"Raise The Stakes" — This VR Headset Can Actually Kill You If You Lose In A Game
Experience points to gain, but everything to lose.
By Alia Kamelia — 10 Nov 2022, 11:25 AM
Palmer Luckey, an American entrepreneur who created the Oculus Virtual Reality (VR), recently came up with a new VR headset that can actually kill you in-game
Luckey created the headset to commemorate the anime Sword Art Online that explored the concept of a futuristic era where you can die in a virtual reality world.
In 2014, he sold his company, Oculus, to Facebook for USD2 billion (RM9.4 billion) which soon became the core idea and foundation behind Mark Zuckerberg's rebranding to Meta in pursuit of achieving the metaverse (or virtual reality universe), according to Yahoo!Finance.
The VR headset is a spin-off of Meta's headset, Meta Quest Pro, but with three explosive-charged modules installed
"The idea of tying your real life to your virtual avatar has always fascinated me — you instantly raise the stakes to the maximum level and force people to fundamentally rethink how they interact with the virtual world and the players inside it," the creator said in a blog post.
The charges itself are aimed at the user's forebrain and will kill them if it detonates. Luckey chose to reveal his invention this year on 6 November, which is the date when the SAO Incident happened in the anime where a mad scientist trapped thousands of VR gamers inside a death game escapable only through completion.
For now, it's only a "piece of office art" and a "thought-provoking reminder of unexplored avenues in game design"
Sword Art Online's protagonist, Kirito, wearing a Nerve-Gear unit that inspired Luckey's invention.
Image via Sword Art Online Wiki - Fandom"Pumped up graphics might make a game look more real, but only the threat of serious consequences can make a game feel real to you and every other person in the game. This is an area of video game mechanics that has never been explored, despite the long history of real-world sports revolving around similar stakes," he said.
