Virtual Identity
Once upon a time, I was reading manga!
I finished reading the first volume of Id_entity yesterday, a Korean one. The design was OK and the storyline was not that thrilling, but interesting. And there was a concept that I would like to talk about: the heroes of the story are engaged in an online game. It is based on virtual reality, really high-tech and it is naturally very addictive. They can even play while they sleep, but their responses are different from when they play awake.
The concept made me uncomfortable. I don’t know why. The heroes stated a couple of time how much better they feel in the game. They can be who they want and even alter their appearance. They fight monsters and have a life-time experience that the “real world” cannot offer them. They do go on with their life, but it seems that what they do in real life is also very relevant to the game as well. One of the heroes even falls in love with a computer-manipulated character…
I admit that I am completely understanding. My addictions (except for the one for caffeine) have always been some kind of virtual reality. I don’t know why the use of equipment made me feel so uneasy and nervous. But if the heroes were not so strong to beat up the monsters easily the story would even become angsty for me… Even if I am all for technology, and I understand how much it could offer to the thrill of the game, I felt there is something wrong with the situation.
And one last thing: when one of the two divas of the story, a singer, comments after a show that fans cannot understand how difficult it is to be on every night, I smirked. Oh, yes. Some of them do. No need to hide their sweat.
I finished reading the first volume of Id_entity yesterday, a Korean one. The design was OK and the storyline was not that thrilling, but interesting. And there was a concept that I would like to talk about: the heroes of the story are engaged in an online game. It is based on virtual reality, really high-tech and it is naturally very addictive. They can even play while they sleep, but their responses are different from when they play awake.
The concept made me uncomfortable. I don’t know why. The heroes stated a couple of time how much better they feel in the game. They can be who they want and even alter their appearance. They fight monsters and have a life-time experience that the “real world” cannot offer them. They do go on with their life, but it seems that what they do in real life is also very relevant to the game as well. One of the heroes even falls in love with a computer-manipulated character…
I admit that I am completely understanding. My addictions (except for the one for caffeine) have always been some kind of virtual reality. I don’t know why the use of equipment made me feel so uneasy and nervous. But if the heroes were not so strong to beat up the monsters easily the story would even become angsty for me… Even if I am all for technology, and I understand how much it could offer to the thrill of the game, I felt there is something wrong with the situation.
And one last thing: when one of the two divas of the story, a singer, comments after a show that fans cannot understand how difficult it is to be on every night, I smirked. Oh, yes. Some of them do. No need to hide their sweat.