Palmer Luckey, the 30-year-old virtual reality wunderkind, and co-founder of Oculus, the VR firm Facebook bought in 2014, once created a virtual reality (VR) headset that could kill its user, if they died in their game world.
Luckey said on Sunday, 06th November, in his blog post, that the device was created reflecting the trope popularized by Japanese animated series ‘Sword Art Online’. He also confirmed that his inspiration for the headset had been the anime itself, and was created in honor of the series.
“I used three of the explosive charge modules I usually use for a different project, tying them to a narrow-band photosensor that can detect when the screen flashes red at a specific frequency, making game-over interaction on the part of the developer very easy. When an appropriate game-over screen is displayed, the charges fire, instantly destroying the brain of the user,” Luckey explained in his post.
He went on to add, “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. 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.”
It does not end here, as the VR developer said that he had plans for an anti-tamper mechanism much like that of NerveGear, which will it impossible for its wearer to remove or destroy it.
For now, Luckey claims it is just a “piece of office art” and does not have any real-world applications for it.