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Someone Will Die Playing a Game In Virtual Reality
SlappingOysters writes: Grab It has detailed a hands-on session with horror VR title Kitchen — from Resident Evil creator Capcom — and argues how the physical reaction to the experience could lead to death. The site also believes that classifying VR games will be a challenge and many titles could be banned. Virtual Reality has a big year ahead, with the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus all set to release, while Microsoft is working on the HoloLens, which the site argues adds a further challenge to traditional gaming.
I cannot talk for other countries, but in Australia, a rating is determined by the impact a piece of media has over a range of categories. The impact of the experience described in this article would be extreme. That would suggest Refused Classification (which is basically banned). It will be interesting to see how these titles fit into the classification in tough countries like Australia and Germany - people could be hard at work right now on games that won't be allowed to be released (legally at least) in many countries.
> Someone may die playing a game
> Some VR games may be banned under some nebulous concept of too much immersion
Ahhh, lawyers. Is there nothing you can't invent ways for corporations to throw money at you over?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Finally, a way to be rid of noobs for good.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
This article was brought to you by the makers of quality monitors, that are all you need, and do not cause your brain to melt like goggles do.
Something along the lines of "you understand that beyond this point there are real dangers beyond the reasonable or desirable control of society and assume responsible responsibility for your own well being."
I can't believe all the stupid shit that is banned or that people have to be warned about because they're just that stupid. My personal favorite was a waiver I had to sign before using an ice rink. It literally was about absolving the rink from responsibility should I slip on the ice and fall... as well getting my initials next to a statement where they inform me that ice is slippery and they wanted it on record that I had been informed of that.
And that sort of thing is just everywhere.
My big issue with these rating systems is not that they exist. I think ratings are fine. My issue is that some countries take the step that if something gets a bad rating or refuses to be rated... that they presume to BAN whatever it is. That's not acceptable. By all means... slap warning labels on things.
I'd like a universal one that just basically reads "for adults only"... and then I'd put that on everything. Anyone that can't handle it will be assumed to be a child... even if they're 40 years old... and will be asked to go back to the various kiddy pools where they'll be kept safe from the big bad world.
Can a VR game scare the piss out of you? Sure. A survival horror game can do that already without VR. And if you have a heart condition or something then there are already games that can kill you. But it isn't the game killing you... its your fucking heart condition. And if you have one... maybe you should be smart enough to not play a game that is guaranteed to scare a little pee out of you.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If you die in the matrix, you die in real life.
...and the extreme speed of trains will of course also kill you.
640k ought to be enough for anyone.
There is no evidence that anyone wants one of these new fangled mouse pointing devices.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
What if you're playing a virtual reality game, click logout, and the system says "I can't let you do that, Dave" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Someone Will Die Playing a Game while walking across the street.
Sorry, this is just bullshit!
Sorry for the bad news, VR is a niche and will never take off as a mainstream thing in gaming
It's a niche market currently. As soon as more goggles (or whatever they'll be called) become available, and especially low cost versions become available, that will change. At that point they will be able to be used for more than just gaming. Who wouldn't want to be able to carry around their own movie screen? I'm sure some sort of WiFi (HDMI wireless or something) screen sharing won't be too far behind at that point either.
History is full of people saying things will fail that are now commonplace. How many people said the iPod or iPad would be a flop? People said the same about the GUI, homeless carriage, and any number of things.
I just hope that automatic updates (water and food, for example) are provided.
Errr... wtf is a "homeless carriage"? (honestly, I've never heard of that term)
Horror movies used to have these warnings, and like this one, they were nothing but marketing.
Here's a poster from an old William Castle horror flick where they promise to insure you for $1000 against death by fright.
https://mattmulcahey.wordpress...
And you know what? I bet at some point someone died of natural causes by watching a movie, just as someone will die of natural causes from watching a VR game. Nobody's going to "die of fright" from playing a CAPCOM horror game.
Also, in popular culture a "ban" is almost always a great way to promote sales. CAPCOM's just trying to sell some video games with a more sophisticated, up-to-date version of, "If you have heart disease or are weak of constitution, you should DEFINITELY NOT see this film!".
You are welcome on my lawn.
In the war on ISIS, we've been on the losing end b'cos the Iraqi cowards have fled leaving US given weapons to ISIS, who are even better armed than before, despite the loss of their ability to sell Syrian oil.
So how about this idea - instead of our weaponry, sell or give such VR games to the Iraqis (and Syrians) on the newer frontlines. They will flee, leaving those toys in the hands of ISIS. ISIS volunteers will play those games just out of curiousity or b'cos they want to, and drop dead! In fact, w/ some luck, such success could even spread to other Islamic groups, such as Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, al Qaeda, et al
News at eleven: a person doesn't like VR, comes up with excuses for justifying asserting his opinion as a global fact.
Is that all?! That's a bit of a letdown.
To paraphrase South Park... "Anime did it!"
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
If can be done, someone will do it, no matter how brilliant or stupid it is.
Nothing like advertising: "Someone actually died from playing this game, causing it to be banned in 12 states" to ensure it'll be the top ranking game for months to come.
It could be true. In which case - don't play VR games on rooftops or in traffic. Or get a life.
Some inveterate gamers are not social outcasts. I know someone who met one.[/sarcasm]
I think that's still pretty far in the future. We don't really understand the brain enough to do that.
And even if we did there are legal, health and general safety issues that need to be explored beforehand.
People die playing 'regular' games because they forget to eat etc.
That's why the sandwich was invented (just like Columbus discovered North America and Cook discovered Australia).
This is exactly the kind of fearmongering clickbait that the Slashdot of old was not subject to and its editors didn't fall for. If I would want to read crap like this I'd visit Kotaku, Gawker or Polygon.
You're not from around here are you? That, or your memories are damaged - 'cause ten years ago we did get this sort of bullshit ('course we didn't call it click-bait then - just spam).
Hello ? Smartphone, tablet, laptop, portable DVD players, ...
I don't like wearing glasses. But what I really don't like is wearing bulky glasses. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this sentiment.
And the line of vaporware wraps a few times around the earth.
What about rickshaw businesses run by homeless people ?
I think we will see somebody complain about getting raped by such a game.
Let's not get carried away here. You can always remove the head gear or turn-off the device. Although I can see some complaining anyway.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Valar Moredupe-is.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Because golf, bowling, hunting, soccer, kayaking, and blackjack/hookers have had quite a lot of people drop dead on the fly.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Surely there would already be a long list of people who have died while watching TV, playing videogames, or putzing around on the phone while sitting on the couch; at least if such incidents weren't(while individually tragic), so boring that nobody has bothered to compile a list?
This is not to say that highly immersive simulations are riskless; I'd personally want to be either sitting down, or in a decent sized room with no sharp-edge furniture and ideally a cushy carpet if I were going to play some VR horror sim that is likely to cause me to jump wildly and potentially fall over; but that's basically the same precaution I would apply to playing some Wii kiddie game that involves flailing around wildly so the accelerometers pick up my input.
Given that you are, effectively, blindfolded; and being fed spurious(relative to the room you are actually in) visual stimuli; VR gaming is going to require more caution than flat screen gaming, especially if standing up and moving around are involved; but "VR: It's So Scary You'll Die in Real Life!!!" doesn't seem like a major issue.
we would just need to have a new rating system... the systems we have are retarded. esrb is a bunch of assholes who just shake down companies for money.
In John Carmack's in-depth critique of a horror genre GearVR game https://www.facebook.com/perma... he too had a thought that people will die from VR: 'Some of the scares are just perfect â" walking along, see a table off to the side, turn to pick up loot, turn back to carry on, and *JESUS CHRIST*!!! Someone is going to have a heart attack in a VR horror game, it is only a matter of time. There were also times when I was legitimately afraid for a minute or two, since I really didnâ(TM)t know what the rules of the environment were. When I did get jumped, I desperately wanted an endurance limited sprint option instead of the nightmare slowness of normal walking speed, but there would be VR comfort issues to consider.'
I wouldn't be surprised if someone did something stupid and died.
Be seeing you...
I remember buying Grand Theft Auto 5 the day of its release and jumping right in. I loved all of the features and the advancement of the game. The story was great, but it felt shorter than the previous games especially San Andreas.
I went online and saw some people mentioning all of the mini games. "Go buy in game stock! Go do Yoga/tennis/pimp out your car/go do multiplayer."
Multiplayer! Awesome, just what I needed. However, GTA 5 multiplayer has so many stupid rules. You're telling me if i steal someone's car and blow it up it'll cost me money to replace it? The last kicker was the cost of property. $1.5 million for houses. Your mission payouts are only $1000 a pop too.
What's the point in grinding for all of this pointless crap in a video game when i can do all of this outside in the real world and grind for real? VR offers more of the same. So you spend 500 hours playing mini games in some VR Los Santos. What do you really have to show for it?
TL;DR: young guy realized that real life is the ultimate video game and went outside.
that's the plot of Gemini Game by Michael Scott (published in 1997)
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Long before somebody dies because of playing a VR game, I think we will see somebody complain about getting raped by such a game.
That's already happened. Haven't you played ET for the 2600? Totally raped me.
Not from some lame VR game, but because people will become disoriented, trip over something and smash their heads in.
To me this sounds like the not uncommon hype that seems to follow the release of indifferent 'horror' movies. Like the one called something like 'The Human Centipede', which was supposed to be the most incredibly extreme horro movie ever. Only, it turned out to be a flop, hardly worth a shrug, something that could have been thought up by a couple of teen-agers and filmed on a smartphone.
I don't know, maybe I've grown too critical with age - I've stopped having night-mares because I tend to wake up and think "What is this crap?" because the story is too thin and the effects are unrealistic.
Actually, the question is going to be whether VR kills more people, or saves more people, or has no statistical effect. People die at fairly predictable rates, so if you have a given number of people you can assume that a certain number of them will drop dead if you let them sit around long enough. But wait, the kind of people who go to any particular event will skew the results considerably; the death rate at Burning Man is below the national average in spite of it being more dangerous conditions than average, probably due to the particular nature of the people who go. If you're ill and/or infirm, you're less likely to go in the first place.
If VR kills anyone it's going to be because their display crashed or freaked and they walked off a roof or into traffic. Don't play VR games on the roof or near a road unless there's a good fence, railing, etc., problem solved.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Someone will die NOT playing a game in virtual reality, too. Let's classify and regulate reality, too.
>I'm building useful skills,
useful???
The overwhelming majority of the population gets through their entire lives without finding jumping out of a perfectly good airplane "useful" . . . :)
hawk
Errr... wtf is a "homeless carriage"? (honestly, I've never heard of that term)
It's the name of the folder that my spell check program is installed in. ;-)
Now write the screenplay!
No news. Adding death warnings to labels on scary things has been an advertising gimmick since at least the 50's.
Seizure problems with video games have been a thing since video games have been a thing. I can rember a friend's stepdad in the 80's having seizure issues with video games. Did that make him stop? No, he still loved playing. He made a choice to do it.
Do we ban every form of entertainment that has flashy lights because there are some people that just can't resist? Or do we make sure that products with this are still labeled correctly? Maybe we should even fund research into seizures and curing the problem?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
"If you die in the game (or a dream), you die in real life" is one of the most tired plot devices in fiction. It's on my short list of things that will make me stop reading a book, along with "hero loses their powers" and "best friend becomes worst enemy".
You really think that is that far-fetched when we have actual proof that guys are being expelled from colleges even after the so-called "victim" is on tape admitting that they are only upset because she thought the one night stand was the beginning of a relationship and he thought it was a one night stand. Rape after the fact is very real so I don't see why this scenario would be any different.
Dear coward, there are 15 stories listed on /. these days, there were 10 then (no need to reach for your calculator - that's 50% more). Compare apples with oranges much?
The 15 stories in your first link include how many that use drama and rhetoric to direct readers to advertising driven sites that have merely reposted stories from elsewhere? Or do you consider a "story" about the fucking muppets something that wouldn't get rightfully slammed as clickbait spam if it was run today - you muppet.
Today's stories:-
I guess you'd call them all click-bait huh? No - what percentage then?
From the archived page you reference - fourth story, about fucking muppets, (which may be too personal for you to call it clickbait). "This Week's Episode - Will War of the Worlds' aliens scare off our cranky coots? Will Bewitched be the end of Will? Plus, Pepe the Prawn begs Miss Congeniality to cuff him.". 10% bin-spam I'd of called it then. Now it's just over-hyped bullshit that doesn't belong on /. (that's long hand for click-bait).
More ads - yeah, more troll posters, yeah, are the stories generally lower quality since Cowboy left, yeah. Do I think the current "story" about leased LEDs is spam - yeah (that's why I block all that shit). Are more people submitting spam as stories - yeah. Are people using comment to promote their products (like a recent scifi "writer and his sockpuppets) yeah. Are a huge percentage of so-called stories on the wider internet (from which /. sources it's stories) clickbait - absolutely. Are as many people using Firehose - no, and they don't seem to mark much as bin-spam.
Face it, Paco.
Go fuck yourself with a garden tool you moronic bigot.
And because you can always remove the head gear or turn-off the device, of course actual rape victim simulators will spring up, just like zombie attack simulators have. We know they will, because they alrady do, even in text adventure form. Players will claim it's just a game rendered harmless by the player being in control, and could even have therapeutic use, while naysayers will claim it's effective propaganda for rape culture precisely because it renders rape "harmless", and both will be entirely right.
So yes, people will complain, and those complaints can't be just summarily dismissed. There are issues at stake here which are extremely relevant to the dawning Information Age: are progandists blameless for the results of their propaganda just because their propaganda has artistic or entertainment value? To what extent are people responsible for their internalized cultural values, or for being unaware of them? At what point does making other's suffering your entertainment make you a villain?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Long before somebody dies because of playing a VR game, I think we will see somebody complain about getting raped by such a game.
We won't know the specifics of the situation until it actually happens, but I hypothesize that it will involve a very outspoken, left-leaning, college-educated (some strain of sociology, most likely) woman in her early 20s. She will likely be somewhat overweight, but not obese, and otherwise very unremarkable. Because of her obnoxious, self-righteous attitude, her obsession with "social causes", and her average physique, she will attract the attention of very few males. The only ones she will interact with will be weak-willed, soft man-boys she met at her college, who likely exhibit latent homosexuality. As a result, she will be deprived of the typical sexual interaction and pleasure that normal women receive.
This woman will try on a virtual reality headset. She will play a fairly typical game. It may be some form of 3D sudoku, most likely. But the experience will be traumatic to her, for some reason. She will convince herself that she was violated and molested. She will go to the media with her story. She will be on every morning show, talking about her harrowing experience. She will have newspaper columns written about her. Twitter will be on fire. She will have become The First Victim of Virtual Reality Rape.
Too late
Japan released an arcade game that has you rape an ass.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
It was about full brain recording and playback, kind of a super VR that Mark Zuckerberg talked about this week. (plot of many scifi stories)
In the movie someone dies during a recording session. Then it becomes a tug of war for the recording between police who are investigating a suspicious death and scientists who want to see if there is life after death.
Plus there is an ironic twist that the lead actress dies of a drowning "accident" during the filming. But some people dont believe it was accident and the debate resurfaces periodically. The lead actress is Natalie Wood, who played the little girl in Miracle on 34th Street and Maria in West Side Story.
Hello ? Smartphone, tablet, laptop, portable DVD players, ...
I don't like wearing glasses. But what I really don't like is wearing bulky glasses. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this sentiment.
And the line of vaporware wraps a few times around the earth.
People don't like bulky glasses like they don't like bulky computers that take up a whole room, bulky mobile phones that take a car battery to run them, bulky laptops that... actually, they seem pretty good at taking these bulky devices people don't like and making them lighter. My new watch is half the bulk of my old one, and has a computer in it that does all sorts of wonderful stuff...
tl;dr version: Complaining that a new tech is 'bulky'? That's going to make the entire technology into vaporware?
Your reasoning might need to reevaluate what you can find out about previous technologies as wholes, and how they tend to progress.
If VR fails (doubtful, but possible), 'too bulky' is not going to be the reason why.
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.