I was impressed by the presentation for Watch Dogs Legion during Ubisoft’s E3 press conference, so I decided to go back and take another look at Watch Dogs 2. I played the game briefly when it was released two and a half years ago, got distracted by other games, and didn’t remember much about it. The opening monologue that set the game up stopped me in my tracks. Much of it felt like it was ripped from today’s headlines.
In Watch Dogs 2, San Francisco is run by ctOS 2.0, an operating system that uses data gathered from connected devices to control infrastructure, monitor the population, and maintain security. Megacorporations make invasive use of the data to manipulate groups and increase profits at people’s expense. Think Google’s ability to gather a wide range of data about how we live our lives married to Facebook’s unethical use of data to discover and refine methods designed to manipulate and influence and you’re in the right ballpark.
Corporate invasion of user privacy was an issue in 2016 when Watch Dogs 2 released, but it wasn’t as salient as it is today. The news was just beginning to break about how Russia used fake social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter to influence the US presidential election by depicting Donald Trump in a way designed to appeal to certain segments of the population. The Facebook, Verizon, Exactis, Marriot, and Equifax data breaches of 2017 and 2018 hadn’t happened yet. GDPR was a year and a half in the future. This year’s headlines about the Flipboard hack, Google logging user’s purchase history, and iPhone apps sending reams of data to marketing and research companies while you sleep had yet to be written. We’re aware of these things now.
Watch Dogs 2 warned us. In the game world, “Appliances, consoles and home security systems give corporations a window into your private life”. Sound familiar? How about this. “Insurance companies use algorithms to monitor your life habits and limit or deny coverage.” Or this, “Search results and news feeds are skewed to bias mood and influence your vote”. We live in this world.
Watch Dogs 2 didn’t get everything right. The world it describes is made possible by data gathered from 6.4B connected devices. It’s estimated that there were 17B connected devices around the world in 2018, 7B of them in the internet of things.
WatchDog 2 calls out the problem, but its solution is a pure video game. You play as a hero hacker that fights back. In Legion, the problem’s gotten worse and you play as a city of heroes who have combat or hacking skills that are fun in video games and unlikely in the real world. But the city of heroes idea has potential. One finger thrown up in anger conveys a provocative insult. Adding that finger to the others and turning your hand around says “Stop”.
The Watch Dogs 2 monologue reaches the conclusion that “You are now less valuable than the data you produce.” Think about it. The data we produce is farmed while we live through our day and sleep through the night. It’s used to track our behavior and create targeted, manipulative messaging campaigns designed to influence what we do, what we think, and what we buy. Our data is worth trillions. What do we get in return? The “privilege” of using products and services. Here’s another idea. We produce the data. If they want it, they can pay us for it. It may not make for a good video game, but it can lead to a world where our privacy is ours to keep or share as we please.
originally posted on Forbes.com by Kevin Murnane
