• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary navigation

Ken Liu, Writer

Author of The Grace of Kings and The Paper Menagerie

  • Home
  • News
  • Books
  • Short Fiction
  • About
  • Other Writings
  • Adaptations
  • Talks
  • Events
  • Translations
  • Shop

Bad VR PSAs

November 22, 2016 by Ken

Cherlynn Low, writing for Engadget in “Johnnie Walker’s drunk-driving VR experience lacks subtlety”

The heavy-handedness of the video gets especially extreme at the end of the clip. As you look on at the victims of the crash, you start floating in the air, as if you were the spirit of someone who had just died. I know it’s supposed to be poignant, this moment where you’re thinking about the people who were just killed. But it was ultimately distracting and cheesy.

The idea of using VR to give the interactor a visceral experience of the consequences of drunk driving is potentially a good use of VR, a kind of story that only VR can tell. This implementation falls short, but it’s worth analyzing why.

Filed Under: thinking Tagged With: virtual reality

Copyright © 1996–2025 Ken Liu