In the ancient Greek days, if you wanted to propose to a girl, then you had to throw an apple on her. And if she accepted the apple, it meant that she had taken your proposal, and if she did not accept the apple, it was a definite no.

In the current generation, dating can be re-imagined in simplistic ways through playful experience by creating a platform enabling new ways to have dates or simple interactions with strangers. You can play with a group of people in an anonymous crowd. British developers, Simon Evans and Simon Johnson, launched a game called ‘Comfort of Strangers’ which could be played in real life. In this game, you can decide to be any of the two characters (dancer or lover) and have to make your team with a similar role. You walk through the busy place, and a voice whispers in your ear, “There’s another lover nearby…” You start looking into the crowd and hear the voice say, “Your life is now at level 5, and you are a lover, find the other person in the crowd and make your team.” And then you hear the voice say, “There is a dancer nearby, you look around, and now your life is at level 4.” You need to stay far away from the characters of your opposite team. If you come close to your opposite side, you will lose a life and will be put out of the game. When you go near a person, and nothing happens, that means he/she is not playing the game, and you do not need to bother them. But if your level goes up, then you can smile at that person and make eye contact, and that creates the initial connection with the stranger, and you can, eventually, start going nearer to different people in the crowd, who are using that game. The only clue that they are playing the game is that they are wearing headphones.

Games like this are relatively new and require a critical mass of players. However, one can always find out exciting ways like advance scheduling to solve this problem. So, play can be used to re-imagine dating and socializing with different audiences.

Oculus, Facebook Virtual Reality Unit, is working on Facebook Horizon to enable people to interact with each other as Digital Avatars. Facebook users will be able to add new things to the virtual world, and when mass level citizens start playing in the virtual world, you will see extraordinary creations. Such virtual worlds are not new; in the past, you may have already explored Microsoft’s Minecraft or Second Life. From the business point of view, this may work well as people spend their time in the virtual world and it has already been seen that people spend real-world money in purchasing virtual assets or improving their avatars or own virtual properties. Horizon can bring more social elements to virtual reality as it will gain from the existing network it has got. If the Facebook horizon is successful, then it is going to be one of the biggest virtual reality digital playgrounds where users can build their worlds, create and play games. What Facebook wants is that people should keep spending tons of time on their portals. And from that perspective, launching Horizon makes perfect sense for Facebook. Monetizing the VR experience will not be tough for them, and it may open doors for new virtual reality entrepreneurs to start creating innovative virtual reality applications. However, for the moment, it looks like an ambitious vision for people to begin adopting VR at a mass level.

Ford has developed an experiential game ‘Escape the Room’ for exploring new ways of connecting with consumers and creating unique experiences to introduce new Ford Escape and their technologies. It was mainly done to connect with millennial buyers. In the game, players have to find clues that will guide their journey using various technological tools available in the new Ford Escape. The game, which was open to the public for four days, saw more than 1,000 consumers sign up in less than 24 hours.[i]

Volkswagen too launched an exciting initiative called the ‘People’s Car Project’ (PCP) in China. It was to capture ideas from people in China for Volkswagen of the future. This interesting concept brought 33 million visitors to the website, and more than 119,000 ideas were submitted.[ii]

[i] https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2016/06/20/game-on–ford-escape-launches-world-s-largest-escape-the-room-ex.html

[ii] https://www.motor1.com/news/31494/volkswagen-peoples-car-project-envisions-magnetic-hover-car-video/