The Future Of Video Games
I’ve recently been thinking about where video games could be
going in the future. I’m hoping to work in the game industry
one day after I’ve finished university study and I’ve been
wondering about it a lot. What do I want to see happen in the
future? Well I may not have too many answers right now, but I
have come up with a few ideas that I think may come into ‘play’
in the not too distant future.
Firstly forget Virtual Reality, as we know it. They’ve tried VR
goggles and they made a lot of people sick in doing so. It’s
probably never going to work very well in its current form.
They’re still around and you can still buy them but they really
don’t seem to be taking off. It will probably take a lot to get
people totally immersed and involved in a new form of game
play. It’s threatening to lose touch with the outside world and
the people around you aren’t going to appreciate it much
either. The Sci-fi neural implants are also both a long way off
and not likely to be accepted by a majority of the general
populace without some severe marketing and luck. I for one am
not planning on going through brain surgery just to have a
computer attached to my head. In fact I never want anyone to
able to plug into my brain.
A technology that was brought to my attention by a zealous
presenter at the local ‘Science and Technology Centre’ (a sort
of science museum aimed at making science fun for children and
juvenile adults such as yours truly) is that of ‘Augmented
Reality’. Augmented Reality is essentially the overlaying of
virtual elements onto the real world, such as a pair of
transparent glasses that can display certain elements over the
top of what is actually there. I agree with the presenter in
that this could indeed have some awesome potential. Forget all
the socially beneficial applications such as workmen being able
to view underground pipes before digging, think about it from a
games point of view. This technology could provide gamers with
the ability to run around looking like complete idiots shooting
at things that aren’t actually there and that no one else can
see, kind of like in the film ‘They Live!’ The upside to this
is that it would be a lot of fun. A group of people from the
University of South Australia created the ‘ARQuake’ project,
http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/projects/ARQuake/www/, merging
the classic shooter Quake with this Augmented Reality
technology. Again, this technology may not ever become overly
popular, but it would be entertaining to play with.
Technology has driven the games industry for a long time with
new games always trying to keep one step ahead of the
competition. It started way back at the dawn of technology and
it continues to this day. 2D graphics gave way to 3D and 3D is
becoming ever better. Graphics are starting to lose the ability
to impress like they once did. The step between Quake 2 and 3
was amazing, but DOOM 3 while being visually very impressive
isn’t leaps and bounds ahead of its competitors in the same way
new games used to be. 2D graphics encountered a similar
problem; there comes a point where you just can’t do much more
with graphics technology. It is this that turns graphics from
striving for technological achievement to becoming art. It is
my hope that we will start turning away from tech demos and
return to game play and making great entertainment. Games such
as Zelda: The Wind Waker or The Sims that strive to show
greater depth of character through simplifying the game enough
to portray emotions will hopefully become more common (and more
fun… but that’s just one person’s view…). Technology plays a
certain part in the conveying of emotions and story but it’s
quite hard to focus on everything at once. When technology is
easier and less essential to game sales we’ll hopefully see an
increase in games that cast a lasting impression.
Somewhat unfortunately the rise of the ‘Casual Gamer’ will
probably lead to more simplistic games being released. While
personally I would love to see depth of story and characters,
there are a significant number of players out there who want to
pick up a game for twenty minutes or so, have a bit of fun, and
then put it down until another time. These gamers are generally
less interested in the latest greatest technology and more
interested in a ‘fast food’ kind of entertainment that
satisfies the moment, despite the lack of quality or the
lasting effects. Hopefully the two game types can co-exist
peacefully although recently it has been seen that some
developers are cutting down on some of the planned depth of a
title in order to accommodate the more casual gamer.
As technology pushes forwards boundaries are slowly being
broken down between systems. We saw the Bleemcast a few years
back enabling the running of Playstation games on the
Dreamcast, and the PC is able to run almost anything given the
right emulation software. Consoles are able to emulate other
consoles and new consoles are being announced that promise the
ability to play PC games. The Xbox 2 is reported to have a
model in planning that comes in a PC case and with the ability
to run both PC software and Xbox software. Macs can emulate
Windows software and vice-versa. We’ll probably start seeing
less of a distinction between consoles and PCs as the price of
technology continues to drop and consoles continue to become
more and more powerful and able to compete with the more
expensive computers. Ideally we’ll see a single platform come
into prominence so that everything can be run without
purchasing a copious number of different machines, although
that does have a downside in that it can establish a monopoly
for one particular company.
The technology price drop and increase in power has also lead
to more powerful hand-held machines than before. Real games,
not just simple toys are now available for the portable market.
The advent of PDAs and mobile phones with the ability to play
games raises awareness of portable gaming and new competitors
are starting to get in on the field that was once primarily
dominated by Nintendo’s GameBoy. There is a new product, the
gp32, that can run many different emulators and hence, many
different system’s games (including some PC games).
I can’t say for sure what’s going to happen but these are just
a few ideas that I’ve had recently. Hopefully the games
industry will continue to strive towards new heights with new
and interesting game play, stories, characters and ideas. I’m
looking forward to seeing what happens in the next few
years.
About the Author:
Daniel Punch M6.Net http://www.m6.net
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