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When games hit reality: Angry Birds Live

Technology already exists to bring your favorite video game to the real world
Written by Joel Evans, Contributor
Recently T-Mobile released a video that showed people playing Angry Birds on a device, and then in real life, Angry Birds played out behind them. You can see it in action in the video below. What I found most interesting about the video was not that it was a stunt (see at the end of this article), but that it showed promise for what could soon be. For example, in the case of this promotional stunt, the video was shot in a way to make the viewer think that whatever the person was doing on the video screen was actually coming true behind them in real life. What's interesting to note is that technology could actually enable that. So, unlike many of the viral videos out there, for a bit more money, this one could have really been rigged up. With the above in mind, think about amusement parks of the future, or giant PR launches that rig up a similar offering, to get people to play a game. Instead of Angry Birds, imagine a giant whack a mole, or some other game. At Rhode Island Maker Faire a while back, the Tellart folks rigged up a real life Pong.

MakerPong from Tellart on Vimeo.

Then they followed it up with a real life Frogger.

Tellart's Frogger Hack from Tellart on Vimeo.

As you can see, while the Angry Birds Live was a stunt, with some clever editing and staging (see below), it's not inconceivable to have something like it really working, for the world to enjoy. Below is the making of Angry Birds Live: Have you seen any instances of real life video gaming? If so, share them below.
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