Posted by One of my newfound privileges of running blog with a sizable audience is that I get invited to things. And sometimes it’s a thing where I don’t necessarily belong.
Case in point: E3.
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Last week the L.A. Convention Center hosted E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo), the world’s premiere trade show for computer and video games and related products, and I was there.
Here is what main entrance looked like when I walked in:
https://instagram.com/p/4AFWisQMa1
The spectacle of the south hall was something to behold, what with all the costumed characters, massive screens previewing new game releases, demoing stations, and pyrotechnics. Oh, and all the people.
The whole thing was an irresistible tornado of sight and sound.
Here is one of my favorite examples, the giant LEGO Hulk in front of the LEGO Avengers station:
https://instagram.com/p/4AJ4mHQMTD/?taken-by=welikela
Of course what really intrigued me was the VR (virtual reality) tech that was being demoed in the west hall of the convention center.
While I was there I met up with my friend Jonathan Nafarrete, who runs a blog called VRScout.com, and together we toured the VR demos in the west hall and talked a bit about the implications of evolving VR technology, from potential uses, the timeline for marketplace arrival and the economic forces that will truly bring VR to bare (ahem, adult entertainment…). Also, just that fact that VR tech is pretty damn cool.
Although I didn’t get to demo the stuff myself (the lines were ridiculous) I was able to watch the beads of sweat and the creased brows of the ‘players’ who did play this stuff, and let me say just from that, from my point of view watching their point of view, the experience seemed totally engrossing.
But don’t take my word for it.
Later in the week, one of Jonathan’s co-blogger’s for VRScout, Carly Chevalier, filed this report of herself testing out Capcom’s tech demo called Kitchen; a horror experience being previewed on Project Morpheus to demonstrate their new VR engine.
This was her visceral reaction to experiencing the demo…
http://vrscout.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Capcom_Kitchen_Demo_2.gif
In Carly’s write-up about her experience she discussed how the virtual environment designers used her senses to trick her mind. Lighting, space, sound, emotion… everything at their disposal:
They use this feeling of helplessness to their advantage throughout the demo, the worst part being that even if you closed your eyes it wouldn’t make it all go away.
Now imagine if they can add elements like taste, touch and smell? Imagine they could replicate our ‘reality’ in basically every single way.
I mean, not to get all Matrix-y and stuff here, but if technology creators could somehow perfectly mimic the experience of our ‘known’ reality, well… how would you know the difference?
And isn’t the logical conclusion of this kind of technology anyway? To create an experience that’s, by all human measures, totally indistinguishable from reality.
Or maybe I’m just rambling…
In any case, I’ll leave you with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMTkrIcg7x4
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