Sony will put you through a 2-stage job interview for the chance to get scanned into Gran Turismo 7 and other games

Two humans overlaid with sci-fi scanning graphics. — (Image credit: Sony)

Having gorged itself to satiation on videos of your ears, PlayStation maker and digital anatomy house Sony has announced it now wants your entire body. Or, well, the entire body of the first winner of its just-announced Playerbase scheme, which will let some lucky son of a gun have their "likeness scanned and appear within a PlayStation game," starting with Gran Turismo 7.

It's actually quite an involved process. This isn't just "write your name on a raffle ticket and hope you get picked," Sony wants to subject you to something that sounds, I have to say, like a two-part job interview before putting you in the seat of a virtual racing car.

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The single fan who impresses Sony's digital-essence hunters the most will be the ultimate winner. "One PlayStation fan will be selected to be featured in Gran Turismo 7 as part of The Playerbase, where they will have a special limited-time appearance as an in-game character portrait, similar to how characters are presented throughout the game." They'll also "help design a custom Fantasy Logo and a one-of-a-kind vehicle livery," which will be in the game forever and ever.

Toyota GR010 HYBRID &rsquo;21 car in the videogame Gran Turismo 7 — Personally I would only be scanned into a Gran Turismo if I could play one of the cars. (Image credit: Sony)

It'll all happen over the course of a day in a studio in Los Angeles, where the winner will also have their soul irreversibly ensnared in the PlayStation virtual chrysalis and placed into GT7.

This is not a one-off competition but the start of a whole thing. Going forward, Sony says it will spin up the Playerbase machine for future releases, with fans being digitally represented in other series in ways that "fit each game’s own style and world." Perhaps one day, you will be in Knack 3.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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