[From the Digital Games Research Association (DIGRA)’s Gamesnetwork list]
Hello everyone,
I’m writing a short article for a non-academic audience on the potential for mainstream adoption of virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift in the near future to trigger a moral/media panic and attract the kind of regulation and censorship that recently culminated in Brown v. EMA (2011) for videogames in the US. I think this recent Forbes article is a harbinger of sensational news coverage to come. I personally think it’s still up in the air as to whether or not the Oculus and other VR peripherals will be constructed as a new technological evolution of videogaming or as an entirely new medium; the free speech protection consequences of the latter in the US are dramatic.
If anyone on this list would like to speak to me via Skype or email about their thoughts on the future of virtual reality in the popular imagination and its relationship to gaming, please contact me at tommy.rousse@gmail.com Thanks for your time.
Best,
Tommy Rousse
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JD-PhD Student | Northwestern University
MSc. in Games Analysis | IT University of Copenhagen | 2013