The disastrous earthquake in Peru that happened last week has revealed a lot of new ancient artifacts and other wonders according to Cryptomundo.

This got me thinking about how to use events like this in a story that is meant to be influenced by the world around it. Why shouldn’t newsworthy events be included in a story that is designed to take into account interaction. The world itself should interact with a “real-world” game. Doing so would allow for a more relevant game experience to those involved.

With that being said, it should be noted that it is necessary to this in a tasteful manner. Using the example of the Peru earthquake, it would be inappropriate to trivialize the loss of life and oversimplify the disaster itself into a headline like “ancient artifacts unearthed due to tectonic shift.”

Even simplistic sports games will be taping the weather network to let the videogamer play football in weather that is happening in realtime. For awhile now team roster changes have been reflected in games.

As we develop more and more world-based interactivity into a gaming experience the players will be more and more immersed into the game itself. As a game developer though, one must be careful to know when to stop the immersion of realism into the game. Too much like reality and the game can just become as dull as the reality gamers are trying to escape. Imagine Grand Theft Auto as a game that included more realism - no one would play it because you’d spend all your time walking around looking for a job.

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