Virtual gaming - reality or fantasy?

by Sam Fletcher - 2008/06/05 2:41am

Imagine it; you're playing the latest Grand Theft Auto in full VR. You put your special suit on, and enter the Holo-Bay. Within moments of starting the game up, you've jacked a car and are escaping a police car who saw you do the ill deed. As the chase continues you can't shake him, you get out of the car and put a double-barrelled blast of lead through his windscreen. You turn around only to get slammed into by another cop car, and wake up to find yourself outside the hospital, only for you to start the rampage all over again. You felt it all, you experienced it all, and it was you all the way.

It's an exciting prospect that many gamers would love to experience, but after a few minutes of logical thought, it seems that Virtual Reality is nothing more than Virtual Fantasy.

In this feature I am going to break apart VR, until it's nothing more than a gamers dream.

Pain
The first, and one of the more obvious problems with VR, is pain. Every punch, every bullet, every slip trip and fall, you'll feel it. If pain wasn't part of the game then it wouldn't be reality, it'd feel very fake indeed. But you couldn't include pain in a game could you. How horrible would it be to feel getting shot' If a game had water, could you drown' It would be pointless if not, but if you could, that would be just as bad.
Putting players in pain through a video game would be immoral from a developer's standpoint, they wouldn't... they couldn't put it in from a moral standpoint alone. Without it though, VR wouldn't feel real.

Trauma
The latest version of Resident Evil is out, and this time you're thrown into Racoon City. Escaping waves and waves of zombies and surviving is the aim of the game, but do you have the willpower to do it' Games can be scary enough, but with you as the main character, in a fully virtual world, that would take them to the next level. It could mentally scar people, and that's no joke.
Could you kill someone' Could you point a gun to their head, watch them break down in tears and still shoot them anyway. A VR game will put you in a situation like that, and that's enough to cause a lot of people serious anguish.

Skill
You're an average gamer, you don't know any fancy martial arts, hell, some of you may not even be able to drive a car. So what happens when the game puts you in a position where you have to kung-fu kick your way through a wave of ninjas' Simple, you won't be able to do it. The escapism factor of a game would be reduced to near zero if you couldn't advance because you don't have the real life skills, and that drastically cuts down the fun factor, not to mention your self esteem.

Innovation
How much can you do with a game, when the only character you've got to work with is a human' You can't put them in a crazy cartoony world without breaking the immersion. There'll be no Crash Bandicoots, no Spyros and no Little Big Planets. The innovation and originality would dry out pretty fast, and does making the game so you're a purple dragon break the reality too much? Would it even be possible to do?

Addiction
Think World Of Warcraft for a minute. Think of all the gamers dedicating their lives to it. It's all they do; it's their ultimate form of escape. Now if they could become those warriors, mages and rouges, would they ever want to leave the game' It may sound sad to some, but there are people who have died because they couldn't break away from video games. Given the opportunity to become these heroes, some may never want to look back.

Government and Media
If all else fails, you can count on the government and media to ruin VR gaming like no other. With all the bad press games are getting for sex scenes and violence, and how every politician is jumping on the 'blame the game' bandwagon, something as free and immersive as VR gaming would send them wet with excitement.
Governments would take all the points I've made and twist and spin them to the point where no game would be safe. It's sad to say it, but the ultimate thing stopping VR gaming, is a bunch on non-gamers who think they know better.

There is a slight ray of hope here. Tomorrows politicians and media are today's gamers. Maybe when this generation evolves into next, the stereotypical views will finally be put to rest.

Well there you have it. It wasn't a pretty read, but that' because it's the grim reality that the ultimate gaming experience, is nothing more than a dream.

Derek: I very much agree! This is why although I see VR as awesome, it would be a curse as well.

Resistance100: Great article, and i agree VR will always be something we want, but its just not fesable