 Part of the effect the last of us is going for is of being an individual going through a pandemic. We don't get these scenes where the doctors are saying this is a virus, this is a bacteria, whatever. It's not interested in that side of it so much. I don't think it does have much responsibility to be accurate. I mean it's science fiction, it's a post-apocalypse if you you know when you look at something like I guess 28 days later might be a good comparison 28 weeks later. We don't necessarily expect the science there to be accurate. I think what we always expect is the veneer of accuracy. I think where it might be more interesting to look at accuracy would be games like Plague Incorporated where that is basically talking about transmission vectors a lot of the time. You get a map of the globe, you play the virus or you can choose to play a bacteria, a fungal spore, a parasite, various other things. You always want a long incubation period that's you know once you can get out there into the world without scientists realizing you're there it works very well and that would be a game where I would look much much more for accuracy about pandemics than something like The Last of Us because in The Last of Us it is really kind of a background to the story the game is telling which is about Joel and Ellie whereas in something like Plague Inc. it's more important I guess and it kind of makes the game more fun if the parameters you're playing with are you know more representative of the real world around it in realism. Yeah so I think the guy who developed our base path I forget his name but I think he went to talk to the Center for Disease Control in the US so I think he was really into the epidemiology and science behind it so I mean do you think that maybe game makers should work more or work closer with scientists to ensure that at least there's a passing nod to what would really happen I mean in this case are you saying this case maybe not but even if they just said oh this this you know we're going to make this vaccine it's going to take some time but you know we're going to do it with at least a nod towards realism do you think that that would be okay. Well I think even more than a nod I mean it very much depends on the type of game you're making again you know if you if you are making a kind of brainless sci-fi shooter nobody is really playing that with science if you're making something and I think The Last of Us does have ambitions to be a kind of deeper game with deeper themes I mean obviously the themes here are more emotional they're about the father daughter bond but it is it is a scenario where you can see it could present some of the ethical questions around vaccination and science in a different way and at the end it kind of you know at the end is determined that the way they're going to get the vaccine. Is this what we say spoilers is that to anyone who may or may not have finished it. Yeah I mean this is the spoiler of them all and the at the end of it I mean it's so ludicrous they decide that the way they can get the vaccine is basically by killing Ellie that's what the doctors want to do. We're talking that a bit maybe. They want to chop out the bit of her brain that's infected and at that point you're just you know it's so far gone compared to what it you know the other direction it could have gone in and the reason for that is that the long decade long process you're talking about to really get a vaccine just wouldn't work in this context. It doesn't lend itself to a snapping narrative. Yeah okay I mean you think maybe the movie Contagion is a good one to think about I think that involved a lot of scientists they did talk about that and they tried to keep that as close but still managed to make an entertaining movie I mean you know and you're right there there's some of it which was of course that that would and that's always the balance isn't it because these are creative industries at the end of the day you know who are we to restrict that creativity and you know it is for entertainment and for enjoyment and it is a nice way to engage with like science and areas relating to diseases and vaccinations but I think at the end of the day it is a creative industry and you know the final outcome for them is entertainment really is our entertainment. So as researchers then maybe this this half of the group who know about this stuff very well and intimately kind of a knowledge of peer review processes and journals and stuff I mean what are your thoughts on that then so what Richard just said in terms of it's it's not necessarily that important. I would say I think the thing that games could address very well is the ethical side of science rather than the actual facts if you like you know games are never going to replace you know our traditional methods of learning the book the lab what they can do is present so let's say the ethical issue of using a human test subject rather than an animal that's something where a game can put you in a position to make that decision and it might make you think about it might make you think about it a little differently and it's something that games are very effective and I can't see a way another medium could do that. Is that because I think the cliché is you have an emotional attachment to this you you are doing the whatever it is you are saying yes or no to the to cutting the yeah but it's also just putting you in a situation in a more concrete manner I mean it's all very well for us to talk about human test subjects in the abstract but if you are playing a game with some sort of medical element to it and you end up in a situation where let's say you're in charge of a colony you want to make a vaccine it's going to take you know 10 years but if you you know if you license your medical staff to use human test subjects maybe you can get it out in three to five do you want to do that and you know what are the consequences of that further down the line for your colony that's the kind of that's the kind of way that gaming and science could intersect too I think the ethical side of science is something games can handle very well the actual nuts and bolts of it I don't think you're going to end up with an entertaining experience or necessarily an educational one and does that upset you guys at all I mean you said it's pure entertainment yeah no I mean I don't play a game to have a science lecture so yeah I do plenty of that in my nine to five so you know a lot of the time you know I play video games like I played a lot of playing football which I really enjoy and you know you do it as an enjoyment if there's like a scientific basis personally I find that a fantastic bonus but you know a lot of the time you guess you kind of think you don't really expect everyone to have the same interests as you and the same kind of interest in generally kind of you know science and vaccination that kind of thing so you know I think it's good if there is elements of that you know because it's just nice to kind of highlight it and kind of bring it give it some kind of you know profile I think it's a really interesting area but especially like young people or you know who are interested in in science but I think certainly it doesn't bother me at all no I'm happy to play my games yeah I think when I look for maybe either from a computer game or from or from kind of literature or films it's it's not a sense of scientific realism it maybe it's sort of a sense of sociological realism if anything a sense that you that you're experiencing something of how human beings you know would deal with a particular situation so that so the scenario can be something completely out of this world but so long as the people in it are recognizably human or if it's a game that you're you're making recognizably human choices that's maybe what what seems really important to drag you in and to make you think about it and that it can be scientifically implausible around that so long as it feels real so it's the emotional aspect it's the most important bit there okay by yourself and yes I understand it's games and creativity and people don't expect it to be realistic I think it disturbs me where there's there's a gross would you go with the rise of the the sports for example no that that doesn't no that's not I rolled my eyes because I know and that's funny I mean it's funny and it doesn't matter I think it disturbs me if there's an idea comes out that is wrong that would make people believe a vaccine comes from a brain of somebody or because there's this anti-vaccine people saying you know vaccines are made from the brain of monkeys which is you know completely untrue and and anything that sort of supports this sort of ideas is a bit so so in force this there itself I think what we maybe as scientists have to travel with is the mad scientist yes you know with the crazy hair and if the scientist is shown as the yeah the you know doing the everything or or or most of the time after a film like contagion or whatever film with the pseudoscience people come come and say oh so why don't you do that that seems so easy also yes people who know a PCR in 15 minutes don't know how long a PCR takes sorry guys that's a very inside joke which trust me that's an overnighter at least isn't it normally so for me the scientific accuracy yeah if personally it does disturb me a bit in movies but because I I think yeah maybe that's just my brain and I think it's I absolutely agree with you depends on people some people they don't doesn't matter and some it matters but when when if it gives really an idea that is really can't counter helping on on some important aspects like for example vaccination of course I'm attached to it then I start like thinking like you say okay if they want a vaccine they have to take their brain and I'm not again not the brain thing for the vaccines I agree completely with that I had no idea that that was an anti-vaxxer thing this thing about monkey brains and you know while while I would say games don't necessarily have a responsibility to get the science accurate I certainly think what if they're contributing to a myth like that which is harmful in the real world I don't imagine the developers would be very happy to find that coincidence out either so the bandwagon was being or it was being attached to it for whatever reason yeah well I think I think they were just thinking of you know what what will be a great motivation for Joel in the final scene which is you know I mean it's terrible isn't it I hate the the last thing of them you know they have to get Ellie's brain I wouldn't have minded it if they said we just need to kill Ellie you know but it was the fact they focused on the brain which was just yeah I think it could lead the brain or killing it probably the same well it is that it yeah she does focus on on a fungal disease I think we've talked about before that these are very unknown diseases like I mean a virus is the easy one everyone knows you know you can think of dozens of science fiction movies from the Andromeda strain onwards that deal with kind of a new terrifying virus or whatever it is but I think fungal diseases are kind of I think the silent killer is the cliche but it's absolutely true I mean as you just said they affect millions of people there's there's very few drugs or treatments for them there's very you know no vaccines at all I don't believe so in a way what I've taken out of it actually I'm quite pleased that that they've not highlighted because that's not the wrong way they're not highlighting it is a fungal but they've actually touched on something that that not many other people have you know what I mean it's it's kind of this relatively unknown thing that only very very sick people tend to get so I'm quite pleased about that and I think you know to to to count your points it it doesn't bother me pretty much at all too much really it's not 100 accurate like it's you know I watched Star Trek for fun that's you know sometimes that turns out that is accurate you know but that's not really why I'm watching it is it you know we do it all day we talk about it all day it's nice to switch the rain off but I think one thing we did talk about that 20 years and 10 years for the vaccine development they used the 20 years as a big point and saying it's still it doesn't exist you know no cure exists we're still doing this I presume that's a very important sort of mental choice for them to show that this is a devastating society yeah I mean the 20 years thing is really about the character development I mean at the start you see Joel probably the worst moment in his life when he loses his daughter I think they there are two reasons the 20 years are really important the first is that you know when you see him again he's a kind of dead-eyed older man who clearly doesn't have much to live for and the other one which is much more important really is that Ellie is 14 and this is the world you know she doesn't have any memory of the world we see at the start of the game the I mean it's not a post pandemic society for her it's just society it's what she's grown up with and that's that's used to enormously good effect throughout the game when Joel and Ellie are walking through in some of the quieter moments and they'll see stuff and she has no idea why it's there he's telling her why it was there and she you know you can see her trying to visualize this world we live in now I mean it's the game was set in the year it was released and part of the effect it's going for is having a human being imagining our world removed from that world and so the 20 years again it's not really a science thing it's purely about the story they want to tell which is about these two characters but it does freeze frame in 2013 for this is what 2013 wouldn't like yeah in 20 years time somebody yeah and just woke up into it almost I mean yeah yeah and and also I think there's probably an aspect of because you're going around shooting this