02 Video Games and Virtual Worlds
In a mere 40 years, we've gone from the blocky pixels of Space Invaders to the sweeping landscapes of Skyrim in virtual reality. Video games are a unique medium, in that they are only as old as the current generation playing them. And their accelerating immersion begs important questions about future shock. How much time will we be spending in virtual worlds 10 years from now? And when virtual spaces become indistinguishable from physical ones (via sensory augmentation, etc.), would we ever want -- or need -- to leave?