The more I reflect on the time I spent as a games programmer, the more I am appalled at digital technology in general. For instance, when playing games, one of the most common problems that people face is that of sore eyes. In fact, I distinctly being told to ‘remember to blink’ in order to not have sore eyes myself — particularly when playing games.
Of course, this is a problem that only exists in the digital world where the Mind is completely dominant. That it does so in such a way that it can override basic physiological functions, such as blinking, is amazing.

However, when writing games:
– I also simulated ‘passages of time’ by changing the coloring of the screen.
– I also changed the players heartbeat by changing the tempo of the music.
– I also stimulated emotional response by choosing louder & more chaotic music when the onscreen interactions increased (eg baddies nearby).
– One game made war ‘glorious’ and tournament based (that is, a leaderboard of winning and losing countries)
– for some market segments we changed red blood into green so that we could ‘get around’ age restriction laws in some countries.
– etc, etc.

This was back in the 90’s.

‘Virtual Reality’ is all that kids know these days. Every interaction with a digital device is seemingly done so to illicit an emotional response in the user. It’s very sad, and I am ashamed to have had any part in it.

In fact, most popular websites also try to turn themselves into a game for reasons of user engagement. It’s called ‘gamification’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification. eg Facebook and how many ‘friends’ you have. The survival of any software product these days involves regular updates, otherwise it is interpreted as being ‘stale’ /’out of date’. Even a simple forum has it (new users vs regular users).

And then we also have a name of the mother – the name Isis – with a new disturbing connotation around terrorism and the real life targeting and killing of people.

Totally have to agree there. Words of meaning and real importance are given a new connotation to what they actually mean. Imagine speaking about our spiritual father and returning to him, meanwhile those who have played the game wonder with their mind to the last battle they played in Father.io. The battle on consciousness seems to be on many fronts.

As far as I know, the game supposed to go live in August but that date is delayed. I’ll be interesting to follow this one and see how well it is received by the public. By the looks of it, augmented reality gaming is in its early stages and developers are testing the waters. As such hardware is made available in different forms, I believe the boundaries between the real and the game world will fade slowly.

That’s a pretty disturbing preview. Even the name given to such an app, “Father”, is weird and distorted.

Thanks for sharing that Roy, I think 🙂 Watching that demo trailer gave me a really bad ‘taste in the mouth’, not sure if it was because of the increased likeliness of more of this stuff becoming popular in the future or merely the energy coming off of it thinking it’s cool with the added music etc.

Not sure if this particular one took off, but I’m sure in the future these apps will develop more and more using the combination of technologies found in a phone.

The name also seems a bit strange or profane to me. Putting that onto a game where you’re ‘shooting’ fellow humans.

The Father.io app is pretty full on. I can imagine the type of things happening to people with Pokemon Go will get worse and happen more frequently with a game like that as there is the added anxiety / excitement that will come along with it and get people more absorbed. I can see people running into other people / traffic / stationary objects etc. more and more frequently.

It seems it could also be harmful in that you’re no longer “killing” video game characters, you’re hunting real people. I wonder what sort of crossover that would have to real life.

I know what you mean. When I was younger I used to play video games for hours at a time, especially the Super Mario Bros. series until I finally realized the amount of time I was wasting staying indoors staring at a screen rather than doing necessary things such as homework, chores and getting a healthy dose of sunshine and fresh air outside.

But the Pokémon Go game takes people’s addiction for a virtual distraction to another level. Some of the things I’ve heard users tell me about why they like it: they are getting some form of exercise by taking their devices on walks outside and some believe it allows them to be more interactive with other people, mainly strangers, that they would not normally meet.

Personally, I think it sets a dangerous precedent for people to regard it as a socially-acceptable form of entertainment for several reasons. I’ve seen how crazed some children can get trying to “catch” and collect as many Pokémon characters (short for “pocket monsters” that carry many different, eye-brow raising “attributes”) as they can. Aside from the number of reported injuries (accidents, falls, etc.) and incidents where several unconscientious people were being targeted by criminals, it’s an invasion of one’s privacy as it uses a mobile device’s GPS to track down a person’s activities while using the game (someone recently told me that they had awaken to suddenly find five virtual Pokémon creatures “floating” around in their bedroom).

I find it interesting that the game’s concept and incentive is to make people “be more active in the real world”. I think it does quite the opposite: it’s a tool, in my opinion, that encourages people to blur the lines between reality and fantasy.

According to the developers of the hardware, these times of games are just the beginning and in the future other developers will be allowed to write games too. According to the makers Father.io will launch this autumn. Here’s a preview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUhUzUWOIug

Now who hasn’t enjoyed playing a good game of laser tag and it gives you some good exercise. But I have to agree with Blake here that the constant engagement in entertainment and tech harms our overall perception/awareness of reality and reduces our attention span and focus. With our mind scattered and our emotions on a roller coaster, how is anyone able to perceive the more mystical side of life and perceive beyond the five senses?