Can Virtual Worlds Compete With The Real Thing?

Toby Skinner believes that despite hi-tech leaps, virtual worlds can't compete with the real thing

- Toby Skinner

Astronauts have dubbed it the Overview Effect—the transcendent moment when the curve of the Earth comes into view from space; this fragile ball of life hanging in the inky void. I am watching this very thing during a solar eclipse, as the sun slowly disappears behind our planet, leaving an ephemeral scimitar of light. I realise that I can reach out—god-like—and spin the Earth with my right hand. This might be a profound moment of shifting perceptions, but what I actually feel is sweaty, nauseous and strangely hollow.

I’m at Otherworld, a virtual-reality experience in an archway near London’s Victoria Station. It feels like a 22nd-Century solarium, with its glossy white walls, neon LED strip lighting and projections of pulsating orbs. Ten minutes earlier, an earnest young man wearing eyeliner, dressed in a white robe as if for a bout of futurejudo, briefed me on how to use the various headsets and handsets, before pointing me towards a dark vertical pod. There, with headset on, I exited real life and stumbled across a cutesy tropical virtual island to the Google Earth VR pod, virtual version of the real pod I’m in (it’s confusing).