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Could VR and Gaming Addiction Be a Dangerous Combo?

Could VR and Gaming Addiction Be a Dangerous Combo?

With Microsoft HoloLens , VR, and the conversation bot tech out there, Star Trek ‘s Holodecks are clearly a real possibility. If this technology were to become mainstream, the gaming industry would change a great deal, and games themselves would become an entirely different experience. However, with such technology creating a progressively more personal experience, we must keep in mind that games will be more addictive than ever.

The changes in the game industry would be drastic indeed. Though console games would likely still exist for quite some time as such complete immersion into a game might not be for everyone. Holodecks would be a very different game experience than the current options, with your computer, holding a controller and 8 feet away from a TV, or wearing a set of heavy goggles for VR. All that Holodecks require is to simply walk into a specific room and you’re in the game. This difference is not small, as the very ability to hold or feel a medium allows most players to realize that it’s just game, it’s not real. Remove that medium however, and it would be nigh effortless to confuse fantasy with reality. Now, it’s ridiculously easy to trick the human brain. Bright lights in your peripheral vision are due to the rods (cells sensitive to light) in your eye being clustered around the cones (cells sensitive to colour). You can be tricked into neglecting “unnecessary” information, like in Jason Silva’s photo . Again, it would be all too easy for a Holodeck to trick your brain into thinking the game is real life. As such, game addiction would be at an all time high – even at the risk of starvation.

Not even where Holodecks are the norm is addiction unaddressed. In Star Trek: The Next Generation , Lieutenant Reginald Barclay struggles to come to terms with his Holo-addiction in the episode Hollow Pursuits . Getting out of his addiction seems almost impossible, as it takes another few episodes before he is truly free of its vice. Such intense immersion as a Holodeck can turn a lot of normal games today, like Far Cry and Fallout , into horror stories with players leaving the game with PTSD. The experience is real enough that such trauma is a reality that must be acknowledged and kept in mind while creating games for a Holodeck.

Mind you, not all games for a Holodeck would have to be apocalyptic war zones like Fallout . Where Star Trek was obsessed with the past, I think we would be obsessed with the future. No Man’s Sky would take on amazing detail and probably be the basis of most Holodeck games. Open worlds about exploration would allow people to experience what is limited by modern space technology. Walking through nebulas and watching the birth of a star would only be one of the wonders we could witness up close. Such a degree of fantasy, certainly, could be used to combat game addiction. However, even a high-fantasy game like World of Warcraft was one of the first online games to introduce game addiction to the world.

Could VR and Gaming Addiction Be a Dangerous Combo?

Holodecks are a real possibility for our future, and though such complete immersion would be a lot of fun, we should be cautious. Game addiction would be more of a threat than before because the human brain’s susceptibility to being tricked. Thus, the games we make should take that into account and be aware that some games might need trauma warnings for some players. Nonetheless, a future Holodeck sounds totally awesome and I can’t wait until VR and HoloLens get there.

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