DISQUS

Paul Buchheit: Ultra-immersive, long-form video games from the past or future

  • bayareaguy · 1 year ago
    Sounds like the plot for the movie existenz - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907
  • paulbuchheit · 1 year ago
    Yeah, that was a pretty cool movie. It's interesting to consider that our whole lives may be inside the game though, and what that means for any concept of reality.
  • Jonathan Ellis · 1 year ago
  • Robert Konigsberg · 1 year ago
    A 60-year old person will have lived for ~ 1 million half-hours. 100 hundred of those half-hours is 50 hour. That's probably the amount of time that I've spent playing Guitar Hero. And Halo. Maybe we're not so terribly different from millionarians (millionarians?!).

    Some thoughts: Would we evolve in such a way as to be disinterested in the style of drama that makes games (and movies) of interest today? Life is typically boring, who wants to be entertained by that? Would people be interested in the latter part of the 100-year-old game, if the game involved slow, debilitating death? The kinds of things these people would care about, maybe I couldn't begin to understand. Except Global Warming. These people would be _definitely_ care about Global Warming.

    Something else that lasts 50 half-hours: the first season of Lost. Longer if you watch the bonus features.

    One final thought: I agree strongly with your last sentence. I would add that everyone creates their own reality, due to and in spite of everything that goes on around them. If I'm a figment of someone else's imagination, and he or she is completely immersed in me for the next several years, here's a message for that person: "I hope I don't let you down, and I really hope you arranged for someone else to pay your electric bill."

    Robert

    PS go back to sleep or we'll have to disconnect you from the matrix and flush your pod.
  • Philipp Lenssen · 1 year ago
    "So what will million-year old people do to manage their boredom?"

    I'm reminded of a nice sci-fi short story about a man who can see nothing but darkness for what seems to be eternity, and the way he creates a whole world in his mind. Won't give away the surprise end though!
  • Robert Konigsberg · 1 year ago
    Philipp, which story is it?
  • zvikico · 1 year ago
    I recently came back to playing Diablo II. For me, it is totally immersive. It has the correct level of sophistication, it's fun and addictive. Sure, the graphics are really basic compared to what we have today, but I like it anyway.

    Besides, I don't need a multi GPU powered workstation to run it at highest settings. I can even play it on virtualized Windows on my Mac (well, almost, the graphics are a bit buggy).
  • pessimist · 1 year ago
    more likely: this planet is not going to last for a thousand more years. humans will spend their long lifetimes in suspended animation on long-haul space exploration flights. i'm not sure how the internet is going to work in that reality.
  • Yep · 1 year ago
    You're a weird man.
  • RichKatz · 1 year ago
    Paul

    I have a question about GMail. Do you know who I could direct question to? The question is, does GMail have any plans to deal with some of the Style elements? A number of our users on GMail and we want to give them the best possible service and advice for using e-mail clients with our business.

    Thank you.

    Regards,

    Rich Katz
  • billy12345 · 1 year ago
    what kind of video games should we be playing???
    ...and how long should we play them???
  • skmurphy · 1 year ago
    "We are not human beings have a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  • jack · 10 months ago
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