Symantec is alerting Mac users to new Mac game called Lose/Lose (download and/or play at your own risk!! TMO certainly recommends that do neither) that deletes files in the user's home directory every time the player shoots an alien ship. Destroy a ship, lose a file. What's more, the game's creator tells users exactly what will happen when they play, making the game something less than a trojan horse, but much worse than the art project he labels it.
The game was found by Takashi Katsuki, one of Symantec's engineers in Japan. In the video and screeshots below, Symantec shows what happens when you play the game with a Finder window open next to the game's play screen.
Mr. Katsuki said that the game promises consequences to destroying the alien ships, while alluding to benefits for not destroying any. Symantec couldn't get through the end of the game, however, without it crashing, and thus we do not know what these alleged benefits might be.
The instructions warn that your files will be deleted.
Pew pew! There goes a Preference file!
The game reports your "score" (i.e. the number of files destroyed) to a server, and is supposed to delete itself when you die.
Symantec's antivirus software is treating the game like a trojan, and have named it OSX.Loosemaque, Virus definitions have been updated with information on the game so that it will be detected and deleted. The firm warned that third parties could alter the code to cause even more havoc than the game's creator intended.
Symantec video demonstrating Lose/Lose.