Ben Egliston – författare

The fantasies that underpin common perceptions of Virtual Reality—and what we need to know about VR’s potential risks as well as its opportunities.Virtual reality is the next new frontier for Silicon Valley. Mark Zuckerberg, who has overseen Meta’s investment of billions into VR, pitches it as the next dominant computing paradigm. More than just a gaming technology, VR is top of mind for academics, tech reportage, and industry evangelists who all see the potential for VR to revolutionize fields such as education and health, as well as the way we work and communicate. But will VR achieve all this? In Fantasies of Virtual Reality, Marcus Carter and Ben Egliston strip bare the tech industry’s vision of a future dominated by immersive VR experiences, challenging the utopian promises of this technology’s potential.Carter and Egliston offer a critical account of VR in a variety of contexts, from gaming to human resources to policing and the military. They argue that while VR does hold significant potential, the overhyped expectations surrounding it, from achieving true empathetic understanding to transforming traditional education and office work, are often overstated and fraught with issues of privacy, control, and exclusion. What’s more, there is nothing truly virtual about virtual reality: VR is deeply entrenched in the material world, driven by tangible technological, economic, and social logics.An accessible introduction to this emerging technology, Fantasies of Virtual Reality is essential reading for anyone interested in what VR can really do—and what is just plain fantasy.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Virtual Reality promises immersion for all, yet it is built around assumptions of able-bodied users that leave many disabled people behind. Drawing on original research with users, care providers and developers, this book examines how mainstream Virtual Reality design encodes a narrow idea of the ‘normal’ body – and the real costs of that choice. It shows how decisions made at the design stage, often invisible to non-disabled users, create barriers around vision, movement and sensory experience. Moving beyond critique, it argues for a fundamental rethinking of VR design centring diverse bodies and minds. In doing so, it not only reframes accessibility, but expands what VR can be, and who it is truly for.

In this ground-breaking book, we navigate the uncharted terrain of social virtual reality (VR), a technology that, while offering unprecedented immersive experiences, brings forth significant governance challenges. By merging theoretical insights with practical examples, the book examines the risks of harm in social VR environments, including both content and conduct issues. It charts a course for developing inclusive and safe social VR spaces that are respectful of diverse users’ rights and needs, laying out essential principles for policymakers, developers and regulators. The book is an urgent call to proactively shape the burgeoning field of VR for the betterment of all.

In this ground-breaking book, we navigate the uncharted terrain of social virtual reality (VR), a technology that, while offering unprecedented immersive experiences, brings forth significant governance challenges. By merging theoretical insights with practical examples, the book examines the risks of harm in social VR environments, including both content and conduct issues. It charts a course for developing inclusive and safe social VR spaces that are respectful of diverse users’ rights and needs, laying out essential principles for policymakers, developers and regulators. The book is an urgent call to proactively shape the burgeoning field of VR for the betterment of all.

This book examines the discourses surrounding the rise of the cryptogaming industry and the use of blockchain technology in videogames. Using a discourse analysis of industry materials published by cryptogame developers and venture capital firms, the book explores the promises made by proponents of cryptogaming, including the potential for resist power asymmetry in the value chain, the ability for players to generate income through their in-game actions, and the convergence and interoperability of games built on blockchains. The book also critiques the limitations and challenges of blockchain technology in the context of gaming, and considers the potentially deleterious impacts on players and developers. Overall, the book offers a comprehensive analysis of the discourses shaping the future of the videogame industry and blockchain technology.