Recently a few incidents and games have gotten me thinking about graphics and when will graphics become 'too real' or will there ever be a point where graphics become too real.

Games like Dead Space, Gears and Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway as well as the incidents where individuals or groups have tried to re-create something they saw in a game has gotten me on this thought. Will there ever be a point where graphics become as good as real life and i think there will be, probably within the 21st century. From the humble beginnings of Pong in 1972 to Crysis in 2007, in 35 years we have gone from; two rectangles and a sqaure moving across a tiny screen to some of the most amazing human and landscape models we have ever witnessed. So what will these models look like in 2100? Will they be as real as real can be? We wont be able to differentiate between games and the real thing, I think this will raise a few issues.

1 - What will happen to companies such as ATI and Nvidia? They will eventually release a card that will not need to be upgraded or overclocked, will they cease to exist? Or will they continue to make cards that are faster, quieter and cooler? I know this will not happen in yours or my lifetime, but it is inevitable.

2 - Definately the most controversial, what will ratings boards do? When will they say, 'No, this looks too much like an actual person.' I think this technology would be awesome for sports, racing, platformers etc but when it comes to FPS will the gore just be too much? Dead Space and Gears got me on this thought. In a developer interview one of the devs was talking about how your character can literally be ripped limb from limb by various creatures. Obviously it will look realistic, but there is still an obvious distinction between the real and what is represented in the game. This line will eventually blur and i think more and more games will be banned, not just overseas, but especially with military FPS even in America. Its one thing to shoot someone in the head, some blood spurts out and the body falls down and eventually dissapears. What happens when the actual affect of the bullet is shown and the body doesnt dissapear? I personally would find it extremely disturbing as i accidently stumbled across a website which showed what an M25 (large sniper rifle that is used to shoot through light armour) had done to a persons head and i can tell you right now, it wasnt pretty. I dont get that way with many things, Gears doesnt bother me, saw, not really, but this really affected me, mainly because it was so real.
Games will eventually reach a point when they become lifelike and when this day comes I think people will initially be excited with the prospect of it. But i think you will find that one or all three things will happen; game stores will crack down on whos really playing the game (M game bought for a child), a new ratings system will emerge, or the ratings board will ban it all together. Personally i think the last option is the best because i think game realism needs to reach a point where devs will say, 'No, we dont need to go any futher with graphics, we dont want it to become too real'. I dont think they would want to lose one of the main reasons why games are popular, because they take people away from the finalities of actual life, people can escape into a world where almost anything is possible.

3 - Imitation will sky rocket. People already manage to take themselves to new levels of stupidity and imitate games like GTA expecting that no matter what the crime their jail time will be the same and the only other loss is a bit of money and all their weapons. Then there is the sad story of 'The Halo Kid' where passionate probably bordering on obsessive child accidently shot and killed himself trying to imitate Halo. What will happen when games become so real they blur the line between game world and the real world. I think more and more people will start to 'test' scenarios out in games and then because it looks so real will believe that exact same scenario will work in the real world with no adverse consequences.
Then on the other hand as the realism increases so does the potential for games in the use of training, army, flying, emergency services, doctors, when you think about it the possibilities are endless. This extra training could save many lives and help people in that profession cope with everything that their job entails without having to deal with the adverse consequences so these consequences dont exist in the future.

In closing, graphics have been at the forefront of gaming ever since it was created, a new graphics card comes out over few months or even weeks and recent advances have made all games look better than ever (which is a definite plus for the consumer). But what happens when they become too real? Will games start being rejected? probably not, gamers believe that they are immune to most things, that they have been desensitized to most things and in general they have, but seeing someone die on a screen is alot different than seeing someone die in real life (even with no wounds, asleep in hospital). What i know there will be is an uproar from the general public (mainly parents) that content like this is available to their children because they are fearful of the affects and so they should be. I know i wish i hadnt seen that previous image. Yes you can still remember it is a game, but when the graphics look that good, come one or two or three hours in, i think people will forget that it isnt real and thats where problems lie.

EDIT (Prompted by ChristianKiss): One thing i did forget to mention in the above blog was the affect to those people who play RPG and especially MMORPGs. I mean World of Warcraft is so far from reality its fantasy and yet we have addiction levels that has damage that rivals that of drug addictions. I remember hearing of a Chinese woman who played the game so long, she died. She did not sleep, eat and only drank a little and it eventually led to her death. People held a funeral service for her inside the actual game. Now this game's graphics are not state of the art, but it has that ability to make people addicted. What will happen when the graphics become real and the game is just as addictive? We could see one of too things;
1-People will start to live their lives through the game and neglet their own real life. Everything they do inside the game will be as if they have done it in real life, and their reactions will be as if it happened to them in real life. They could become so emotionally attached to the game that because their actual wasnt as good as it is in the game, they will feel they can substitute it with their actual life and simply 'live inside the game'
2-People will take their addiction of the game to the next level by forming a real life group of people whom share the same addiction and carry on in the real world as they would have in the game. Now most RPGs have a violent and ritualistic aspect to them and thus their character in game will reflect exactly who they are on the outside world. Instead of what games want you to do, make a character in your own image, it will cause the opposite and people will modify their image to be more like their character which can have extremely serious repurcussions.

This obviously doesnt mean eveyone in the world will start to believe all of this and we will ipso facto start the apocalypse. But we are already seeing all of the things i have mention above today in the present. And as graphics improve and become more real, these incidences can only get worse as lines between fiction and non fiction, game life and real life blur. Does a pandemic of those formentioned problems above await? Only time will tell.

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