The Worst Possible Game: Maki Naro and Matthew Francis’ “Are We Living In A Computer Simulation?”

by | Dec 9, 2016 | Uncategorized

Artist Maki Naro teams up with writer (and physicist) Matthew R. Francis for his latest comic for The Nib, which explores the the age-old question: Is reality real? Elon Musk–CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, leader of various interesting projects, and full time public futurist–recently made the case for philosopher Nick Bostrom’s simulation argument. Bostrom says that a sufficiently advanced society could run an ancestor simulation that would be indistinguishable from real reality and maybe already is. Musk takes this a step further to argue that, hey, maybe, probably we’re already living in one of these simulations. In Are We Living In A Computer Simulation? Naro examines the possibility that we’re all background characters in the Nolan brothers’ most complicated film yet and why that idea fascinates so many futurists and tech leaders. (more…)

Get Your Game On: If I Could Step Into Westworld…

by | Oct 26, 2016 | News

Ever wondered what it would be like to step into your favourite game? Numerous stories have explored this concept. The latest addition to this list and to the list of my obsessions is HBO’s Westworld. If you’ve got a few thousand dollars to spare, you can step into the wild west world created by Delos Corp and live out your cowpoke dreams.

“The guests don’t return for the obvious things we do, the garish things. They come back because of the subtleties. The details. They come back because they discover something they imagine no one noticed before. Something they fall in love with. They’re not looking for a story that tells them who they are. They already know who they are. They’re here because they want a glimpse of who they could be.” – Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Robert Ford

I’m not gonna lie, if Bioware created a game like this for real, I would strongly consider selling my first born just to spend a day on the Normandy. It’s nice to watch a show that focuses on powerful, nuanced narratives and intriguing characters that force the viewer to question our assumptions, all within a world whose intricacies will be increasingly recognizable to gamers and developers. Especially when the NPCs start taking on a life of their own and their (our?) puppetmaster pulls the strings…

Meanwhile in other gaming news… (more…)