Today’s augmented reality games are a fun affair, shoot a few aliens, blow up a few planes, or relax and put out a few fires all from the comfort of your own home. The only danger you face is banging your knee on a table as you turn around. But as technology gets more sophisticated and graphics get better, what are the implications of augmented reality games, will the technology make them to hot to handle?
When I brought an xBox some years back and played Grand Theft Auto III for the first time, I thought that some people would have problems separating real life from the game, or at least use it as an excuse in their defence come their day in court. Sure enough a few people went out on violence sprees and did exactly that and as a result the use of violence in video games came under the spotlight.
I love computer games as much as the next man but it’s going to be a scary world when computer games have photorealistic graphics and are blended with augmented reality. Take a look at the following video:
The future of AR gaming?
While it looks cool, (tell me you are not dreaming of AR Quake right now?) what are the implications for games here? On one hand you can’t halt the progress of video gaming because the graphics and therefore the violence gets too real, on the other hand will augmented reality gaming lead to an increase in violence because some people are unable to separate the two?
Filed under: AR Games |
Games Alfresco 
I dont think it works as an excuse really.
While, in theory, AR with perfect graphics and 100% opacity could fool you into thinking the real world is full of zombies or whatever……where did you get the real gun? why did you pick the real gun up? Surely you felt the difference? etc etc.
No, anyone with a real gun went to the effort of really getting it, really picking it up, and really loading it. Theres strong intentional actions there.
A more realistic scare-scenario perhaps is if AR Players are “set up” to commit real crimes by a 3rd party. Then any really dedicated gamer whereing specs 24/7 could be tricked into doing just about anything. (with significant effort by the 3rd party).
One easy solution I guess would be legaly limited AR Specs to only have (at best) 90% opacity of the overlay. So fiction can always be told from reality.
Great content & Wonderful a site…