A few bones to pick with VR

I’m on my way home from an interesting dinner discussion with a bunch of digital and social media folk. As tends to happen with this kind of get togethers, the time the conversation manages to last on non-work stuff isn’t very long. Despite all good intentions to learn about everyone’s kids and extra curricula activities, the chat tends to swing pretty quickly to the latest bug bears or exciting things happening in our industry.

Tonight, the conversation was dominated by, no surprises, Pokémon Go which became the door to all things VR.

Now, I’m not sure it’s really a “blog” if all I go on to do is ask questions. But as a heads up, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Largely because as the evening wound to a closed that was the main thing I was left with.

While I know the realities of this technology are a long way off and it will be many years before the cost of VR becomes realistic for people’s living rooms, there seem to be some things that are worth considering now because they’ll undoubtedly rear their heads in the future.

Cue: bleak questions.

Firstly, what happens if something goes wrong in a VR experience? Will our brains be able to distinguish between a real life memory and one that is created in a virtual environment?

If we consider the many different way people respond to real life events, it seems unlikely we will be able to control or standardise what happens in VR in a way that is safe for every user.

At some point the journey will go wrong for someone, so how do we prepare for the blending of real and unreal negative experiences?

The next is an extension of this thought. Like anything, brands will jump to get in on this new technology, so what are the ramifications for brands if something goes wrong during a user’s time in branded VR?

If we look at the types of things customers complain about or take offence to in the real world we are kidding ourselves if we think this won’t cross over into the virtual space. “Hey [brand] I’m offended by something I saw during a head set experience you are responsible for, compensate me.” Not exactly the most straightforward one for the legal team, that.

And lastly, (well I say lastly.. the list actually goes on and on but I’ll keep it to three for fear of actual brain implosion) what happens to our morals? Do we feel less accountable for our actions in a virtual environment because we are so divorced from any real life ramifications? Will the same thing that gives trolls their sense of allowance to be vile on the Internet be replicated on a much more physical scale?

It’s this last one that gets me the most because it seems to be the most mind bending of the lot. To think we could create a space that splits us so far from action and consequence is frightening to say the least. And if this seems like a far fetched prediction, just look at The Sims and Second Life. The impact these games had was huge. The immersion was so great that people went real-life broke and fell into mental health issues because they were acting in certain ways digitally that drove real life, irrational action. This alone is testament to the fact technology has the power to require our brains, emotions and motivations. So what do we do with that?

I’d say in probably going to spend a fair bit of time reading up on this stuff this weekend. I don’t expect I’m the only one to have pondered these things so I suspect I’ll find a few think pieces. There’s no doubt the way the world is going is exciting, but it’s balanced with an equal sense of “this is pretty freaky too how on earth are we going to cope?”

To be continued, I suppose.