Oftentimes it feels as though my life has video game-like qualities. Mind you, it wouldn’t be a very interesting game, but I’d love to see my commute to the burrito shop or my time spent at a desk writing… about video games… rendered into a custom video game. Actually that might be a bit too meta, even for me.
The New York Times has a story up about a new service called “Amuse Me” that allows clients to purchase high-end, customised video games:
Now, a new service, Amuse Me, is turning the video game into a personalised luxury object, offering tailor-made games where people can recreate their life stories, fight with characters of their choice – and invest in a unique, signed piece of new media art.
The pricing for these games covers three different levels of customisation, charging $US27 (or, €20) per modified element. The story says that the most deluxe games, which are given to the client on their own custom tablet, can cost up to €50,000, or around $US67,000.
“Amuse Me makes personalised games in one’s image, like having your portrait made by a painter,” said Florent Deloison, one of the service’s art game artists, whose work has been shown at the Pompidou centre in Paris.
“In an era of standardized mass production, true luxury is the uniqueness of an object,” he said. “This could go as far as conceiving a game where each level would be based on the structure of your DNA.”
While I don’t know if I’d drop 70 grand on it, it would be pretty neat to play “Me: The Video Game.” Better, to have one made as a gift for a friend. That way, I could passive aggressively insert the things I don’t like about that friend into the game!
Chapter IX: Fred Borrows Kirk’s Xbox Controller and Doesn’t Return It.
Chapter X: Redemption.
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