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VIDEO GAMING ARTICLES
The Future of Video Games
by: Daniel Punch
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
danielp@m6.net |
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