a year and thought I was going to marry her. His parents were like my parents. It was really rough, and it wasn’t until the past nine or so months where we felt able to move forward. [...] We have mutual friends, and I’ve heard he’s doing well. But it was a bad breakup. It was a very high pressure situation for a number of years, but we did so much together. The first Coachella and the first time playing SNL was together. It’s like we were in a foxhole together. We experienced things that nobody else will ever understand, and so it was really hard."


title: Foster the People

text: On April 24, 2015, the film "Little Boy" was released where Mark Foster co-produced the soundtrack for the film, with one track featuring Mark Pontius. On November 27, 2015, Foster the People released a stand-alone single: "Ruby." On December 8, 2015, they released another song called "The Unforeseeable Fate of Mr. Jones" through BitTorrent.


title: Foster the People

text: On October 9, 2016, Foster the People played at the Rocking the Daisies Music Festival, performing three new songs from their upcoming third studio album: "Lotus Eater", "Doing It For The Money", and "Pay the Man". On April 5, 2017, the band announced a world tour set to start in the summer. On April 27, 2017, the band released an EP, "III", composed of three songs from their upcoming third studio album ("Pay the Man", "Doing It for the Money", and "SHC"). With this release, it was announced that their next full album would be released in June or July. This was also the group's first recording for which longtime touring/studio musicians Isom Innis (son of Restless Heart's Dave Innis) and Sean Cimino were attributed as official members. On June 13, the band announced the title and tracklisting of third album "Sacred Hearts Club", that was released on July 21. The band ended the first month of 2018 by performing live in the Asian Pacific region. In March 2018, the band provided vocals on "Ride or Die" by The Knocks. Recently, the band has witnessed the resounding success of "Sit Next to Me", reaching over 200 million streams on Spotify and over 100 million plays on YouTube. Commenting on the song's slow-burning success, Mark Foster said, "It’s kind of crazy to me that it’s been on the radio for so long and it keeps continuing to grow. I guess it’s a sleeper. [...] It’s such a good feeling to write something that resonates and breaks the mold of the status quo. That's what happened with 'Pumped Up Kicks' and it’s happening again with 'Sit Next to Me.' I love timeless pop."


title: Foster the People

text: They have also expressed their feelings on the recent spike in gun violence in the United States by showing their support for leaders of the March on Washington for Gun Control and other protests.


title: Foster the People

text: Starting from November 6, 2018, the band would periodically release a new single every three to four months, culminating in what would be known as the "Pick U Up EP". The EP, also called the "Columbia Singles" by fans, consisted of the four songs "Worst Nites", "Style", "Imagination", and "Pick U Up", all released within the window of November 6, 2018 to September 6, 2019. All singles would eventually be accompanied by a music video that were directed by Mark Foster, who had previously only directed one music video, "Pseudologia Fantastica" back in 2014. Young & Sick, who designed the cover art for "Torches" and "Supermodel", designed all the cover art for each single as well.


title: Foster the People

text: "Imagination" gained notable popularity compared to the rest of the EP, boasting over 110 million streams on Spotify and over 82 million views on YouTube.


title: Foster the People

text: This EP marked an end to Foster the People being under their longtime label, Columbia Records. Band member and drummer Mark Pontius revealed on the first episode of his podcast that the group had split from Columbia Records and are currently operating independently. In one article, frontman Mark Foster reveals that when it comes to contractual agreements, Columbia Records had agreed to recognize the "Pick U Up" EP as a "fourth album" and let the band operate independently; Foster also stated that he feels lucky that he and the band never went through "horror stories of labels trying to force us to do a collaboration with somebody that was just a bad idea" and that Columbia Records as a whole was "really supportive". Foster goes on to say that when it comes to the modern-day music industry, "...the way that music’s consumed has changed. There’s a fluidity with streaming that’s really powerful: to be able to go direct to a fan, to cut out the middle man, to not worry about having hard sales, making CDs, and getting them on the shelves in stores. None of that stuff really matters anymore." Foster finishes on the note that the most important part of splitting from their label is the fact that they will be able to "retain all of our rights" to all music released going forward.


title: Foster the People

text: As for the status for the songs within the "Pick U Up EP", during the premieres and aftershow Instagram livestreams for the music videos of "Style" and "Imagination", Foster explains that for 2019, the band would be "doing something different this year; dropping singles, that's the goal." Foster further explains that he wants to "be more mobile with our releases instead of locking ourselves up in a studio and coming down from the mountain like Moses with Two Slabs of Music."


title: Foster the People

text: On March 24, 2020, the group released their first independent song, ultimately separate from the EP, "It's OK to Be Human". The song's single cover references the COVID-19 pandemic with its lyrics calling for encouragement.


title: Foster the People

text: On May 18, 2020, the group announced that the sixth single "Lamb's Wool" would be released on May 22, 2020. A visualizer for the song was released the same day. Band member and drummer Mark Pontius revealed on the first episode of his podcast that the group has split from Columbia Records and are currently operating independently.


title: Foster the People

text: On July 9, 2020, the group released a seventh single called "The Things We Do," which focuses on police violence and racial inequality in the United States. All proceeds of the song will be donated to four charities: 25% is going to Black Lives Matter International, 25% to The Bail Project, 25% to Rebuild Foundation, and 25% to The Underground Museum.


title: Foster the People

text: On August 30, 2020, during an interview with KROQ Radio, frontman Mark Foster announced that the band is finishing up a new EP and that it should be released "in the next month or two." Foster also explained how their upcoming fourth album would be a "love record" and that many of the songs would be love songs.


title: Foster the People

text: On November 11, 2020, the group announced an eighth single titled "Under the Moon", which was released on November 13, 2020. This was followed by an announcement of an EP titled "In the Darkest of Nights, Let the Birds Sing", released on December 11, 2020.


title: Foster the People

text: On December 1, 2020, Mark Foster announced that he would be hosting a show on Alt Nation titled "Escapology". Closing the first episode, he debuted "Cadillac", a track from the upcoming EP.


title: Foster the People

text: On December 11, 2020, "In the Darkest of Nights, Let the Birds Sing" was released. The tracklist included the three pre-released singles; "Lamb's Wool", "The Things We Do", and "Under the Moon", along with the recently debuted "Cadillac", and two new songs: "Walk With a Big Stick" and "Your Heart Is My Home".


title: Foster the People

text: Mark Foster said in a 'Live at My Den' interview that most of the EP was written throughout quarantine, where the band passed around different projects until 'the EP felt complete'.


title: Foster the People

text: On May 23, 2021, Foster the People released a teaser to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their debut album "Torches" titled "Torches X". The anniversary album, which features new and remixed tracks from the exclusive editions, released on November 12 the same year. To celebrate, they released the track "Broken Jaw" which was originally exclusive to the iTunes edition.


title: Foster the People

text: On October 13, 2021, Mark Pontius announced that he would be leaving the band to focus on raising his daughter, leaving Foster as the only founding member still in the band.


title: Foster the People

text: On October 29, 2021, the group teamed up with Canadian DJ Deadmau5 to release a new single titled "Hyperlandia", which had been in the works since 2016.


title: Foster the People

text: In November 2021, the band performed "Torches X" concerts at the Wiltern, which were live-streamed worldwide via the Moment House platform.


title: Pseudonym

text: A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's own. Many pseudonym holders use pseudonyms because they wish to remain anonymous, but anonymity is difficult to achieve and often fraught with legal issues.


title: Pseudonym

text: Pseudonyms include stage names, user names, ring names, pen names, aliases, superhero or villain identities and code names, gamer identifications, and regnal names of emperors, popes, and other monarchs. In some cases, it may also include nicknames. Historically, they have sometimes taken the form of anagrams, Graecisms, and Latinisations.


title: Pseudonym

text: Pseudonyms should not be confused with new names that replace old ones and become the individual's full-time name. Pseudonyms are "part-time" names, used only in certain contexts – to provide a more clear-cut separation between one's private and professional lives, to showcase or enhance a particular persona, or to hide an individual's real identity, as with writers' pen names, graffiti artists' tags, resistance fighters' or terrorists' "noms de guerre", and computer hackers' handles. Actors, voice-over artists, musicians, and other performers sometimes use stage names, for example, to better channel a relevant energy, gain a greater sense of security and comfort via privacy, more easily avoid troublesome fans/"stalkers", or to mask their ethnic backgrounds.


title: Pseudonym

text: In some cases, pseudonyms are adopted because they are part of a cultural or organisational tradition: for example devotional names used by members of some religious institutes, and "cadre names" used by Communist party leaders such as Trotsky and Lenin.


title: Pseudonym

text: A "collective name" or "collective pseudonym" is one shared by two or more persons, for example the co-authors of a work, such as Carolyn Keene, Erin Hunter, Ellery Queen, Nicolas Bourbaki, or James S. A. Corey.


title: Pseudonym

text: The term "pseudonym" is derived from the Greek word "" ("pseudṓnymon"), literally 'false name', from ("pseûdos") 'lie, falsehood' and ("ónoma") 'name'. The term "alias" is a Latin adverb meaning 'at another time, elsewhere'.


title: Pseudonym

text: Sometimes people change their names in such a manner that the new name becomes permanent and is used by all who know the person. This is not an alias or pseudonym, but in fact a new name. In many countries, including common law countries, a name change can be ratified by a court and become a person's new legal name.


title: Pseudonym

text: For example, in the 1960s, civil rights campaigner Malcolm X, originally known as Malcolm Little, changed his surname to "X" to represent his unknown African ancestral name that had been lost when his ancestors were brought to North America as slaves. He then changed his name again to Malik El-Shabazz when he converted to Islam.


title: Pseudonym

text: Likewise some Jews adopted Hebrew family names upon immigrating to Israel, dropping surnames that had been in their families for generations. The politician David Ben-Gurion, for example, was born David Grün in Poland. He adopted his Hebrew name in 1910 when he published his first article in a Zionist journal in Jerusalem.


title: Pseudonym

text: Businesspersons of ethnic minorities in some parts of the world are sometimes advised by an employer to use a pseudonym that is common or acceptable in that area when conducting business, to overcome racial or religious bias.


title: Pseudonym

text: Criminals may use aliases, fictitious business names, and dummy corporations (corporate shells) to hide their identity, or to impersonate other persons or entities in order to commit fraud. Aliases and fictitious business names used for dummy corporations may become so complex that, in the words of "The Washington Post", "getting to the truth requires a walk down a bizarre labyrinth" and multiple government agencies may become involved to uncover the truth. Giving a false name to a law enforcement officer is a crime in many jurisdictions; see identity fraud.


title: Pseudonym

text: A pen name, or "nom de plume" (French for "pen name"), is a pseudonym (sometimes a particular form of the real name) adopted by an author (or on the author's behalf by their publishers).


title: Pseudonym

text: Although the term is most frequently used today with regard to identity and the Internet, the concept of pseudonymity has a long history. In ancient literature it was common to write in the name of a famous person, not for concealment or with any intention of deceit; in the New Testament, the second letter of Peter is probably such. A more modern example is all of "The Federalist Papers", which were signed by Publius, a pseudonym representing the trio of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The papers were written partially in response to several Anti-Federalist Papers, also written under pseudonyms. As a result of this pseudonymity, historians know that the papers were written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, but have not been able to discern with complete accuracy which of the three authored a few of the papers. There are also examples of modern politicians and high-ranking bureaucrats writing under pseudonyms.


title: Pseudonym

text: Some female authors used male pen names, in particular in the 19th century, when writing was a male-dominated profession. The Brontë sisters used pen names for their early work, so as not to reveal their gender (see below) and so that local residents would not know that the books related to people of the neighbourhood. The Brontës used their neighbours as inspiration for characters in many of their books. Anne Brontë's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (1848) was published under the name Acton Bell, while Charlotte Brontë used the name Currer Bell for "Jane Eyre" (1847) and "Shirley" (1849), and Emily Brontë adopted Ellis Bell as cover for "Wuthering Heights" (1847). Other examples from the nineteenth-century are the novelist Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) and the French writer Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin (George Sand). Pseudonyms may also be used due to cultural or organization or political prejudices.


title: Pseudonym

text: On the other hand, some 20th- and 21st-century male romance novelists have used female pen names. A few examples are Brindle Chase, Peter O'Donnell (as Madeline Brent), Christopher Wood (as Penny Sutton and Rosie Dixon), and Hugh C. Rae (as Jessica Sterling).


title: Pseudonym

text: A pen name may be used if a writer's real name is likely to be confused with the name of another writer or notable individual, or if the real name is deemed unsuitable.


title: Pseudonym

text: Authors who write both fiction and non-fiction, or in different genres, may use different pen names to avoid confusing their readers. For example, the romance writer Nora Roberts writes mystery novels under the name J. D. Robb.


title: Pseudonym

text: In some cases, an author may become better known by his pen name than his real name. Some famous examples of that include Samuel Clemens, writing as Mark Twain, Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, and Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell). The British mathematician Charles Dodgson wrote fantasy novels as Lewis Carroll and mathematical treatises under his own name.


title: Pseudonym

text: Some pen names have been used for long periods, even decades, without the author's true identity being discovered, as with Elena Ferrante and Torsten Krol.


title: Pseudonym

text: Joanne Rowling published the "Harry Potter" series as J. K. Rowling. Rowling also published the Cormoran Strike series, a series of detective novels including "The Cuckoo's Calling" under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.


title: Pseudonym

text: Winston Churchill wrote as Winston S. Churchill (from his full surname Spencer Churchill which he did not otherwise use) in an attempt to avoid confusion with an American novelist of the same name. The attempt was not wholly successful – the two are still sometimes confused by booksellers.


title: Pseudonym

text: A pen name may be used specifically to hide the identity of the author, as with exposé books about espionage or crime, or explicit erotic fiction. Erwin von Busse used a pseudonym when he published short stories about sexually charged encounters between men in Germany in 1920. Some prolific authors adopt a pseudonym to disguise the extent of their published output, e. g. Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman. Co-authors may choose to publish under a collective pseudonym, e. g., P. J. Tracy and Perri O'Shaughnessy. Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee used the name Ellery Queen as a pen name for their collaborative works and as the name of their main character. Asa Earl Carter, a Southern white segregationist affiliated with the KKK, wrote Western books under a fictional Cherokee persona to imply legitimacy and conceal his history.


title: Pseudonym

text: "Why do authors choose pseudonyms? It is rarely because they actually hope to stay anonymous forever," mused writer and columnist Russell Smith in his review of the Canadian novel "Into That Fire" by the pseudonymous M. J. Cates.


title: Pseudonym

text: A famous case in French literature was Romain Gary. Already a well-known writer, he started publishing books as Émile Ajar to test whether his new books would be well received on their own merits, without the aid of his established reputation. They were: Émile Ajar, like Romain Gary before him, was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt by a jury unaware that they were the same person. Similarly, TV actor Ronnie Barker submitted comedy material under the name Gerald Wiley.


title: Pseudonym

text: A collective pseudonym may represent an entire publishing house, or any contributor to a long-running series, especially with juvenile literature. Examples include Watty Piper, Victor Appleton, Erin Hunter, and Kamiru M. Xhan.


title: Pseudonym

text: Another use of a pseudonym in literature is to present a story as being written by the fictional characters in the story. The series of novels known as "A Series of Unfortunate Events" are written by Daniel Handler under the pen name of Lemony Snicket, a character in the series. This applies also to some of the several 18th-century English and American writers who used the name Fidelia.


title: Pseudonym

text: An anonymity pseudonym or multiple-use name is a name used by many different people to protect anonymity. It is a strategy that has been adopted by many unconnected radical groups and by cultural groups, where the construct of personal identity has been criticised. This has led to the idea of the "open pop star".


title: Pseudonym

text: Pseudonyms and acronyms are often employed in medical research to protect subjects' identities through a process known as de-identification.


title: Pseudonym

text: Nicolaus Copernicus put forward his theory of heliocentrism in the manuscript "Commentariolus" anonymously, in part because of his employment as a law clerk for a church-government organization.


title: Pseudonym

text: Sophie Germain and William Sealy Gosset used pseudonyms to publish their work in the field of mathematics – Germain, to avoid rampant 19th century academic misogyny, and Gosset, to avoid revealing brewing practices of his employer, the Guinness Brewery.


title: Pseudonym

text: Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym of a still unknown author or authors' group behind a white paper about bitcoin.


title: Pseudonym

text: In Ancien Régime France, a "nom de guerre" ("war name") would be adopted by each new recruit (or assigned to them by the captain of their company) as they enlisted in the French army. These pseudonyms had an official character and were the predecessor of identification numbers: soldiers were identified by their first names, their family names, and their "noms de guerre" (e. g. "Jean Amarault dit Lafidélité"). These pseudonyms were usually related to the soldier's place of origin (e. g. "Jean Deslandes dit Champigny", for a soldier coming from a town named Champigny), or to a particular physical or personal trait (e. g. "Antoine Bonnet dit Prettaboire", for a soldier "prêt à boire", ready to drink). In 1716, a "nom de guerre" was mandatory for every soldier; officers did not adopt "noms de guerre" as they considered them derogatory. In daily life, these aliases could replace the real family name.


title: Pseudonym

text: "Noms de guerre" were adopted for security reasons by members of World War II French resistance and Polish resistance. Such pseudonyms are often adopted by military special-forces soldiers, such as members of the SAS and similar units of resistance fighters, terrorists, and guerrillas. This practice hides their identities and may protect their families from reprisals; it may also be a form of dissociation from domestic life. Some well-known men who adopted "noms de guerre" include Carlos, for Ilich Ramírez Sánchez; Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West Germany; and Subcomandante Marcos, spokesman of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). During Lehi's underground fight against the British in Mandatory Palestine, the organization's commander Yitzchak Shamir (later Prime Minister of Israel) adopted the "nom de guerre" "Michael", in honour of Ireland's Michael Collins.


title: Pseudonym

text: Revolutionaries and resistance leaders, such as Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Golda Meir, Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, and Josip Broz Tito, often adopted their "noms de guerre" as their proper names after the struggle. George Grivas, the Greek-Cypriot EOKA militant, adopted the "nom de guerre" Digenis (Διγενής). In the French Foreign Legion, recruits can adopt a pseudonym to break with their past lives. Mercenaries have long used "noms de guerre", sometimes even multiple identities, depending on the country, conflict, and circumstance. Some of the most familiar noms de guerre today are the kunya used by Islamic mujahideen. These take the form of a teknonym, either literal or figurative.


title: Pseudonym

text: Individuals using a computer online may adopt or be required to use a form of pseudonym known as a "handle" (a term deriving from CB slang), "user name", "login name", "avatar", or, sometimes, "screen name", "gamertag", "IGN (In Game (Nick)Name)" or "nickname". On the Internet, pseudonymous remailers use cryptography that achieves persistent pseudonymity, so that two-way communication can be achieved, and reputations can be established, without linking physical identities to their respective pseudonyms. Aliasing is the use of multiple names for the same data location.


title: Pseudonym

text: More sophisticated cryptographic systems, such as anonymous digital credentials, enable users to communicate pseudonymously (i. e., by identifying themselves by means of pseudonyms). In well-defined abuse cases, a designated authority may be able to revoke the pseudonyms and reveal the individuals' real identity.


title: Pseudonym

text: Use of pseudonyms is common among professional eSports players, despite the fact that many professional games are played on LAN.


title: Pseudonym

text: Pseudonymity has become an important phenomenon on the Internet and other computer networks. In computer networks, pseudonyms possess varying degrees of anonymity, ranging from highly linkable "public pseudonyms" (the link between the pseudonym and a human being is publicly known or easy to discover), potentially linkable "non-public pseudonyms" (the link is known to system operators but is not publicly disclosed), and "unlinkable pseudonyms" (the link is not known to system operators and cannot be determined). For example, true anonymous remailer enables Internet users to establish unlinkable pseudonyms; those that employ non-public pseudonyms (such as the now-defunct Penet remailer) are called pseudonymous remailers.


title: Pseudonym

text: The continuum of unlinkability can also be seen, in part, on Wikipedia. Some registered users make no attempt to disguise their real identities (for example, by placing their real name on their user page). The pseudonym of unregistered users is their IP address, which can, in many cases, easily be linked to them. Other registered users prefer to remain anonymous, and do not disclose identifying information. However, in certain cases, permits system administrators to consult the server logs to determine the IP address, and perhaps the true name, of a registered user. It is possible, in theory, to create an unlinkable Wikipedia pseudonym by using an Open proxy, a Web server that disguises the user's IP address. But most open proxy addresses are blocked indefinitely due to their frequent use by vandals. Additionally, Wikipedia's public record of a user's interest areas, writing style, and argumentative positions may still establish an identifiable pattern.


title: Pseudonym

text: System operators (sysops) at sites offering pseudonymity, such as Wikipedia, are not likely to build unlinkability into their systems, as this would render them unable to obtain information about abusive users quickly enough to stop vandalism and other undesirable behaviors. Law enforcement personnel, fearing an avalanche of illegal behavior, are equally unenthusiastic. Still, some users and privacy activists like the American Civil Liberties Union believe that Internet users deserve stronger pseudonymity so that they can protect themselves against identity theft, illegal government surveillance, stalking, and other unwelcome consequences of Internet use (including unintentional disclosures of their personal information and doxing, as discussed in the next section). Their views are supported by laws in some nations (such as Canada) that guarantee citizens a right to speak using a pseudonym. This right does not, however, give citizens the right to demand publication of pseudonymous speech on equipment they do not own.


title: Pseudonym

text: Most Web sites that offer pseudonymity retain information about users. These sites are often susceptible to unauthorized intrusions into their non-public database systems. For example, in 2000, a Welsh teenager obtained information about more than 26,000 credit card accounts, including that of Bill Gates. In 2003, VISA and MasterCard announced that intruders obtained information about 5.6 million credit cards. Sites that offer pseudonymity are also vulnerable to confidentiality breaches. In a study of a Web dating service and a pseudonymous remailer, University of Cambridge researchers discovered that the systems used by these Web sites to protect user data could be easily compromised, even if the pseudonymous channel is protected by strong encryption. Typically, the protected pseudonymous channel exists within a broader framework in which multiple vulnerabilities exist. Pseudonym users should bear in mind that, given the current state of Web security engineering, their true names may be revealed at any time.


title: Pseudonym

text: Pseudonymity is an important component of the reputation systems found in online auction services (such as eBay), discussion sites (such as Slashdot), and collaborative knowledge development sites (such as Wikipedia). A pseudonymous user who has acquired a favorable reputation gains the trust of other users. When users believe that they will be rewarded by acquiring a favorable reputation, they are more likely to behave in accordance with the site's policies.


title: Pseudonym

text: If users can obtain new pseudonymous identities freely or at a very low cost, reputation-based systems are vulnerable to whitewashing attacks, also called "serial pseudonymity", in which abusive users continuously discard their old identities and acquire new ones in order to escape the consequences of their behavior: "On the Internet, nobody knows that yesterday you were a dog, and therefore should be in the doghouse today." Users of Internet communities who have been banned only to return with new identities are called sock puppets. Whitewashing is one specific form of Sybil attack on distributed systems.


title: Pseudonym

text: The social cost of cheaply discarded pseudonyms is that experienced users lose confidence in new users, and may subject new users to abuse until they establish a good reputation. System operators may need to remind experienced users that most newcomers are well-intentioned (see, for example, ). Concerns have also been expressed about sock puppets exhausting the supply of easily remembered usernames. In addition a recent research paper demonstrated that people behave in a potentially more aggressive manner when using pseudonyms/nicknames (due to the online disinhibition effect) as opposed to being completely anonymous. In contrast, research by the blog comment hosting service Disqus found pseudonymous users contributed the "highest quantity and quality of comments", where "quality" is based on an aggregate of likes, replies, flags, spam reports, and comment deletions, and found that users trusted pseudonyms and real names equally.


title: Pseudonym

text: Researchers at the University of Cambridge showed that pseudonymous comments tended to be more substantive and engaged with other users in explanations, justifications, and chains of argument, and less likely to use insults, than either fully anonymous or real name comments. Proposals have been made to raise the costs of obtaining new identities, such as by charging a small fee or requiring e-mail confirmation. Academic research has proposed cryptographic methods to pseudonymize social media identities or government-issued identities, to accrue and use "anonymous reputation" in online forums, or to obtain one-per-person and hence less readily-discardable pseudonyms periodically at physical-world "pseudonym parties". Others point out that Wikipedia's success is attributable in large measure to its nearly non-existent initial participation costs.


title: Pseudonym

text: People seeking privacy often use pseudonyms to make appointments and reservations. Those writing to advice columns in newspapers and magazines may use pseudonyms. Steve Wozniak used a pseudonym when attending the University of California, Berkeley after co-founding Apple Computer, because "[he] knew [he] wouldn't have time enough to be an A+ student."


title: Pseudonym

text: When used by an actor, musician, radio disc jockey, model, or other performer or "show business" personality a pseudonym is called a "stage name", or, occasionally, a "professional name", or "screen name".


title: Pseudonym

text: Members of a marginalized ethnic or religious group have often adopted stage names, typically changing their surname or entire name to mask their original background.


title: Pseudonym

text: Stage names are also used to create a more marketable name, as in the case of Creighton Tull Chaney, who adopted the pseudonym Lon Chaney, Jr., a reference to his famous father Lon Chaney, Sr.


title: Pseudonym

text: Chris Curtis of Deep Purple fame was christened as Christopher Crummey ("crumby" is UK slang for poor quality). In this and similar cases a stage name is adopted simply to avoid an unfortunate pun.


title: Pseudonym

text: Pseudonyms are also used to comply with the rules of performing-arts guilds (Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Writers Guild of America, East (WGA), AFTRA, etc.), which do not allow performers to use an existing name, in order to avoid confusion. For example, these rules required film and television actor Michael Fox to add a middle initial and become Michael J. Fox, to avoid being confused with another actor named Michael Fox. This was also true of author and actress Fannie Flagg, who chose this pseudonym; her real name, Patricia Neal, being the name of another well-known actress; and British actor Stewart Granger, whose real name was James Stewart. The film-making team of Joel and Ethan Coen, for instance, share credit for editing under the alias Roderick Jaynes.


title: Pseudonym

text: Some stage names are used to conceal a person's identity, such as the pseudonym Alan Smithee, which was used by directors in the Directors Guild of America (DGA) to remove their name from a film they feel was edited or modified beyond their artistic satisfaction. In theatre, the pseudonyms George or Georgina Spelvin, and Walter Plinge are used to hide the identity of a performer, usually when he or she is "doubling" (playing more than one role in the same play).


title: Pseudonym

text: David Agnew was a name used by the BBC to conceal the identity of a scriptwriter, such as for the Doctor Who serial City of Death, which had three writers, including Douglas Adams, who was at the time of writing the show's Script Editor. In another Doctor Who serial, The Brain of Morbius, writer Terrance Dicks demanded the removal of his name from the credits saying it could go out under a "bland pseudonym". This ended up as "Robin Bland".