Video gaming has come a long way from its Atari pong, or Nintendo Mario Bross, in the 1980s it crossed into the mainstream, but after the 2000s and specially since 3G, 4G and now 5G connectivity advances in tech have increased gaming to virtually everyone, who has not downloaded an app? Or a game as Candycrush, Tetris, Forenite, PUBG or Minecraft?
As gaming technology advances speedily, playing games has also increased making them more readily and easily available, free of costs, with perks as social interaction, more visual stimulus, creativity, and overall gaming satisfaction experience. As programming and computer based technology it is accumulative and builds on the previous, improving the sounds, graphics, interactions and playability.
In 3100 BC the first board game was found in Egypt, it was named Senet, a long way has passed to computer games, then from we have also come a long way from the dark days of basic 8-bit graphics in gaming to the new era of Online Multiplayer Gaming, using Virtual Gaming VR, facial recognition and gesture control technology, Dolby Stereo 5.1 to 8 dimension Sound, 4K to 8K technology has changed forever the way people play, but without losing the essence as Gamers have been able to back up it all, from old Games and Gaming platforms through the use of Emulators (currently available for all Operating Systems) to Video Recording of the Walkthroughs of Games and also videorecording Battle Sessions in all games in Youtube Twitch and many other, of classics such as Counter Strike, Call of Duty, Minecraft and Forenite.
And Gaming will keep on improving and getting more technologically advanced in the short run increase of the Digital Era, within the next few years with the massification of Cloud gaming, digital distribution, new larger player databases, inventive revenue models, which are likely to trigger an already fueled Gaming Industry, which accounts for more than the Film and the Music Industry combined for this 2020s decade.
And here are some of its biggest new trends which are Shaping the Gaming Industry
MORE PLAYERS AND MORE FREE GAMES
More Players.. More competition, more of it all…perhaps the change in quantity of players through the era of digitalization and the new demographics of these players are the most interesting changes in the expanding video game industry. The more people play online video games the more demand is created for more video games entertainment, revenues lift as do investments to try new gaming hardware and new code sequences for the future of the video games.
The increase in the number of players also comes from the New Mobile Gaming Industry. With the smartphone’s advent, the video gaming experience was taken out of the living room and placed on your hands to carry with you. Thus virtually everybody goes into their phones to make time or get distracted.
Basing Mobile Gaming onto Cloud Gaming was also a breach to an improved gaming experience. Now heavy content does not need to be installed and game developers try to lighter the games using the cloud. Therefore Video Games are no longer limited by the disc memory amount. Finally, add to this the On-Demand Games or the live-streams of games. The gaming culture is bound to keep on growing just due to its virtually unlimited games and game access and number of players (everybody with a smartphone) which is almost all of us nowadays.
MORE HUMAN RECOGNITION AND CONTROL INTERFACES
Whether the Facial or Voice recognition and Gesture control technologies, all these are here to stay. And will give players freedom to control action games without having to hold a joystick, tablet or smartphone. Lets review the main ones:
GESTURE CONTROL
Players can get rid of their controller finally altogether as Intel RealSense technology allows to play first person shooters simply by interacting with your device sensors. It recognizes gestures and hand waves by using a 3D camera tracking, 22 different points in the player’s hand and of their body. Gesture control allows the transfer of the gaming experience.
FACE CONTROL
3D scanning technology and facial recognition is allowing consoles to imitate your feature in the gaming digital environment world, just create your custom avatar which does look just like you. Or even, players´ own expressions can be transferred to other avatar digital creation. Finally, on top of it all, the new Intel® RealSense™ 3D camera will allow to scan for emotions of the players by visually sensoring 78 distinct points on the player’s face.
VOICE CONTROL
Voice Recognition advances will stay on very much as they currently are. Voice commands to control game play has been around for a while, but now it is expected to be integrated in most games and actions, not only to control game play and interact on social media, play selections from your media library, or search the web, but also by simply talking to the players´ gaming systems and many people do to Siri or Alexa.
WEARABLE CONTROLS
Expect to see more Gaming related gadgets filled with sensors in vests, wristbands, headsets, smartwatches, glasses and other, will all connect and interact with wearable extensions to consoles and games.
Expect some AMAZING NEW GRAPHICS
The latest cutting edge technological advancements in Mathematical coprocessing and 64 bit Video Cards to deal with fast changing movements and full detail graphics now allow gamers to experience full rendered worlds in their games with the utmost realistic photographic textures. Undoubtedly higher image quality is what brings the real world onto the screen, or even makes players seem as if they are right inside a real world game. Add all these to the highest resolution, from the 1080 pixels to the 4K definition going into 8K for some games. The Ultra 4K gaming though 4K capabilities tvs.. The days of 16 color VGA or 265 color SuperVGA are luckily for our children far left behind
Finally a word on VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY,
Though we have dedicated a full article to it. It is the new threshold for the future of Video Gaming and Online Video Gaming for sure. But as yet not all consoles have commercialized it and released their VR sets yet at affordable pricing. The era of VR has not properly begun yet, but players will be able to lose themselves in the game as in reality, a full immersive experience. Also Augmented Reality AR is breaching new segments which stopped the booming of google lens and all other AR attempts thus far. But until now AR has already changed forever the way billiards, pool, races, and even competition sports replays are made and played.
Those are in large degree the main fields of innovations we will be enjoying in the Video Games to come.
