Don't you think there might be a danger in playing more and more realistic video games?... How will you make sure to stay in the real world after reaching the highest possible level of an almost perfect video game?
But why do I have to stay in the real world when I can be somewhere more fascinating and beautiful than my 3-square-meter room which I share with a few spiders?
Seriously though, I don't find it any more dangerous than becoming a cinephile. And nowadays, I often find my gaming experience to be more rewarding than what I can get with watching films.
And generally speaking, the kind of video games that I play is the least addictive kind. There are many different genres of video games nowadays and it's mostly those games in which you compete with other people to win that could be dangerously addictive. The interactive story games, on the other hand, are much less addictive because it's more or less like watching films and you are not even supposed to "win" anything.
It's just a different way of enjoying a fictional story, which can be much more immersive than other traditional media can be due to its highly interactive nature.
Furthermore, I regard those works of art which I've been fortunate to be able to enjoy, like songs, films, novels to be one of the most important reasons why I still find living worthwhile. It's just that in my case, the list also includes a few video games. Certain video games show originality and innovative ways of telling a story that I wouldn't hesitate to rank them among my favourite songs and films.
Such memories and sentiments I gathered from those works are something I value more than anything else and I wouldn't trade them even with a large sum of money.
Aesthetical or artistic values aside, I'm also much excited with the prospect what a VR device and future 3D technology could achieve in the realm of dark fantasies I enjoy. Just imagine you could vividly experience what it feels like being a slave girl or a victim of crucifixion (or an owner or an executioner, depending on your taste) without any real life consequences. Who wouldn’t want to have such an experience? (I mean among our members on CF, obviously
)
We almost have such a technology now, and even the current generation consumer grade VR device can make people immerse themselves into a virtual world so completely that they take it to be real. It’s not the graphics that can fool people in such a way as we don’t take such life like images we see on a TV screen for real, for instance. But when your whole peripheral vision is showing an image synchronized with your motions, our brain works in an interesting way to persuade us to take as the “reality”.
Add to that the ability to become a character in a fictional world and to talk and interact with other people or the environment, then probably a VR video game could be quite an addictive one, I have to admit.
But it’d be a sort of addiction which I would rather welcome than avoid, so I’m more excited than concerned of the prospect when it comes to the advancement of video games and the related technology.