[Included in the private papers of D. Creevey, accessed 2019. Written on white A4 paper with black inkjet print in a manilla folder along with similar reports. A handwritten note on the front of the folder reads ‘DOM artefacts files re: WWW – via web access’. The original copy appears to be from a computer, possibly ‘printed‘ from a website, URL unknown.]
ARTEFACTS. FOLDER 382. #3: IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGIES, comprehensive report (H.J., jr. unsp.)
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4d. Threat assessment: Nintendo. Initial Department concerns re: Nintendo ‘operating system’ appear to be unfounded. Nintendo Co. is a century-old trading card company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan that, since the early 1970s, has specialized in electronic games for non-magical children and teenagers. Nintendo specialize especially in a form of immersive entertainment known as ‘video games’, in which a puzzle activity, processed via binary arithmancy, is passed from a plastic container (‘cartridge’) into a small computer (‘console’) and then projected through electronic wiring onto a cathode-ray television (see FOLDER 114). These video games typically consist of simplistic plots featuring crude imitations of humanoid and animal figures; they require participants (either solitary or two-player opponents) to quickly press one of two buttons (housed on a separate electronic input, the ‘controller’) in order to manipulate the screen display. Though the projected images are somewhat sophisticated by non-magical computing standards, often featuring full colour and varying degrees of verisimilitude, they are in truth extraordinarily simplistic arithmetic feats. Nintendo’s previous console, the Nintendo Entertainment System, processes at merely eight binary choices. Their current console, the Super Nintendo, processes at 16 arithmetic choices and features four buttons instead of two. The Super Nintedo is capable of producing significantly more complex images, but its games appear to be little more complex than those of its predecessor. In spite, or perhaps because of, their simplicity, Nintendo games have proven immensely popular with non-magical children and teenagers.
(Note: ‘Yoshi’ appears to be a character in the popular Mario game series. Yoshi is represented by a lizard-like creature that gaming publications regularly refer to as a ‘dinosaur’. Yoshi is not, as initially speculated, a significant security threat or an advance in non-magical computing capacity but rather a children’s character who mainly functions as a whimsical steed to the Mario games’ protagonists.)
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5b. ‘Three-dimensional’ imaging. [. . .] As stated above, advances in non-magical games have focused primarily on digital processing. Non-magical computer technology can produce increasingly verisimilitude within immersive entertainment experiences. Non-magical cinema has used computer-based visual processing to great effect in recent popular films, but perhaps the most significant advances in visual technology come from video games. As noted above, video game consoles like the Super Nintendo can produce increasingly complex images; these images cannot be considered ‘true to life’, but they possess substantially more detail than the video game imagery of late 1980s. Of greater interest, however, are advances in games designed for true computers that have begun to explore the capacity for ‘three dimensional’ games. The most prominent example of this advance to date is Wolftenstein 3D, a military-inspired game designed by the American company id Software. Wolftenstein 3D simulates the first-person experience of a non-magical soldier, armed with a gun, as he procedes through a series of hallways and rooms beset by increasingly frightening enemies. Though not a true imitation of three-dimensional space, Wolfenstein 3D creates the visual effect of walking forward, turning, and holding an object within one’s line of vision. Were computers able to advance this first-person, three-dimensional experience beyond the limited capacity of eight or sixteen decision arithmancy, non-magical game designers could hypothetically produce video experiences that are indistinguishable from true life – potentially creating an immersive experience identical to those created by magical memory-storing artefacts such as a Pensieve.
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6c. Immersive technologies and internet: video games. Internet has, so far, only hosted extraordinarily crude games that lack the visual complexity of Nintendo or three-dimensional computer games. Many of these games are described as ‘multi-user dungeons’ (MUDs) in which players take on ‘roles’ and engage in text-based imaginary adventures. (Note: non-magical players typically take on roles that imitate magical abilities and thus use these ‘dungeons’ to simulate wizarding life; often, the end goal of a dungeon game appears to be obtaining the status of ‘wizard’; see Folder Psy. 23). The most sophisticated of these internet-based games is the popular Neverwinter Nights, which includes crude graphics in addition to a storyline that follows the typical MUD pattern. Current estimates indicate that Neverwinter Nights hosts between 3,000 and 5,000 players worldwide.
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Recommendations:
[. . .] 2. The interest in immersive video and gaming technology primarily demonstrates long-standing desire in the non-magical community for magical abilities, a fantasy that has been observed throughout history and cannot be considered a significant development with regard to contemporary standards of wizarding secrecy. Video game technologies are currently limited to eight- and sixteen-decision arithmancy that in no way rival magical capacity for immersive experiences. However, other advances in information-sharing technology (audio and visual) suggest that more advanced computing technology will eventually produce significantly more sophisticated immersive experiences. These advances, along with recent advances in three-dimensional visual technology hold some significance for innovations in magical artefacts, primarily in their demonstration that simulated immersive experiences can be created through computer technology. These advances demonstrate the possibility for magical artefacts that incorporate highly immersive visual/experiential elements. Application of some computing principles could be applied to memory technologies and should be further studied to explore potential advances in simulated memories. Simulated three-dimensional experiences, produced through arithmetic or other means, could potentially improve upon currently extant forms of simulated memories. Further exploration of synthetic memory storage, enhanced by immersive imagery (first-person or otherwise), is recommended in order to develop more advanced forms of memory sharing/manipualtion. These studies should be carried out under current artefacts project [xxxxxxx].
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THE PENSIEVE PAPERS 