The Moment of Silence

The Moment of Silence is an investigative thriller adventure game developed in 2004 by German video game developer House of Tales.

Story
The game is set in the year 2044 in downtown New York City, in a future with many Orwellian influences. The player plays an advertising agency worker named Peter Wright, who is depressed and drinking heavily after the death of his wife and child in a terrorist attack. One night, as he is drinking, he hears a commotion in the hall. Looking out through the peephole in his apartment door, he sees a SWAT team storm the apartment of his next door neighbour and carry out a middle-aged man, much to the pain and anguish of his wife. Peter learns that the man was a journalist named Graham Oswald, and his wife asks Peter to try and find out what happened to him. Peter accepts and, after many encounters, discovers that Oswald was part of a Rebel organization dedicated to revealing a massive government conspiracy to keep the truth from the people. Peter discovers Oswald, who is on his last legs after a harrowing escape from a prison on Liberty Island. Before dying, Oswald tells Peter that he must go to Alaska and complete the mission that Oswald failed. After Peter arrives in Alaska, he discovers that the government is being run by a dystopian central computer, whose only concern is keeping the world tidy and in order. Peter successfully shuts down the computer, and frees the world.

Publishing
The game was published by several different publishers around the world. In Germany the game was published by dtp in November 2004 and featured an extensive German voice cast, which included the German voice actors for Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts. In the United Kingdom, Digital Jesters published the game until their demise in early 2006. It is unclear if the game is still in print in Britain. In North America, The Adventure Company won the rights to publish the game, which it did starting in 2005.

A major controversy in the European versions of the game involved the use of StarForce copy protection software, which covertly installed itself on the computers of users who installed the game. The software sometimes caused a user's system to crash, or become unresponsive, even if there was no copying software on that computer. The North American version of the game does not use Starforce.