Pranks now, billion dollar creation tomorrow
The first day of April, known for its many mischievous and funny pranks, has come and gone for the year 2011, but looking at the plethora of hilarious fake news and other stories, it seems the victor of pranks every year is the world of technology and video games. With their hilarious inventions and bizarre additions to popular games, the genre really knows how to please its fans.
One of the best pranks this year was the Minecraft store. The game has become a smash hit for its material-collecting method of building wondrous monuments and structures, while avoiding hordes of zombies during the night. For April Fool's Day, the development team released an item store. The store contained boxes of mysterious loot, saddles for zombies and the ability to change the character’s name, all for the price of $494. The funny thing is the character name change ability is completely useless because of the fact that each player’s character does not even have a name to begin with.
Another prank was the assumption that the real-time strategy computer game Starcraft would make its return to the consoles with Starcraft Motion Overdrive, a motion version of the same game using Microsoft’s Kinect movement system. Of course, the video showing the gameplay is absolutely absurd, but very hilarious at the same time.
These pranks are like two sides of a coin. Not only do they provide a fun and casual way for developers to be funny and creative on the funniest day of the year, but they also provide a glimpse into the future of technology and other ideas from these companies. Ten years ago, people would not have even perceived the idea of games being controlled without a controller. Such ideas were seen as “wishful thinking” or hilarious. Even as the millennium began, surely a burst of technology would not happen. Lo and behold, we now have iPads, thinner and smarter computers and most of all, we now have games that can be controlled with the human body in lieu of a controller.
Yes, these ideas are being presented as a joke and some of these creations would be totally unheard or worse yet, completely contrary to the developers’ well-known titles, but do not count out some of the ideas as complete fiction. While they are featured as an April Fool's prank, some of these ideas could someday enrich the way that society functions. After all, who doesn't want a screenless Blackberry smartphone?
