Widget concept – Visual

Poster ideas and general thoughts on paper

Our New Worlds

A couple of weeks ago I watched the talk “Earth in it’s final century?” by cosmologist Sir Martin Rees (view here). While it’s not related directly to video games, I found the speculation he made (approx. 6 mins in) fairly interesting;

“…our 3-dimensional universe may be embedded in a higher dimensional space… so there could be another universe, just a millimetre away from ours, but we are not aware of it because that millimetre is measured in some 4th spatial dimension and we’re imprisoned in our 3[rd dimension]. And so we believe that there may be a lot more to physical reality than what we would normally call our universe…”

(I had to copy this by ear, so some wording may be incorrect)

[Virtual worlds] may become just another place for the mind to be, a new and different Earth. (Castronova, 2005)

Hearing this made me think about MMORPGs and the virtual world. It made it much clearer to me; they are our self-made ‘universe’, an extension, or ‘parallel’ of our reality. No longer do people simply dream of doing the impossible – living in a different era, slaying monsters, being a different species, etc, they can actually experience these things. It may not be manifested physically before us, but the level of immersion that can be achieved in these virtual worlds (though we still have some way to go) is something more believable and real than our traditional means of ‘escape’. Virtual worlds not only place people within art, music and story, but allows them to interact and influence the world too.

People go to the synthetic world because it offers emotional joys that the Game of Life does not. The Game of Life, on Earth it seems, is not a very good game at all, at least not for some people. (Castronova, 2005)

With this thought, it does not surprise me that people are turning to virtual worlds, and some are becoming addicted. If you felt that some aspects of your life were dull, boring and unfulfilling, would you not look for an outlet to fill it with excitement and purpose again?

Two Worlds; the Buzz Lightyear Disneyland Attraction

A major theme in our research is the real world vs virtual world(s). I am interested in finding how these two environments influence one another and how they can be brought together.

The Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters attraction at Disneyland’s ‘Tomorrowland’ is a small-scale example of online and offline interaction.

At the attraction, guests ride a vehicle and are given a laser cannon to blast enemy targets and score points to defeat Evil Emperor Zurg.

An online version of the game allows gamers to connect to the Disneyland attraction and team up with guests on the ride. By rescuing characters in the online game, special targets light up in the theme park ride, giving the offline participants the opportunity to score more points and earn a high score.

In the book, Game Design; From Blue Sky to Green Light, Roger Holzberg (a Walt Disney Imagineer) talks about merging the two worlds in the Buzz Lightyear attraction;

“There clearly is a generation who grew up with video games, and video games are part of their language. And the Buzz Lightyear attraction talks that language like no other; it’s a ride through a video game. It became a compelling part of that experience to take this ride out into the virtual world.

“…the real world meets the virtual space and these two come together and play. Impacting the attraction during the course of play–well, it’s a very interesting phenomenon when you’re playing online. The online gameplay is a lot more robust and deeper, even though it’s the same length as the attraction gameplay in the ride.

“We …thought how cool it would be to play online where you match one-on-one with the players in the attraction. You’re teleported into a game where you are attached to a ride vehicle. So the players online are wedded with the players in real time, with exactly the same pace and speed as a ride vehicle at the park, and you have similar perspectives.”

Disneyland Park – Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters

Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters Online

Todd, D, 2007, ‘Game Design: From Blue Sky to Green Light’, A K Peters, Ltd., Wellesley, MA, pp. 37-38