Blood Sport is the perfect name for am ambitious piece of technology: a rig that will link medical hardware to a video game, and take some of your blood whenever you’re hit. All for a good cause, of course.
Despite hospitals and emergency services the world over needing fresh blood every day for transfusions, there are never enough people willing to donate the stuff. Blood Sport is looking to make the act a little more lucrative, linking the charitable aspect (the losing blood part) to some fun (the video game part).
It’s really simple: the electrical signal from a controller’s rumble is linked to a fairly standard blood collection system. Every time the controller rumbles, some blood is taken from you.
While this might mean it takes a little longer (depending on how good you are at avoiding damage!) to donate the blood, if it means more blood is collected, the longer waits will be worth it.
Blood Sport is currently up on Kickstarter.
Comments
24 responses to “You Lose Actual Blood Every Time You’re Shot With This Controller”
And what are the legalities behind all of this? is it at home or at a center? i mean i wouldn’t want to go to a blood donation center to play video games for hours on end to get blood. but I’m pretty sure I’m legally not allowed to just show up at a donation center with a bag of blood either.
I’m assuming the blood limit would be the same as normal donors, the only variable here would be the length of time required to fill it, depending on the gamer’s skill.
Hell, they’d probably even apply a time limit.
In the video they explain that the vision is to have it at clinics and run blood donation gaming events. It’s not intended to be a take home consumer product.
For some reason this needed to be said although I’m pretty sure most people’s responses would be “duh”.
As a regular blood donor and also a plasma donor this is the best invention ever!! I would highly urge everyone to donate Blood. Not just blood but plasma!! It’s a longer process, so an invention like this would totally kill the time! This is gaming for a good cause!
I can’t really see this getting started; it’s a bit… I don’t know, much. It would have to be set up at a clinic though, surely?
On the same note, I keep seeing this stupid post on tumblr of an artist using a machine to take his blood and then mechanically draw his big naked self-portrait. That made me so angry. What a waste of a precious resource.
I think so too, I I think it’d work well if was like Horde mode in Gears of War… when you just end up getting shot like crazy anyway so you end up giving your quota of blood 😛
What about the rumble from activity around you? Explosions, buildings collapsing etc, would that not defeat the purpose of ‘getting shot’?
1. Prepare PS3 with Dark Souls at a clinic
2. Set up Blood Sport and seat patient
3. Advise patient to commence playing
4. Solve world’s blood problems
Pfft… just play a fighting game.. preferably one w/ insane chain combos like the VS series!
Problem solved! 😀
I’d love to give blood in this country but unfortunately I’m a mad cow or something so I’m not allowed
Silly cow.
Some diabetic children hate to take their blood glucose readings. I once lived where a school was on the other side of the fence and found someone’s glucometer. I could see this device being used to encourage diabetic kids to look after themselves more than as a blood donation device.
They don’t need to take that much blood! Just a pin prick is enough, they don’t need to puncture veins 😮
That’s true. The rest can be donated to the blood bank.
Gamefication everywhere!
I think they may have gone 1 step too far—why extract blood on the basis of skill? Maybe just set it up to extract the regular amount of blood, but tell the player the amount will depend on how good they are. At least you aren’t setting up a system where good gamers give less blood than the rest of us (I obviously imagine the game they’ll use as some sort of fast-twitch online shooter that I regularly get pantsed at).
Or just give blood and read a book or some shit. (I would, but I’m a big skirt and I’m scared of passing out/throwing up/pissing myself in front of strangers… without alcohol being involved.)
Still, I like the idea.
This is dumb
They don’t want my blood, regardless of how it’s collected.
I think I know what you’re getting at. Bullshit, that law is, complete bullshit.
Unable to donate blood but if they can do this for my monthly blood collections i would love it. Although my samples take less than 3 minutes to take so prob not worth it.
I … hate.. syringes… but I guess haters gonna hate, right?
Idk if this would be allowed in AU; every time I donate blood the Red Cross make me (and everybody else there) lay down.
Perhaps you could introduce games to help pass the time for plasma donors, but you wouldn’t tie it to damage.
Bet those assholes wouldnt talk as much crap if they were hooked up to this.
Could be interesting for competitive events.
My question is, how does it feel?
Playing Gears of War with this wouldn’t be a good idea…