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January 31, 2020 12:45 PM Subscribe
BBC Holds Interview on Upcoming Video Game Watch Dogs Legion Within the Game Itself [BBC Click] “Here's something you don't see every day. Marc Cieslak, reporter for BBC Click, has conducted an interview about Watch Dogs Legion from within the game's virtual London. The journalist paid a visit to Ubisoft in order to speak with creative director Clint Hocking, but in a brilliant twist, the pair carried out the interview inside the upcoming sequel. Cieslak and Hocking, after both undergoing preparations for full performance capture, have a brief conversation about the game while appearing to be on Legion's near-future London streets. It's pretty cool -- check it out above. According to the BBC, it's a world first, and we can't remember another example of this.” [via: Push Square][Watch Dogs Legion Game Trailer]
Didn't Will Smith (not that one) interview the developers of Firewatch in VR inside the tower from Firewatch? That's one example predating this that I can think of, I'm sure there are more.
posted by selfnoise at 12:53 PM on January 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by selfnoise at 12:53 PM on January 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
According to the BBC, it's a world first, and we can't remember another example of this.
A Second Life product manager reads this and then goes and jumps off the nearest bridge.
posted by sideshow at 1:09 PM on January 31, 2020 [22 favorites]
A Second Life product manager reads this and then goes and jumps off the nearest bridge.
posted by sideshow at 1:09 PM on January 31, 2020 [22 favorites]
Suzanne Vega has a quick interview and performs "Tom's Diner" in Second Life.
posted by chrominance at 1:47 PM on January 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by chrominance at 1:47 PM on January 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
A Second Life product manager reads this and then goes and jumps off the nearest bridge.
Ha!
Suzanne Vega has a quick interview and performs "Tom's Diner" in Second Life. yt
I appreciate the rigorous fact-checking. I read that and I too had some eyebrows that raised because gaming culture and gaming journalism have been around for so long that there was no way that this was going to be a first.
posted by Fizz at 1:49 PM on January 31, 2020
Ha!
Suzanne Vega has a quick interview and performs "Tom's Diner" in Second Life. yt
I appreciate the rigorous fact-checking. I read that and I too had some eyebrows that raised because gaming culture and gaming journalism have been around for so long that there was no way that this was going to be a first.
posted by Fizz at 1:49 PM on January 31, 2020
I'm so ready to build an army of anarchist grandmas in this game. I really like the developers' commitment to modeling the diversity of London along with its environment. We're used to thinking of realism in games in terms of buildings and the number of polygons devs use for hair animation, but realism is representation, too.
posted by storytam at 1:56 PM on January 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by storytam at 1:56 PM on January 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
Didn't Will Smith (not that one) interview the developers of Firewatch in VR inside the tower from Firewatch? That's one example predating this that I can think of, I'm sure there are more.
Yep. The show was in VR, so you were in the game location watching the interview. Here's a video.
posted by IAmDrWorm at 2:05 PM on January 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
Yep. The show was in VR, so you were in the game location watching the interview. Here's a video.
posted by IAmDrWorm at 2:05 PM on January 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
Though Firewatch isn't a VR game, so is that really "in" Firewatch?
Though looking at the BBC link, they did their interview wearing motion-capture suits, so that has the same point I can be pedantic about. Players aren't going to put on motion-capture suits to play Watch Dogs.
posted by RobotHero at 2:41 PM on January 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Though looking at the BBC link, they did their interview wearing motion-capture suits, so that has the same point I can be pedantic about. Players aren't going to put on motion-capture suits to play Watch Dogs.
posted by RobotHero at 2:41 PM on January 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Does no one but me remember This Spartan Life, when a pair of digital artists were interviewing people via Halo 2 on Xbox Live?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 2:48 PM on January 31, 2020
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 2:48 PM on January 31, 2020
This will allow Farage to appear on Question Time from wherever he is. Even if he's, by some terrible chance, outside the UK a lot.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 4:19 PM on January 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by thatwhichfalls at 4:19 PM on January 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Clint Hocking shepherded the best Splinter Cell (Chaos Theory) and the best Farcry (2). Really looking forward to this one.
posted by EatTheWeek at 4:50 PM on January 31, 2020
posted by EatTheWeek at 4:50 PM on January 31, 2020
I appreciate the rigorous fact-checking.
I mostly made the joke because in 2005-ish I sat in on some meetings with marketing dudes would have bet the lives of their children that by 2010 the majority of human communication would take place on SL. By now, they'd probably guess that there would be people alive who literally had no idea a "first life" even existed. As in, they would "jack in" at birth and literally never leave until their death. I disagreed, and their reaction was that I was some kind of idiot.
So, thinking that 15 years later someone would literally do the same kind of thing and the BBC would consider it "a world first" makes that memory extra delicious.
posted by sideshow at 5:17 PM on January 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
I mostly made the joke because in 2005-ish I sat in on some meetings with marketing dudes would have bet the lives of their children that by 2010 the majority of human communication would take place on SL. By now, they'd probably guess that there would be people alive who literally had no idea a "first life" even existed. As in, they would "jack in" at birth and literally never leave until their death. I disagreed, and their reaction was that I was some kind of idiot.
So, thinking that 15 years later someone would literally do the same kind of thing and the BBC would consider it "a world first" makes that memory extra delicious.
posted by sideshow at 5:17 PM on January 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
nit-pickery: if they're rigged with motion capture gear, arguably they're not conducting an interview within the game, but instead they're interviewing from inside the game-development production line. i.e. they're doing things and taking advantage of capabilities that the game development studio has, which the actual game will not offer to players.
also re: second life, here's an article about being a journalist in second life (~2005): https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1562/1477
Similarly, eve online can be a rich source of "oh look, people in games can do real world ish things (like run multi-level-marketing scams)", and lo and behold there's indeed some game journalism about in-game-journalism from ~2008: https://www.engadget.com/2008/05/20/new-edens-virtual-reporters/
& more recently, with some commentary from the developers about the decision not to grant in game journalists any special perks: https://observer.com/2015/06/why-eve-online-doesnt-have-spaceships-for-in-game-reporters/
posted by are-coral-made at 6:29 PM on January 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
also re: second life, here's an article about being a journalist in second life (~2005): https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1562/1477
Similarly, eve online can be a rich source of "oh look, people in games can do real world ish things (like run multi-level-marketing scams)", and lo and behold there's indeed some game journalism about in-game-journalism from ~2008: https://www.engadget.com/2008/05/20/new-edens-virtual-reporters/
& more recently, with some commentary from the developers about the decision not to grant in game journalists any special perks: https://observer.com/2015/06/why-eve-online-doesnt-have-spaceships-for-in-game-reporters/
posted by are-coral-made at 6:29 PM on January 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm gonna hit so many people with that old lady's purse.
There had better be neurotoxin-coated hatpins in this game or why even bother
posted by um at 8:58 PM on January 31, 2020
There had better be neurotoxin-coated hatpins in this game or why even bother
posted by um at 8:58 PM on January 31, 2020
neurotoxin-coated hatpins
Sodium-channel blocker or go home!
posted by aramaic at 9:07 PM on January 31, 2020
Sodium-channel blocker or go home!
posted by aramaic at 9:07 PM on January 31, 2020
2020 and with all the crazy advancements in GANs etc video game graphics still haven't climbed out of the uncanny valley.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 11:20 PM on January 31, 2020
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 11:20 PM on January 31, 2020
I really hate that when Ubisoft ever shows London in a video game, it's always filthy and smothered in rubbish. Its the French version of American movies always shooting Mexico through a dirty brown filter. Contrast the version of Paris in Assassin's Creed Unity, which may as well be a little slice of Elysium. That is, until the revolution starts.
Central London in real life is surprisingly free of trash given how busy it is. The only thing that makes it feel dirty is all the grubby old buildings that are too valuable to demolish.
posted by Eleven at 9:07 AM on February 2, 2020
Central London in real life is surprisingly free of trash given how busy it is. The only thing that makes it feel dirty is all the grubby old buildings that are too valuable to demolish.
posted by Eleven at 9:07 AM on February 2, 2020
Didn't this happen in Cybertown
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:32 AM on February 2, 2020
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:32 AM on February 2, 2020
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posted by poffin boffin at 12:51 PM on January 31, 2020 [2 favorites]