Here's a perk of being an employee at a gaming company: You have access to the latest virtual reality gear which you can then use to ask your girlfriend's hand in marriage in the geekiest of ways.
That's exactly what Valve employee Chandler Murch did: He lured his girlfriend Kelly Tortorice to the company headquarters in Bellevue, WA., to test out a virtual reality demo. And while she was virtually strolling through the Alps, she saw a virtual engagement ring in front of her. Removing the headset, she realized it wasn't all virtual, as Murch was kneeling in front of her, holding an actual engagement ring in his hands.
Not only did Tortorice say yes, she also described the nerdy proposal on her public Facebook page.
"So there I was, typical day...on a sunken ship deck; fixing robots; painting three-dimensional fire; walking through the Alps; and then suddenly, a virtual engagement ring started floating my way. Chandler told me to grab it. Then told me to take off my headset, and there he really was, on one knee, with a real ring. It wasn't imaginary anymore," she wrote.
Working at Valve, Murch had access to the yet unreleased HTC Vive virtual reality headset, which can be seen in the images above.
Scheduled for a December 2015 release, the HTC Vive will have more than 70 sensors, a 90 Hz refresh rate and a combined resolution of 2,160x1,200 pixels -- more than enough to impress your significant other, provided you bring a real ring as well.