Fantasy football was created in 1962 and, interestingly, the first-ever virtual reality prototype was built in the same year. So whilst it would be a long time before electronic virtual reality computer games would take off, it could be said that fantasy football was the original virtual reality game.
Fantasy football - conceived on a road trip:
Fantasy football was the brainchild of Bill Winkenbach, who was a limited partner in the Oakland Raiders. It was during a Raiders' East Coast road trip that Winkenbach and some friends laid the ground rules to the game, putting the final touches to it in a New York hotel. Winkenbach may have possessed great acumen as an inventor but his skills didn't extend to coming up with a catchy name; he decided to call his game the Greater Oakland Pigskin Prognosticators League, or GOPPL for short! I think we'd all agree that fantasy football has a better ring to it.
Initially, Winkenbach's game was limited to a league of eight players (or club owners). For the winner, there was the prestige of having bested friends and acquaintances. The loser, meanwhile, took possession of a wooden figurine that Winkenbach had carved of a football with a dunce's cap on it! From that initial Prognosticators league, interest soon hotted up with others taking Winkenbach's idea and creating leagues nationwide.
Virtual reality beginnings - would you like aromas with your film?
Meanwhile, whilst Winkenbach and co were busy creating fantasy football, Morton Heilig was putting the finishing touches to his Sensorama virtual reality prototype. Heilig had been working from the 1950s on producing a new theater experience, one where viewers would be able to use all their senses to appreciate the movie experience. The Sensorama was an arcade game-sized machine that the viewer sat at. Films were loaded into this mechanical device and contained the ability for aromas and wind to be triggered at key moments to augment the authenticity of the viewing experience. The machine also contained stereo sound and could tilt. All these features were put to good effect in a short piece that had the viewer riding a motorbike through the streets of Brooklyn! Unfortunately Heilig was unable to obtain funding for the project but he is now considered to have been one of the father figures of virtual reality.
Virtual reality definition and appeal:
The modern definition of "virtual reality" states that it's "a computer simulation of a real or imaginary system that enables a user to perform operations on the simulated system and shows the effects in real time" (Source: thefreedictionary.com). In other words, virtual reality is a system that acts as a copy or substitute for something that exists in the real world. And whereas the Sensorama prototype involved one individual interacting with a system, most virtual reality games now have a modus operandi that involves many people interacting with a system, and often located right across the country or even the globe.
One of the appeals of virtual reality games is that, because the experience is not real, it doesn't present any risk or downside, perhaps other than the amount of your free-time that it might devour! It also increasingly creates a sense of community, although psychologists have expressed concerns both over its addictive nature and the fact that increasingly young people are linked to virtual rather than physical communities.
It was the 1980s and 1990s that saw virtual reality spring into the consciousness of the general public. This was helped through the mainstream media of entertainment. Hollywood first got in on the act in 1982 with the feature film TRON, while virtual reality's coolness also got an MTV airing via Aerosmith's video for their single, Amazing, in 1993.
So is fantasy football a virtual reality game?
We don't tend to think of fantasy football, however, when the words "virtual reality" are bandied about. This is probably because the mass media depictions of virtual reality have tended to focus on the sci-fi image of gamers wearing futuristic-looking helmets, gloves and various connecting wiring! The terminology, though, is equally apt for sporting prediction games such as fantasy football. Fantasy football participants pick players to be part of their pretend team and the players' performances earn points. As team owner, the fantasy football manager wields a level of power than real team owners and coaches would be envious of. A player's not performing? Get rid of them and bring in a high-scoring player from a rival side. Easy!
Indeed, it could be seen as having similarities with the soon-to-be-released sci-fi film Gamer, in which the film's central protagonist finds himself an unwilling participant in an online game that others are controlling. Of course, the control element in fantasy football doesn't extend to the players' real lives, or does it? I suppose a case could be made that players who score highly in fantasy football will be particularly popular and may see higher merchandising sales, in turn making them more valuable to their club than other players whose performances, though perhaps good, don't line up with the fantasy football scoring metrics. Is it possible, therefore, that your choice of fantasy football picks may, in some way, contribute to which players get kept on rosters and which are discarded? It's an interesting and slightly disquieting thought!
Further reading and viewing:
* Fantasy Football: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_football_(American)#History
* Virtual Reality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality
* Definition of virtual reality: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/virtual+reality
* Gamer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamer_(film)
* Origins of fantasy football: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/27/SPG10A29D61.DTL
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