The Future of Video Games

New Virtual Reality Tech - Forbes

Due to the increase in new technology and the pandemic, the gaming industry is prospering. Currently, the gaming industry is bigger than the sports industry and movie industry combined. At the moment, the gaming industry only appeals to a portion of the population, however, gaming will only continue to become more mainstream. Many new technologies are emerging and are influencing the future of gaming.

Cloud Gaming

This type of gaming allows players to play different video games using a company’s tech servers. In the past few years, many tech companies have been releasing their own cloud gaming services. Google’s Stadia and Amazon’s Luna are some of the major contenders. Tech giants aren’t the only companies experimenting with cloud gaming. Media streaming service Netflix has recently released a few games users can “stream” as well. Right now, cloud gaming isn’t a smooth process and very costly. The technology needs to be improved, but it will shape the future of gaming due to the spread of the internet. The metaverse, a virtual world created using digital technologies like cloud computing, is also another way cloud gaming could become more mainstream.

Graphics

In recent years there have been many new gaming elements introduced. Different PC gaming companies like Nvidia or AMD are trying to create graphics cards which incorporate high-quality, ultra realistic graphics. Many games are also incorporating ultra-realistic graphics directly. The game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is an action-adventure game that follows a warrior on different quests to find the soul of her lost lover. The game developed by Ninja Theory contains the most realistic graphics in gaming today. In some scenes, the graphics are indistinguishable from real life. As technology becomes more advanced and consoles can support these high-quality graphics, it may become the new norm.

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality is a phenomenon where a user is transported into an alternate reality where they can play the game using their own body. Virtual Reality is already a technology that is in the market. While it isn’t mainstream yet, the small niche of the gaming market is getting bigger. As companies are getting better at creating VR technology, more people are buying it. Social VR is a type of VR used to play with others. This branch of VR could potentially grow as a way of letting players interact with other players in real space and time. Once again, the metaverse is said to incorporate this feature.

Conclusion

The gaming industry is only going to get bigger due to the pandemic making it more mainstream and emerging technologies. People who were never interested in video games will become hooked. With new types of gaming taking place, the industry has lots of potential.

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~ Edited by Christian Mueth

References:

1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/randomness
2. https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/can-a-computer-generate-a-truly-random-number/
3. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27857495
4. https://www.howtogeek.com/183051/htg-explains-how-computers-generate-random-numbers/
5. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/gamblers-take-note-the-odds-in-a-coin-flip-arent-quite-5050-145465423/#:~:text=The%20reason%3A%20the%20side%20with,it%20finally%20comes%20to%20rest.

This article was originally published at the Teach-Technology Organization, Inc. online technology blog. I volunteer as a tech blog writer at this organization, which is dedicated to bridging the gap between seniors and technology. You can read this article (and many more) at the Teach Technology site.