Valve, the publishers of the Half Life series, gather large amounts of gamer data through their online delivery system Steam.
There are an average of 8.44 billion minutes played each month on the Steam servers and a consequence of this is that they are able to gather vast statistics of how people play through games. Recently they began publishing information for Half Life 2 Episode 2 including ‘death maps’ - maps charting where and how often players die on any given map.
A graphic representation of danger.
Does the US military - or any other military for that matter - use similar tools in real life conflict areas? I suspect that they would.
One can a future with its inevitable ubiquitous computing, where these maps become commonplace tools for advertising firms and security agencies alike. Where maps like these are used to track points where people wearing a particular brand of watch stop to drink a particulare carbonated drink, the corelation a majestic revelation to targeted advertising marketeers everywhere.
This Vortal Coil - ep2_outland_04
Freeman Pontifex - ep2_outworld_06
Riding Shotgun - ep2_outland_06a
Under the Radar - ep2_outland_10a
Our Mutual Friend - ep2_outworld_11a
t-Minus One - ep2_outworld_12a
Related posts: