What do you mean, it’s not a real Fabergé egg?
Artists’ renders of stock models are now so realistic that many visitors to the TurboSquid website believe that they are buying the real objects, the company has revealed.
In a YouTube video posted by the online marketplace, TurboSquid support staff talk about 3D models its customers have bought believing them to be actual cars, furniture or electronics goods.
Mistakes start with the vaguely understandable (oddly cheap iPads), head upwards to the credulity-stretching $150 Fabergé egg, and culiminate somewhere in the stratosphere with users who think that they can order real AK-47 assault rifles online.
But the prize for ‘least equipped to survive in the digital world’ goes jointly to the TurboSquid user who bought a model of a wizard’s staff in the belief that it could really cast spells; and the woman confused by the concept of stock characters who called the company’s support line to complain that it was trafficking young girls.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to catch the postman. I’m waiting for my new Death Star to be delivered.