Thursday 27 October 2016

Disregarded Google Chardboard ideas


I started my new role! Exciting ha... As Project Manager Digital Innovation at Maastricht University I am as irritated about my what-abouts as I was as Web Content Coordinator of The School. When people read my new label they giggle or ask what it is I actually do. But I will not tell you. Instead I will only dispose of ideas I disregard along the way in the hope to politely pollute your attention as I tidy up my desk. And make progress in my projects.

Among my first projects is a Virtual Reality Application for the Google Cardboard and possibly Daydream platform. The story of one idea I disregarded last week went like this:

First Version

In the story the subject is transported into the future, to the year 2069. He choose to log into the galactic geographic history database with his HMD to see the beginnings of his age. In somehow the same way we go into a natural history museum and learn about the industrial revolution. It is the vantage point of a post-scarcity society which the subject in the story enters the application. In this future problem based learning is the norm - on par with realised universal education and the sole strive of scientific discovery to increase knowledge for the ennoblement of mankind and power over nature -, study loans do not exist and the need for paid employment is obsolesced. In many ways it is a future that the series: Star Trek Next Generation exemplifies. 
Work is not a matter of compulsion or survival. Subjects, in this envisioned future, need not to perform tasks or exercise professions that do not suit their inclinations just so that they can afford to put food on the table and enjoy the respect of their peers. This society clearly represents a value system and social organisation different from us. But in a society where nothing is scarce and consequently where work is no longer a prerequisite for survival finding good reasons to work becomes paramount, the defining existential question that everyone has to ask themselves. Why work at all if its not necessary? Because learning, making and sharing is what makes life worth living? Work, and study is no longer a necessary burden, it is the glue that holds Maastricht indeed the whole galaxy together in 2069. In this future the subject is taken on a virtual tour through the present Maastricht of the early 21st century. A trip similar to the one we get by going into a museum to experience 19th century art or natural history. The effect is to give the subject the feeling he lives the imagined “futuristic” version of reality instead of the real “virtual” one exhibited in the gameplay.

Gameplay:Aside the story which is more a marketing tool, the application consists of a virtual tour with gamification elements. As a virtual tour it is similar to any city tour application. The subject is guided by an avatar (a tour guide) through a virtual world to one sight posts after the other. At each post the avatar explains or tells a story of that particular location before guiding the subject to the next. The explanation told, is in the past-tense and impinged with all the nostalgic words we currently use in our marketing spin.Ending the tour with a farewell and a note to come back soon!In addition the subject can choose out of a set of four characters as a “tour guide”. The plan is to have the tour guide represent the president, Martin Paul or another public figure of the university.The tour guide is an avatar that guides the subject through the virtual world. The movement in the virtual world is mimicked by movement in the real one. In this way the subject needs to be active f.e. Walking on the spot to follow the avatar.
I know that VR is coming up again and again in the past 30 years. Heroes and early explorers have much to tell about what is actually going on. Here are some