Video games can alter reality
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Video games can alter reality
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Re: Video games can alter reality
#2From what I understand the tetris effect is not caused by the video game itself, but by playing it for an inordinate amount of time. The "tetris effect" has been there way before tetris, any monotonous activity done for an excessive amount of time will cause a tetris effect (i think a lot of people are familiar with hypnagogic hallucinations while falling asleep after driving all day, for example).
Re: Video games can alter reality
#3Interesting, anecdotally I would say all my more serious gaming friends hit this at some point. But it takes serious consecutive hours in game.
Something interesting about VR gaming is the very heightened sense of spatial involvement. If I play a game on the screen I remember it as if I played it on a screen. But if I play in VR my instinct when reflecting on it is that I was there, in the game world. It can feel silly to talk about with people who don't play VR, but all the ways in which you remember experiences in the real world are the same. When you talk about it you can't disconnect them without just adding "in VR" to the end of everything. It's never that your character did the thing, it was you, you were there.
I've had the opportunity to drive on race tracks that exist both in VR and in real life and the spatial relationship is 1:1. So your brain is blending the two experiences seamlessly as you drive around, and you apply all the same spatial cues from VR onto the real world.
Re: Video games can alter reality
#4interesting. sounds a lot like something i experienced for a long time, where i was unable to differenciate between dreams and reality
Re: Video games can alter reality
#5the photo of the gameboy playing tetris in this article is so iconic. I can feel the gameboy in my hands right now.
Re: Video games can alter reality
#6My friend Dave Taylor (programmer on Doom / Doom 2 / Quake / Abuse) was famous for marathon gaming sessions when he was at id. He told me it almost killed him after a session because he was driving and saw what he thought was a Quake rocket ammo box and he instinctively swerved the car at speed to "pick it up", but it was in fact a concrete pylon securing a guardrail by a drop-off. He narrowly swerved back into the road.
On a lighter note, I played far too much GTA: Vice City on PS2 in college, to the point that when driving in real life I forgot to check my side and back mirrors at stop signs, and instead realized I was squeezing my middle fingers on the steering wheel instead of turning my head to look.
Re: Video games can alter reality
#7There are lots of other non-videogame related versions of this too! The one I'm probably most familiar with is Parkour Vision, where practicing parkour enough leads you to view the environment completely differently, seeing a kash vault here, a kong to precision there. It's quite enjoyable! I imagine skaters have a similar thing. From the little bit of skating that I did I mainly just got to appreciating smooth areas of road or path.
On the game side of things, the strongest I've ever got this was during/after playing The Witness. It's an incredible (and incredibly addictive) puzzle game that will have you seeing puzzles everywhere in the real world if you play it enough. The game even alludes to this effect in one of the endings!
Re: Video games can alter reality
#8My friend Dave Taylor (programmer on Doom / Doom 2 / Quake / Abuse) was famous for marathon gaming sessions when he was at id. He told me it almost killed him after a session because he was driving and saw what he thought was a Quake rocket ammo box and he instinctively swerved the car at speed to "pick it up", but it was in fact a concrete pylon securing a guardrail by a drop-off. He narrowly swerved back into the r…
Even closer to the mark—I used to play Carmageddon with some of the engineers at Apple when work was wrapping up for the day. Yeah, you had to come down from that very quickly when you got into your actual car then to begin the commute home.
Re: Video games can alter reality
#9From what I understand the tetris effect is not caused by the video game itself, but by playing it for an inordinate amount of time. The "tetris effect" has been there way before tetris, any monotonous activity done for an excessive amount of time will cause a tetris effect (i think a lot of people are familiar with hypnagogic hallucinations while falling asleep after driving all day, for example).
Sure, factory work can be the same.
Re: Video games can alter reality
#10[deleted]