Tiger Woods game a slice of real time
Among all the buzzwords describing the “light speed” and “real-time” nature of technology these days, few events are driving home the point better than the Tiger Woods affair, a veritable hole in one for the Internet’s quick turnaround time.
Take for instance the online game that rolled out just four days after his auto accident. Break Media’s Tiger Hunting has players guide a cartoon Tiger Woods in his Cadillac Escalade, with a supposed mistress seated beside him, down a street. Meanwhile, a character portraying his wife, Elin, chases them on foot, golf club in hand. Players must swerve to avoid obstacles, including trees, golf bags and babies.
As of Wednesday night, the free game had been played more than 1.5 million times.
“If we had a sense of urgency, if we wanted to, we could have put it up quicker,” said Nick Wilson, chief technology officer for the Los Angeles game developer.
Another technology to piggyback on the world’s fixation with Woods came from a Taiwanese company that quickly crafted a computer-animated reenactment of the crash scene. The YouTube clip, which looks like something out of a recent version of the Sims game, has been viewed more than 2 million times.
Break Media is among a growing cadre of game developers that are carving out a niche in turning breaking news events into online video games. Its crude execution allows Break Media to get away with some moral bogeys.
“It’s good not to take it too seriously,” Break Media developer Chris Pasley said. “Cartoon format allows you to satirize things.”
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