The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm(bbc.com)
bbc.com
The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250409-game-transfer-phenomenon-the-people-who-see-video-games-in-the-physical-world
55 comments
Driving home after an almost-all-nighter LAN in the Quake 2 (maybe Quake 3) days, I nearly changed lines to line up a rail shot at a car up ahead.
The realisation of what I was doing snapped me back to proper conscious reality like smelling salts. Thankfully / Luckily.
The realisation of what I was doing snapped me back to proper conscious reality like smelling salts. Thankfully / Luckily.
This reminds me of driving home after seeing The Matrix in the theater in 1999. I was on the parkway wondering why everything was moving so slowly, not quite bullet time but definitely slow.
I look at the speedometer and I'm doing 95-100 mph on Southern State Parkway. I then had the "snap" and slowed back to normal. Everything felt even slower, the sensation lasted for about an hour after I got home.
Inception also had a strange drive home after, not speed, but the trees didn't seem real, the sky, everything was heightened, almost dreamlike. It had rained too, so there was some more similarity to the movie, minus the car chases and rollovers.
I look at the speedometer and I'm doing 95-100 mph on Southern State Parkway. I then had the "snap" and slowed back to normal. Everything felt even slower, the sensation lasted for about an hour after I got home.
Inception also had a strange drive home after, not speed, but the trees didn't seem real, the sky, everything was heightened, almost dreamlike. It had rained too, so there was some more similarity to the movie, minus the car chases and rollovers.
Apparently you should take the public transport it a taxi when going to the cinema :)
But I had similar sensations after Matrix, fortunately I was walking back home.
But I had similar sensations after Matrix, fortunately I was walking back home.
if you spend a lot of time on photography or visual art it affects your visual perception quite a bit in a fun way
constantly, nearly subconsciously looking for framing elements, or hard edges in a scene that is mostly lit by diffuse light, etc
constantly, nearly subconsciously looking for framing elements, or hard edges in a scene that is mostly lit by diffuse light, etc
Yup, I experienced this after both computer games physical sports and even programming (I tinkered with my algorithm for drawing 2d trees in a side project for like 20 hours over a long weekend and after that I've been seeing the details I obsessed over in every tree I looked at :) ).
I think the effect was the strongest for me after that graphics programming actually - probably because I obsessed over such small detail for so long, and I played with fine-tuning the variables, so my brain constructed a model for it inside :)
It's not exactly that I "see" the healthbars or the ball trajectory, or the tree outlines on the same rights that I can see real things - it's like it's on another switchable layer.
Like when you see someone and imagine they have wings - it's not that you actually see the wings, but you can see them in your minds eye superimposed on that person in real-time. This "additional layer" is independent and can be turned on/off for me.
I think the effect was the strongest for me after that graphics programming actually - probably because I obsessed over such small detail for so long, and I played with fine-tuning the variables, so my brain constructed a model for it inside :)
It's not exactly that I "see" the healthbars or the ball trajectory, or the tree outlines on the same rights that I can see real things - it's like it's on another switchable layer.
Like when you see someone and imagine they have wings - it's not that you actually see the wings, but you can see them in your minds eye superimposed on that person in real-time. This "additional layer" is independent and can be turned on/off for me.
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I had this most vividly with kayaking. I'd slowly fall asleep rocking in the river, paying background-attention to keep balance in the kayak, even though I was in my bed or in a tent on shore. I'd then also dream about floating in the kayak.
> While no-one has reported physical harm as a consequence of GTP to date – GTP could, in principle, endanger someone
This is a classic of how to write a moral panic article. It's fun to talk about GTP, but in order to be news it has to be made into a big threat so it can tie into pre-existing prejudices like "my kids are spending too much time playing video games".
(speaking as someone who had to consciously stop playing Factorio as it was affecting my sleep!)
This is a classic of how to write a moral panic article. It's fun to talk about GTP, but in order to be news it has to be made into a big threat so it can tie into pre-existing prejudices like "my kids are spending too much time playing video games".
(speaking as someone who had to consciously stop playing Factorio as it was affecting my sleep!)
> "It's not a good idea for me to be trying to kill demons while I'm driving,"
Driving was the first thing that came to my mind. It's also dangerous to drive when tired, distracted, drunk, or one of a hundred other conditions. Yet somehow GTP is portrayed as the problem here when, in fact, driving a car is simply one of the most dangerous daily activities, even absurdly dangerous compared to other tasks.
Driving was the first thing that came to my mind. It's also dangerous to drive when tired, distracted, drunk, or one of a hundred other conditions. Yet somehow GTP is portrayed as the problem here when, in fact, driving a car is simply one of the most dangerous daily activities, even absurdly dangerous compared to other tasks.
As a throwback to the 1980s moral panics, video games are called "murder simulators" in Thimbleweed Park. That could even be a direct quote.
This particular manifestation is interesting, although not surprising - it's just adaptation. I was in a psychology department in the mid 90s when people were experimenting with really basic VR, just a headset and a glove. When you pointed with the glove you moved that way in the virtual world. Even after a short time with the headset on, when people took the headset off, instead of walking out of the room their first move was often to point towards the door. The human brain is really prone to immersion.
Used to happen to me when I played a lot of tetris on the gameboy back in the day. When reading any books afterwards I would see the tetronimoes slotting in the spaces between the lines of sentences and words. Goldeneye (N64) had me eyeing security cameras in the real world and making silencer noises in my head for quite a while too.
> Used to happen to me when I played a lot of tetris on the gameboy back in the day.
Apparently, GTP has been particularly pronounced with Tetris and is therefore also known as "Tetris effect" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect). This also shows that this is not a recent phenomenon. I was surprised that the article didn't mention Tetris at all.
Apparently, GTP has been particularly pronounced with Tetris and is therefore also known as "Tetris effect" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect). This also shows that this is not a recent phenomenon. I was surprised that the article didn't mention Tetris at all.
PBF has an excellent comic on this https://pbfcomics.com/comics/game-boy/
This phenomenon is so common from Tetris that it's literally called the Tetris Effect.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
Spend enough time in virtual worlds, especially (near-) photo realistic ones, and for some people, what's real / what's virtual may start to blur. Or aspects from the game leak into real life. Creepy indeed.
Although not quite what's discussed in the article, reminds me of the movie eXistenZ (1999). Well worth a watch if you don't know this one.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/
Although not quite what's discussed in the article, reminds me of the movie eXistenZ (1999). Well worth a watch if you don't know this one.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/
The fastest way to experience this phenomenon is by playing the Touhou games. After a few hours of gameplay, closing your eyes will almost guarantee that you’ll see bullet patterns unfolding in the static behind your eyelids.
> she was imagining peering at products on the shelves through a rifle scope.
> "I thought, 'Wow! This is interesting'," she recalls.
Yeah! That was my reaction too. It is not "unpleasant". Maybe "unsettling", I'm not sure, but it is a very interesting experience. I got it twice, one time with a computer game, and the other it was a geometry problem that did this to me. The second time was really mindblowing, because geometry provides not just a way to see the world, but also a way to think about it. To see my regular everyday thoughts and reactions to external stimuli expressed in geometric terms (with diagrams, additional constructions, and so on) is something that is hard to describe. But it was that experience which made me believe that our thoughts as we experience them are lies. Real thinking is done somehow deep in the mind, while consciously we see some representation of the process. The representations can be different for the same thought, it doesn't change the thought itself, nor its conclusions.
Pity, I can't trigger this Game Transfer Phenomenon anytime I want. I'd like to see in my mind a geometric proof that I want exactly two teaspoons of sugar in my cup of coffee. Or maybe a program in Rust that somehow implies that.
> "I thought, 'Wow! This is interesting'," she recalls.
Yeah! That was my reaction too. It is not "unpleasant". Maybe "unsettling", I'm not sure, but it is a very interesting experience. I got it twice, one time with a computer game, and the other it was a geometry problem that did this to me. The second time was really mindblowing, because geometry provides not just a way to see the world, but also a way to think about it. To see my regular everyday thoughts and reactions to external stimuli expressed in geometric terms (with diagrams, additional constructions, and so on) is something that is hard to describe. But it was that experience which made me believe that our thoughts as we experience them are lies. Real thinking is done somehow deep in the mind, while consciously we see some representation of the process. The representations can be different for the same thought, it doesn't change the thought itself, nor its conclusions.
Pity, I can't trigger this Game Transfer Phenomenon anytime I want. I'd like to see in my mind a geometric proof that I want exactly two teaspoons of sugar in my cup of coffee. Or maybe a program in Rust that somehow implies that.
Had to remember not to drive after playing GTA back in the day!
[deleted]
I've experienced this before - not only with games such as Tetris (I could "feel" my brian working in a different way) - but also with looking at trees etc when engrossed in Lindenmayer Systems [1] that I was working with at the time.
I assumed it was basically something along the lines of your brian adapting to a "new" reality/situation and engaging the pattern-matching parts that work best for the challenge at hand. Then afterwards it remains on just in case you need it again, like a warm boot.
As I type about it, I realize it likely has relation to things like anxiety - useful in some situations (such as actual danger) but remains "on" when it doesn't have to and becomes intrusive.
I assumed it was basically something along the lines of your brian adapting to a "new" reality/situation and engaging the pattern-matching parts that work best for the challenge at hand. Then afterwards it remains on just in case you need it again, like a warm boot.
As I type about it, I realize it likely has relation to things like anxiety - useful in some situations (such as actual danger) but remains "on" when it doesn't have to and becomes intrusive.
I get something similar after long days at music festivals where if I close my eyes later I still see people walking past.
After I tweaked the tree outline drawing algorithm for this side-project for like 20 hours over 3 days ( https://ajuc.github.io/outdoorsBattlemapGenerator/ ) I've been seeing these outlines EVERYWHERE :)
> Ortiz de Gortari's studies suggest that GTP induces distress and dysfunction for around half of those gamers who say they have experienced it, with confusion, hyper-vigilance and irrationality among the symptoms. For others the only notable response may be a feeling of embarrassment that their game-play has spilled over into "real life".
Can anybody here relate to these negative reactions? For me, the tetris effect only causes mild amusement, not embarrassment or worse. It kind of seems like she's playing up the supposed harm to make her research sound more important.
Can anybody here relate to these negative reactions? For me, the tetris effect only causes mild amusement, not embarrassment or worse. It kind of seems like she's playing up the supposed harm to make her research sound more important.
I'm not really a gamer, but I experienced something maybe similar with the ipad. When I first got one, of course, I was reading news and swiping away and it was completely natural.
Then I'd go to a restaurant and when reading the menu, I'd start swiping at the paper or vinyl menus like it was a tablet. It's a curious phenomena to have that brand new tablet gesture overtake decades of behaviors and perceptions with real paper.
Kudos to Apple, I guess.
Then I'd go to a restaurant and when reading the menu, I'd start swiping at the paper or vinyl menus like it was a tablet. It's a curious phenomena to have that brand new tablet gesture overtake decades of behaviors and perceptions with real paper.
Kudos to Apple, I guess.
My wife and I just completed a jigsaw puzzle. Last night, I caught her trying to use her forefinger and thumb to zoom in to the picture on the box.
Haha, Yup, I've done exactly that. If the menu was dark, I'd try to pinch zoom in. I briefly felt like a baby trying to figure out the world again.
A while back, I saw "Pervasive Games" in the bookstore and bought it.
Pervasive Games 2009
Edited by: Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros and Annika Waern
Description:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780123748539/pervasive-g...
Reviews:
https://pervasivegames.wordpress.com/
Pervasive Games 2009
Edited by: Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros and Annika Waern
Description:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780123748539/pervasive-g...
Reviews:
https://pervasivegames.wordpress.com/
This seems like an interesting topic, but it's not what the article is about.
When watching 24 season 9, I saw Catelyn Stark sick a horde of dragons (drones) on King's Landing (London) to avenge the murder of her husband Eddard.
My fanciful mind makes me mix series, movies and games with each other and reality in my head, just as a point of entertainment. I do miss the Monster Truck from GTA San Andreas when stuck in traffic but so far I've managed to behave in a civilized manner.
My fanciful mind makes me mix series, movies and games with each other and reality in my head, just as a point of entertainment. I do miss the Monster Truck from GTA San Andreas when stuck in traffic but so far I've managed to behave in a civilized manner.
I dream vividly and extensively every night such that sometimes my memories of the dream content start to displace older real memories
Dreams are like this alternate/double life. It's weird how they occupy memory as well, though they seem to be most easily accessible to me around (or during) sleeping hours.
Hopkins-Brie Ontology Syndrome (usually just called Hopkins-Brie Syndrome) is a mental illness caused by overexposure to virtual reality, in which the sufferer becomes increasingly unable to distinguish between the real world and the virtual world.
> the sufferer becomes increasingly unable to distinguish between the real world and the virtual world
With the pervasive rise of deepfakes, generative AI based content and the overall volume of 'slop' across social media and video sharing in general, distinguishing between the real world and the virtual world already feels like it's becoming increasingly difficult.
With the pervasive rise of deepfakes, generative AI based content and the overall volume of 'slop' across social media and video sharing in general, distinguishing between the real world and the virtual world already feels like it's becoming increasingly difficult.
I remember this happening to me after playing King's Quest IV. It was due to the way you interacted with the graphics. I would want to interact with real world objects as I did with the game objects.
As a fan of Puzzle and Dragons and a semi-regular commuter, I can never not see the Moquette patterns used on some of the London Underground lines as orbs that need re-arranging to make combos.
I have one anecdote of such thing happening. After intense evening session of The Witness, I had very surreal dream made of brightly colored grids, lines and geometric shapes. Wild experience
I’ve definitely had it bleed into dreams but nothing awake yet. Didn’t even know that’s possible. Seeing health bars above people’s heads is wild
We don't even need video games for freaky and unpleasant now, just run-of-the-mill politicians. That's what progress means these days.
I played the original Civilization until I thought of walking and having a conversation as taking turns. This must have been ~1994-1995 :P
> "Game Transfer Phenomenon"
There was a phrase for this in the "old days" too, it was called "Lost in Make Believe".
As pointed out in numerous other comments, this phenomenon is not limited to video games. It can also happen after seeing movies, or even reading books. Especially with long series of books, I knew several people in high school who started living "The Lord of the Rings" and even "Clockwork Orange".
There are significant differences though:
1) As mentioned in the article: the extreme realism of video games
2) Often under emphasized: the amount of a person's waking hours spent in the activity
3) Of very serious consequences, i.e. modern incel-ism: the extreme violence of many video games
4) Something certain to get me downvoted: the significantly increased susceptibility to "Lost in Make Believe" of people raised in the internet/"phone" era (this point is very intertwined with point 2)
I can see how these factors can cause the "Lost in Make Believe" phenomenon to be much more serious with a modern gamu than with previous media. The extreme violence is certainly not unique to games either, books and movies also exhibit it, and bad behavior from role playing Clockwork Orange could rival Grand Theft Auto in some people.
There was a phrase for this in the "old days" too, it was called "Lost in Make Believe".
As pointed out in numerous other comments, this phenomenon is not limited to video games. It can also happen after seeing movies, or even reading books. Especially with long series of books, I knew several people in high school who started living "The Lord of the Rings" and even "Clockwork Orange".
There are significant differences though:
1) As mentioned in the article: the extreme realism of video games
2) Often under emphasized: the amount of a person's waking hours spent in the activity
3) Of very serious consequences, i.e. modern incel-ism: the extreme violence of many video games
4) Something certain to get me downvoted: the significantly increased susceptibility to "Lost in Make Believe" of people raised in the internet/"phone" era (this point is very intertwined with point 2)
I can see how these factors can cause the "Lost in Make Believe" phenomenon to be much more serious with a modern gamu than with previous media. The extreme violence is certainly not unique to games either, books and movies also exhibit it, and bad behavior from role playing Clockwork Orange could rival Grand Theft Auto in some people.
I'm disappointed that the term "Tetris effect" [1] was not mentioned in the article. It's not a particularly new phenomenon.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
But honestly, it didn't feel so different from any other after-effect of intensive out-of-the-ordinary stimuli.. Think about the evening after a day of snowboarding, as you drift asleep, your brain starts to work its way down imaginary slopes, everything becomes transformed through the lens of snowboarding, rooftops becomes candidates for drops, piles of snow becomes ramps..
or when you've intensely learnt a new concept, your brain tries around it, to see if it somehow fits into what you've learnt.. Like how people learning about neural networks, can't help but go through at least a phase, where the idea of brains being computers are very appealing.
I don't think this "Game Transfer Phenomenon" is that novel or interesting, and most importantly, not related to games in particular.
It's just what the brain does when it engages in something.. it attempts to map and transfer concepts and relations, it's how we learn and grow..