Psychologists regularly debate to what extent entertainment affects our real-life behavior. Do teenagers who play violent video games show violent tendencies at school? Do the movies and TV shows we watch alter our personalities? As video games incorporate more and more elements of real life (online chat, in-game purchases, real-time action, etc.), even skeptics can see just how blurred the line between fantasy and reality has become. At least one new game is using GPS-generated data to pull life experience directly into its gameplay.
As with most GPS applications, ethical and moral questions loom on the horizon. Is it a good idea, for example, to allow children to play a fantasy game that uses their real-world surroundings as its setting? For better or worse, GPS is invading the world of video games. Here’s how:
Groundbreaking Game Technology
Gamers will immediately recognize the title “Gran Turismo” as one of the top racing games available. Now in its sixth edition, the realism, incredible graphics, controls, and feel of the game lead the industry in almost every aspect. In Gran Turismo 6, gamers will have a new option: driving a route generated by their real-life driving activity.
A user can download an app that accesses his smartphone’s GPS tracker. While driving to work, to the store, or around his school’s campus, the user sets the app to record the route. After returning home, the route can be uploaded to Gran Turismo 6’s course creator and quickly turned into a drivable course. The outrageous possibilities immediately spring to mind: who hasn’t dreamed of finding out just how long it would take to circle the campus if they could drive as fast as they wanted to? How quickly could you really make it to work from home?
While the length, contour, and shape of your route will appear on the course creator, the surrounding elements will not. You will have to physically add buildings, trees, and whatever other items you can recall. If you have the skill and time to do that, theoretically you could end up with a very interesting recreation of your real-life driving environment.
The full functionality of the GPS feature was not available by the time Gran Turismo 6 was scheduled to be released in December 2013. But the developers promise that it is right around the corner and will be available as a post-installation addition to the game. Until then, gamers will have to be content with driving their traditional routes at legal speeds!
Other GPS Games
Gran Turismo 6 is certainly not the first video game to make use of GPS technology. Developers’ minds have been whirling with the possibilities that GPS could bring to gaming ever since it appeared on the scene. Here are a few of the more well-known games that have done so, with varying levels of success:
| Game | Description | How it Uses GPS |
| Dragons Adventure | Tablet-based adventure game for kids | Game automatically ends when the car reaches its destination. Other game features, such as bodies of water, reflect real physical features along the car’s route. |
| Plundr | Nintendo DS pirate game | Turns actual environment into a “treasure map,” with different gameplay possibilities based on the player’s actual location. |
| Shadow Cities | iPhone world domination game | Uses actual world as gameplay field. Players network with each other to reach and conquer different regions of the globe. |
A major difference between these games and Gran Turismo 6 is the importing of collected GPS data into the game, rather than the use of real-time location to affect gameplay.
What’s the Limit?
It is relatively easy to see how a GPS device could collect route data and turn it into a virtual race course. But what about going further? Could a system such as Google Earth, filled with street-level images and 3-D structures, link with a GPS device to gather even more detailed route data? If so, it may not be long before gamers can sit on their couch and drive through a world that looks fantastically like their own, down to the concrete goose on their neighbor’s front porch.
In fact, we could even see ethical issues come into play if such GPS-generated data powers online environment games. In these “alternate realities,” users assume new identities and stroll through virtual worlds, conducting activities and developing relationships all within a game. If the environment in that game were a very close copy of the player’s actual environment, a psychologist may well get worried about the implications of spending too much time playing it. As the lines between game and life get more blurred, a reality check now and then might be in order.
For the time being, gamers look forward to the addition of GPS course creation to Gran Turismo 6. Driving around your neighborhood will never be the same after you’ve done it at top speed in a European car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Life Isn't a Game...Or Is It?
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