No, this headline does not depict Mark Zuckerberg completely going insane in his quest for the metaverse.
It’s like Sword Art Online again
Instead, we are referring to Palmer Luckey, the original founder of Oculus VR, who sold his business to Facebook and has since focused mostly on national security technology.
Although he has recently had nothing to do with Zuckerberg’s stumbling metaverse goals, this does not stop him from continuing to do strange, and in this case, absolutely mad, things with VR.
According to Luckey, a gamer who dies in a video game will be killed by a special VR headgear he has created. in a literal sense. You’ll die from it.
Luckey discusses how he created a Sword Art Online-inspired “you die in the game, you die in real life” headset in his blog post about the headset.
In that series, players must either find a method to win or escape from a massive, realistic VR battle sim where dying in the game will actually kill them because they are wearing “NerveGear” technology. A VR headset fitted with charges that will explode and “destroy the user’s brain” if they cause a “appropriate game over” screen is Luckey’s take on this idea.
Luckey bemoans the fact that actual “NerveGear,” the Sword Art Online technology, is still only 50% developed:
We are halfway to creating a real NerveGear, which is wonderful news, he said. The bad news is that the perfect-VR half of the equation is still several years away, and I have only so far worked out the half that kills you.
On November 6, 2022—the day the first NerveGear set in SAO was activated—Luckey unveiled the lethal headset. Clearly not a coincidence.
We are halfway to creating a real NerveGear, which is wonderful news, he said. The bad news is that the perfect-VR half of the equation is still several years away, and I have only so far worked out the half that kills you.
On November 6, 2022—the day the first NerveGear set in SAO was activated—Luckey unveiled the lethal headset. Clearly not a coincidence.
It is particularly noteworthy that Luckey claims to have developed weaponized gaming technology of this nature given his transition from virtual reality to forming Anduril Industries, his business that produces AI-based security and surveillance systems for the American military.
Recently, they were awarded a $1 billion contract to direct the development of counter-unmanned technologies for the US Special Operations Command.
The concept that we are heading for some type of Sword Art dystopia where users are signing up to play games that have the potential to kill you does…not seem reasonable given that VR tech is still struggling to break past a niche to get people to play games that are really enjoyable.
It’s not like they were hawking VR headgear with murder potential listed as a perk; even Sword Art Online had to con its users into being trapped with NerveGear.
Palmer Luckey continues to be…something else. I’m excited for him to hold the first Bloodsport tournament on a private island or whatever other bizarre idea comes to him next.