I think it's interesting and strange that people are thinking that this is tasteless or offensive. A lot of that is probably coming from a mental picture of the Rift or VR as inherently like an amusement park ride or "fun entertainment," as if the medium was incapable of being anything more.<p>This probably happens every generation of new narrative mediums.<p>Can a videogame portray a tragic event in a tasteful way, or must it always end up as a trivialization of it?
Can a movie portray a tragic event in a tasteful way, or must it always end up as an exploitative popcorn flick?
Can a novel portray a tragic event in a tasteful way, or must it always end up as a cheap pulpy page-turner?
I'm very interested to see if this type of "narrative learning entertainment" catches on in any meaningful way. I could certainly see a market for "see the events of history through the eyes of someone who was there" as the next big edutainment trend.
I vaguely remember a show/movie where people were traveling back in time to be at major events/tragedies similar to this.<p>In any case interesting and (to me) a little creepy at the same time. I'm sure (at least for me) with time the creepiness will wear off. Definitely an interesting take on this tech.
My immediate reaction on seeing this is "You know, 9/11 actually happened and real people died". The Oculus here is giving the possibility of a sort of Disneyland ride experience for 9/11. And that's utterly tasteless.<p>Of course, this sort of thing is bound to happen as television has already led the way into a decent into utter tastelessness.<p>The team linked to their LinkedIn profiles and you can see that they roughly seem to have gone to universities in around 2010. Assuming they were 18 when they did that it means they were 9 years old when 9/11 happen IRL. It's probably just another historical event to them.