I was at the store with the wife when she spotted a magazine on the shelf, "31 women we love" read the cover. She just couldn't resist it and we bought it. She is not into magazines, except when they talk about successful women. At the checkout I noticed the back cover and to my surprise I noticed a familiar videogame character holding a handbag from a very popular fashion house; Louis Vuitton. The character turned out to be Lighting from the FInal Fantasy series.

According to Louis Vuitton's website: "Her name is Lightning and she flashes through fabulous worlds in search of her sister who is being held captive.

Lightning pushes the idea of the heroine even further. It is logical that the Maison Louis Vuitton would explore the infinite possibilities of the virtual world and ask this fantasy character to interpret the essence of a heroine.

Today Lightning, the heroic figure in 'Final Fantasy', the cult series of video games that has inspired more than 100 million players around the world, agrees to become a character in the Louis Vuitton galaxy. The Maison has always pushed the boundaries of reality and dreams. Real, virtual, incarnate, metaphorical: Lightning is the fruit of Square Enix studios' imagination, and she raises the question of immanence - that which takes place solely in the mind - in tomorrow's world." - Link to website

There are CG videos with Lighting performing usual Final Fantasy acrobatics but instead of flashing a weapon or magic she flashes her handbags. There is also a live-action video of models wearing Lighting-style clothes and accessories.

Regardless of my opinion about paying $5k for a handbag (and other things as a matter of fact), I found the idea of using a character from a video game as a virtual model quite interesting. Even when I haven't played the game nor consider myself a fan of her, I recognized her. I don't think that Louis Vuitton is targeting video game players. Even with 100 million players around the world. I believe Louis Vuitton is tapping to the unlimited potential of virtual life-like models.

Think about it, instead of wasting time training, developing, instructing, and paying models, you can pay a designer to create the dream babe and setting for the occasion. Lightning, and I mean the photographic instrument, can be set to right angle in an instant,

But the most interesting aspect is how video games are gaining more footing ground on common culture and not only as video games themselves or as toys or collectibles, but as music, art, and now as fashion models. What's next? Samus Aran modeling some safety headgear, or say... the Microsoft Hololens. Or Solid Snake advertising Just For Men.

Have you noticed this type of mix in the past? Do you know of any other example of video games crossing over to the high fashion world?

First and foremost: I don't have the data to validate this hypothesis or not, so this falls in the realm of opinions and thoughts. And after that disclaimer here we go...

I was re-listening to the Giant Beastcast episode 32, the one when Danielle Riendeau was invited while Jeff Backalar was outalar in CES and she talked a little bit about the Idle Thumbs podcast, I decided to give it a try and just listened to the last episode; on which they discuss how dying on certain games (primarily horror games) makes the game less stressful going forward and you are no longer afraid of the big scary thing that is out there to kill you(r character) or other characters changing the game mechanic. I have had this happen to me on a few games and it is very likely this has happened to you as well.

All of this got me thinking about the different game mechanics in games single player or multiplayer: the perma-deaths, the lives system, the respawn, the down system, and who knows what else. All of these systems eventually allow the player to resume their game with various degrees of punishment and penalties ranging from start to slap-on-the-wrist-penalties. I then shifted my conscious thought to real-life death and asked a question that echoed inside my head: Have games changed our view on death, personal or otherwise?

I don't mean that games are desensitizing us. I don't think that games have made us less empathic about death and the dying. I think that games have thought us that there are several ways to manage grief and the frustration around death. We still grieve, we still feel pain, we still mourn. There is no way around that. I think that games have made us look at the challenges ahead of us, assess the risks and face the outcome of our decisions/situations in a healthier way, and by healthier I mean less traumatizing.

I can't say I have had this happen to me with any recent loss, but because I am generally a calm person and over-rationalize things, yet I can foresee that many people have coped with their grieves better than they would've thanks to how video games introduce the various death mechanics and the implications around those.

Certainly, death in real life is permanent, as the saying goes: There are only two things anyone alive in this world can ever be certain of and those are that they were born and they will die.There is no "Continue" as games have thought us, but games have also thought us that death and dying don't need to be a traumatizing experience.

Have you ever experienced a loss of any kind that games helped you get over with either before or after the event?

A few months ago I killed/deleted all my social media accounts, that includes Facebook that I visited frequently, several Twitter handles that I rarely if ever at all used, tried to delete my Google+ but had to reopen it to be able to properly use YouTube (I don't comment or share videos, but needed to make channels and lists). I only kept my LinkedIn profile for professional reasons (I am in HR) and a Pinterest profile that I mainly use as a scrapbook for cool stuff but rarely share content with my 3 contacts that I know in real life.

When I did have a Facebook profile I rarely posted and when I did my post was lost in the myriad of posts and received little to no attention, example I would post a picture of my wife and I and have 3 likes, when she posted the same picture on her profile she would get 50+ all because her profile was more visible had more contacts and she was more active than I was, I was a huge man with the tiniest of voices in there and didn't feel compelled to share a bunch of stuff so I only lurked and liked, maybe comment every now and then on other posts. That's the way Facebook works and i get it, but I disliked being a consumer of people's lives through Facebook and being up to date on everything they did that by the time we actually met in person we didn't have much to talk about (has this happened to anyone else), and then it started happening with my wife and I knew I had to put a stop to it. So I terminated my electronic persona and never looked back.

I've been happy for the most part with my decision it has helped me worry less about what other people might think and spend less time on my phone, I used to be an internet explorer but Facebook ended that, it consumed pretty much all of my online activity and now I am starting to explore again the vast plain of The Internet, so much cool stuff out there that I missed.

On the other hand on real life, outside of my family and some friends that I can count with the fingers on one hand, I don't have that many meaningful connections. My friends from college are gone (I realized that they were my friends but I wasn't theirs), some of my colleagues at work are cool and all but I wouldn't call them my friends (except one of them that I already considered with those fingers on that one hand).

I've never had a large group of friends but I feel that nowadays with everything happening online friendships have moved from a physical world to a digital one, and I am not sure I like it, I enjoy having a candid conversation in person, video chat doesn't feel the same even those telepresence rooms. I guess I am a bit old fashioned that way, and I know that there's a bit of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) going on, but lately it has made me think that maybe I am the one that is wrong about this whole thing. I don't know for sure, but I will find out sooner or later.

Thanks for reading, leave a comment if you want to share something :)

Found this image on Pinterest, and though it was very funny, and I am starting to enjoy my cat more more (source unknown). Who's your best friend?