Ubisoft has launched WeareData, a promotional website for Watch Dogs that maps unprotected social data in three different cities
Ubisoft's cyber-noir thriller Watch Dogs is set for release in a the next few months and the publisher has decided to use the game's paranoid-inducing premise in an admittedly impressive marketing tool.
The publisher has just launched WeareData, promotional website for Watch Dogs that maps unprotected social data to create interactive maps of the cities of Berlin, London and Paris.
The purpose of the site seems to be to lend some credence to the central narrative of Watch Dogs, in which a hacker in Chicago uses the city's online infrastructures and public security installations as weapons against the shadowy organisation who runs them.
WeareData shows that the hyper-connectivity in the world of Watch Dogs isn't just the stuff of science fiction. The site creates interactive maps of the three European cities by pulling in publically available data.
For example, if you click on the 'London' tab on the site's hub page, you'll be transported to a top down 2D map of central London. Once you select an area to zoom in on, the screen become awash with data; users can spy trains moving through the Underground, the locations of CCTV cameras, Boris Bikes, traffic lights and ATMs.
More interestingly, they'll see data from public posts on social media sites such as Foursquare, Instagram, Flickr and Twitter.
While it all looks achingly hip, in the light of the recent revelations in ongoing Prism program scandal, WeareData can't help but look a tad Orwellian. Then again, there's the argument to be made that WeareData could raise public awareness about just how much data is freely available.
A video game marketing campaign with a social conscience? Who knew....
