Real & Virtual Consequences and Palmer’s Next Project
MoguraVR:
When did you learn about Sword Art Online?
Palmer Luckey:
Actually there is a connection to the Oculus Kickstarter. The week we launched the Kickstarter [in 2012] was actually the week when the third episode of SAO aired. The timing overlapped perfectly. I think that SAO made Oculus the focus of attention. At the same time Oculus might have made SAO even more popular by a small amount. Many people said that SAO seemed more realistic to them because of the existence of Oculus. Because Oculus’ existence VR didn’t feel like it was 20 or 30 years away. Many people thought that VR is going to become real in the near future.
During the Kickstarter I got hundreds of emails like: ‘Have you heard about the anime Sword Art Online?’, I still have people asking me that to this day [laughs]. I think over a thousand people have asked me about SAO so far.
MoguraVR:
It was pushed so hard that I actually watched it. I fell in love with it, Palmer what do you love about SAO?
Palmer Luckey:
[In deep thought] There are so many things I love about SAO. I think the part I liked the most was the result.
MoguraVR:
The result?
Palmer Luckey:
The setting of the VRMMORPG SAO was ‘If you die in-game you also die in the real world’. This setting became obvious right after the launch of SAO. This is a very extreme result. If a player makes the wrong decision he will have the result of his death. This is different to a normal game where you just shoot stuff, and it does not matter when you die because you can just respawn countless times.
Right after hearing the concept of SAO I was drawn to it. Even now after several years I am thinking about the concept of a game in which you have the same serious results in the real world as in the game world. It is going to cause a ‘real result’ which makes the game ‘real’. It is a game in which no mistake is allowed, you have to seriously think about everything.
MoguraVR:
I see…
Palmer Luckey:
[laughs] Do I sound like Kayaba Akihiko? [Akihiko is the villain of SAO who make the stakes life-or-death for the VR players]
MoguraVR:
Are you trying to say you want to be like him?
Palmer Luckey:
Just a little, just a tiny bit. I can understand what he was thinking. Kayaba created a game with a ‘serious result’ and wanted to see what would come of it. This is something no one has done so far in the real world.
MoguraVR:
Why are you so interested in ‘a serious result’? Do you want to know how humans will react put into such a situation?
Palmer Luckey:
That’s exactly it. In the real world everyone is making careful judgments. Because you do not want to die in a car crash you drive your car carefully. No one would drive a car in such a way in a game. But what if there were a game in which when you would make a mistake within, it would have a big gameplay impact. This factor would change the way you play the game a lot and would make it feel a lot closer to reality.
I think human beings want to live in a society that is careful. You would not want to live in a world without careful people. It would be a free but crazy world. In the movie The Matrix agent Smith says ‘The machine is trying to build the perfect world for humans.’ This Line is based on the idea that human beings need conflict and cannot obtain happiness without experiencing pain. Thus in the movie the machines create a world that continues to let humans experience pain.
I am not as insane as Smith [laughs], but I do think those words contain a bit of truth. I don’t think I want to live in a world in which humans control everything, without any serious results.
This concept of “serious results” is part of one of the projects I am working on. But I won’t talk about any details.
MoguraVR:
If such a game existed would there be anyone who would want to play it?
Palmer Luckey:
I think there would be people who would want to. Of course I don’t want to create a game in which players die in real life if they die in-game [laughs]. I think for something like this to become popular it must be something between current games and SAO.
MoguraVR:
Your next project sounds very intriguing.
Palmer Luckey:
It still is very early, so I can’t tell you any details, but it certainly will be exciting.
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More From ‘Palmer’s Post-Oculus Interview’ Series:
- Part 1: VR’s Mobile Future, Facebook, and Cosplay
- Part 3: Neural Links, Recording Memories, and Revolutionizing VR, Again
This article comes from MoguraVR, the exclusive Japan regional partner of Road to VR.