Watch_Dogs has been no stranger to publicity, and Ubisoft have taken it one step further by launching an interesting new website by the name of WeareData – which serves the purpose of gathering and graphing the publicly available data that govern people’s lives in a single location. Yes, it is a bit eccentric, but so is the product that this website promotes – so this little page comes off as a perfect fit.
Here are some details of this fully-connected website:
In Watch_Dogs, the highly anticipated open world action game from Ubisoft, the fictionalised city of Chicago is run by a Central Operating System (CTOS), linking all of the city’s online infrastructures and public security installations to one centralised hub. Information is at the heart of the game and also at the heart of WeareData.
With WeareData, visitors will discover that much of the hyper-connected world imagined in Watch_Dogs already is a reality, and that everything and everyone is truly connected. The amount of and potential uses for public and personal information that is readily available online has never been more relevant, as evidenced by today’s headlines. WeareData is designed to provide a glimpse into this reality and to give visitors a new perspective on the cities in which they live.
Watch_Dogs’ WeareData allows users to access the real-time data that organise and help run the cities of Berlin, London and Paris, as well current information on their inhabitants. Via a 3D mapping system, the consolidated, openly available information that can be easily viewed includes public transport schedules (such as subways and public bicycles), telecommunications networks (including mobile antennas, WiFi spots and advertising networks), energy consumption, traffic and safety infrastructure (like CCTV cameras and traffic lights) and regionalised socioeconomic data (such as average net income, unemployment rate and crime rate). Also available are geo-localised social media activities for the cities’ residents, including their public posts on Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and Twitter.
You can check out three screenshots as well as a production video of the product below, or get in on WeareData for yourself by following this link. Who is watching? We will find out that answer when the game releases later this year on all platforms.
