"I wish it was a rule that you could only put stuff in your skybox if the player gets to visit at some point. 'Cause then, say, the Syndicate FPS would've looked like it was taking place inside a ping-pong ball."
"...Suddenly, they are faced with a problem that will quickly get out of hand, for just how the sand will feel depends on just how you decide to move your finger. The problem of calculating the proper feedback, generating or composing it, and then presenting it to you in real time is going to be computationally intractable on even the fastest computer, and if the evil scientists decide to solve the real-time problem by pre-calculating and “canning” all the possible responses for playback, they will just trade one insoluble problem for another: there are too many possibilities to store.
In short, our evil scientists will be swamped by combinatorial explosion as soon as they give you any genuine exploratory powers in this imaginary world. It is a familiar wall these scientists have hit; we see its shadow in the boring stereotypes in every video game. The alternatives open for action have to be strictly — and unrealistically — limited to keep the task of the world-representers within feasible bounds. If the scientists can do no better than convince you that you are doomed to a lifetime of playing Donkey Kong, they are evil scientists indeed."
In short, our evil scientists will be swamped by combinatorial explosion as soon as they give you any genuine exploratory powers in this imaginary world. It is a familiar wall these scientists have hit; we see its shadow in the boring stereotypes in every video game. The alternatives open for action have to be strictly — and unrealistically — limited to keep the task of the world-representers within feasible bounds. If the scientists can do no better than convince you that you are doomed to a lifetime of playing Donkey Kong, they are evil scientists indeed."
— Philosopher Daniel Dennettnote , using this trope to illustrate why is it practically impossible to create a convincing virtual reality.
