One of the more eagerly anticipated games of 2013 2014 is UbiSoft’s open-world hacking game Watch Dogs. Originally slated for a November 2013 release for “all home consoles” (including the Wii-U), it will now be released on May 27, 2014.
A William Gibson novel made into bytes, it’s set in a futuristic Chicago where every system is run by a supercomputer called ctOS.
To help market the game, UbiSoft has a fun little website developed by marketing agency AKQA like Digital Shadow that scrapes the data from your Facebook profile and determines how much of a threat you are to ctOS. AKQA is certainly no stranger to producing engaging material for some of the best games around, including Fallout 3, Elder Scrlls V: Skyrim, and Halo Reach.
There’s also the interactive WeAreData that overlays real-time (we think) data visualisations over maps of the worlds major cities. It’s a nice little timewaster.
You can see my mum’s house from here!
Onto the scraping.
Know who else is a data cluster? Will Caster. Yes, I just made a Transcendence reference.
Digital Shadow first shows users the photos they’ve tagged as public, and then it moves on to examine your friends. The omnious-seeming applicaiton shows you which of your Facebook friends you interact with most, who interact with them the most, who they don’t interact with at all, and who they’ve been stalking. Not even GladOS was that much of a bitch.
Nobody I used to know.
Oh, look, the computer guessed right this time.
Digital Shadow doesn’t stop there. It breaks down when users are most active on Facebook and where in the world they’re most likely to be found. It also provides a potential salary based on educational level and job title, as well as a breakdown of possible passwords that could be used to hack their accounts.
You’ll never guess my secrets! Neve… well, I never. Well played, Dr. Zola.
I’m usually pretty vulnerable after a few drinks. Blah, blah, Lawnmower Man.
I tend to keep my Facebook locked down, so CtOS was flummoxed. That didn’t stop the system from offering forth this bit of paranoia-inspiring text.
Your data casts a digital shadow that grows with every online interaction and can be tracked, monitored and used against you. Every photo. Every email. Every purchase. Everything you’ve ever done in the digital world can follow you into the real world. Your actions leave you exposed.
Watch Dogs is due for release worldwide on May 27, 2014 for the PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4 ($59.99) consoles. The Wii-U version of the game has been put on hold while the other versions are being worked on and is planned on being released in the fourth quarter of 2014.
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