We Are Living in the Future

The other day I was walking through the local massive mall (massive in that it is two stories and has apparently upwards of 169 stores) and noticed something that was both confusing and amusing at the same time.  It was something that I had only seen in both anime series and live action cyberpunk-esque stories.  It was a VR arcade.  A VRcade?  I do not know/remember what the store was called, and as I just looked at a map of the mall, the space it occupies is unlabeled, like some mystical Dr. Who pop up shop; that may not be an accurate reference as I have only seen sporadic scenes from the entirety of Dr. Who.

The point is, there I was, walking through the mall and see something out of Blade Runner or A.I. Artificial Intelligence.  The room itself was carpeted all in black, with either black lights or green lights set up as the primary source of illumination.  The people running this VRcade were all in black too.  There was one person actively engaging with the set up, and they were in a reclining, low-to-the-floor chair with a screen in front of them despite the headset they were wearing, along with one person who was sitting on a couch behind all of this action putzing on their phone.  I presume the screen was there for friends of the person playing, for the workers of the shop, and presumably for any passerby like myself.  What this was not was a private and secluded cubby/pod where you could watch/play whatever you wanted.

Now, I do not know what was being played, but whatever it was looked like a custom game that you may not be able find on the PlayStation Store or Steam.  The poster that was on the outside wall looked like you had one of two options to play.  A not too violent first person shooter and a walking sim puzzle game maybe?  Again, I was viewing this from over a dozen yards away, while moving as I did not feel like stopping to see what was going on, mainly because I did not want to be approached and have someone talk to me about something that I did not have time to engage in.  I also do not really like talking to strangers out in public, so there was that too.

And despite a tone that I may accidentally have taken, I do not want to come across as shaming either the person playing in the VR set up, the friend "watching" from the couch behind them, or the people working the shop.  I was just mainly taken aback by what I had previously only seen in movies and to a much lesser extent, in cheaply taped and stanchioned barriers at the local AT&T Wireless stores or even Fry's (if Fry's is still a thing).

I do not know.  Maybe I am overthinking things, partly because I am reading Neuromancer by William Gibson right now?  Either way, coming across this still amused me.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
But I See A New Light