I can’t resist the puns.
Last week I spoke about Blood Sport, the so-called “ultimate in immersive gaming”. This off-kilter initiative was aiming to make blood donation more fun and appealing by tying it to video gaming. When you would receive damage in any given game, the controller’s rumble feature would trigger the blood-collection system. If you would like to learn more about it, check out these two posts.
I said that I would be covering the story as it unfolds. At this point though, Blood Sport may have reached a dead end.
The project first started getting widespread recognition when it had its crowdfunding campaign suspended on Kickstarter. Ultimately this meant little since the project was simply not going to meet its funding requirements. It had only raised a couple thousand towards its lofty $250,000 goal and its January end date was fast approaching.
When I last left Blood Sport, I was waiting for further information on why the project was suspended, what prospects it had on overturning that suspension, and what was going to happen next in the very near future. Around the time of my last post, CNET reportedly reached out to the duo behind Blood Sport and asked about their situation. Frustratingly, Kickstarter has a sealed-lips policy when it comes to actually explaining why suspensions get handed out. The creators did share some theories on why Blood Sport got pulled, namely issues relating to safety and medical equipment.
A week later and news on Blood Sport has all but dried up. Some articles still get posted, but they’re just regurgitations of previous info. If the website Joystiq is any indication, the Blood Sport creators are just sending out the same canned responses to those who are contacting them. Even the Facebook page for creator Taran Chadha has gone back to posting unrelated content, although to be fair it’s not a particularly active or focused page.
So what’s going on now? The creators may still be consulting blood donation officials as they stated in the CNET article. Maybe the project’s been put on hold. Either way, Blood Sport would have a long ways ahead of it to gain the amount of support needed to be successful, of which it has previously demonstrated itself incapable. News about Blood Sport will either trickle in slowly or just cease. Maybe.
What did you think of Blood Sport’s concept? Its implementation? Do you think it has a future? Do you even think it’s real? Tell me in the comments below, and thanks for reading.