Let's be honest. FIRST game hints can be kind of lame and pointless. I usually avoid them like the plague. However this year I'm intrigued by a couple parts.
1. The ciphertext of the hint consists of the first 52 digits of Pi. Kudos to everyone who figured this out on their own, and also to the GDC for using substitution scheme that looks considerably harder than it actually is to decrypt.
(Of course, consider a different possibility. In cryptography, if you can break a code/cipher really easily, it often has meant that someone has intentionally tried to lead you down the wrong road to distract you.)
2. There's lots of speculation that the first two lines of the decrypted poem refer to the 90's song "Kiss From A Rose" by Seal. I really hope this is true, just because it means that someone on the GDC enjoys 90's pop culture as much as I do. Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMD2TwRvuoU
As mentioned by a few of you, this song was on the
Batman Forever soundtrack, which is a fairly underrated album. The roster of artists is pretty darn impressive, spreading the gamut of musical genres. U2, Method Man of the Wu-Tang Clan, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Brandy, Massive Attack, Seal, etc. Kiss From A Rose went on to win multiple Grammys, while Seal went on to bigger and better things, namely marrying Heidi Klum.
As for Batman Forever, I highly suggest that those of you who've grown up on the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, go and check this movie out. It's pretty much the exact opposite of the new Batman movies. It's more of a comedy than an action movie (as suggested by Jim Carrey's presence in the film), and seems downright campy by today's standards.
What does any of this have to do with the actual game hint? Probably nothing at all. Game Hints are usually lame and pointless; I just wanted to had some context to the discussion.