Future of Gaming Look Like | from virtual reality, to AI Intelligence, these technologies are creating the future of video gaming.
Games for video have slowly risen in popularity throughout the many years. With people seeking new ways to interact and keep themselves entertained throughout the flu season, this trend is only growing. Gaming has become a larger market than sports and films all together.
Revenue from gaming increased by twelve percent by 2020 climbing to $139.9 billion, up from $120.1 billion in the year prior According to an study by the market-research firm SuperData. At one point in 2017, four out of five players within the United States had played a video game in the past six months.
“It was once “what to watch,” but now it’s about ‘whether or not to watch or not,'” venture capitalist Matthew Ball wrote. “And there’s now “no, I’m going play an actual video game.'”
So , what’s to come next? The way we think about it is that gaming is only going to gain more acceptance. But what technological advancements will shape gaming’s future in what ways will these affect how we experience the game experience?
What will the future of Gaming look like?
- Virtual real
- Augmented reality
- Artificial intelligence
- Cloud gaming
- High-quality graphics
- The metaverse
Virtual Reality
For years the technology of virtual reality has enticed gamers with the possibility of a truly immersive experience. However, the technology has been slow to fulfill the promise.
Polygon‘s Ben Kuchera stated it plainly in the year prior: “VR has been five minutes away from a kind of breakthrough for around the past eighteen years.”
VR is still a niche area when compared with the other gaming industries (it was responsible for less than half of a percent of gaming revenue during the year 2020). While it is a hot topic it is still giving plenty of gamers pause.
“Right now, we’re in a rut of despair regarding VR,” Kevin Mack who is the VR game creator who spoke to Built In in 2020. “There was plenty of hype surrounding the technology in 2015 and 2016and everyone felt a bit irritated that their initial-generation VR headset didn’t immediately transform to”the Holodeck.”
“The whole world was a bit hurt that the first generation VR headset didn’t immediately transform to the Holodeck.”
While VR hasn’t quite lived to its excitement, technology companies such as Facebook, Valve and Sony are striving to improve the technology and are investing huge resources in the development of VR equipment and game.
There are exciting advancements in the near future. But before that, some issues have to be resolved.
The most obvious example is the large headsets as well as the high cost.
The majority of VR headsets weigh in excess of one pound and need to be secured tightly to the person’s face. It’s not very comfortable. It’s hot and sweaty, and after about half an hour of fun, your energy levels are depleted.
The experience is not compatible with the way of gaming that is common among gamers who spend their time on a couch. If VR equipment isn’t able to match the needs of gamers and gamers, is it going to be able to last? As long as companies do not cut down on the size of their VR headsets, and get rid of bulky connector cables and cut costs, the majority of gamersaside from early adopters and tech-savvy enthusiastswill be unable to accept.
Companies are working hard to make VR more accessible to a larger audience and the prices for hardware are falling. However, even if those obstacles are overcome however, it is the reality that the traditional VR experience is isolated from society could hinder its potential upside.
“[VRis a singular experience. It’s something you’re doing by yourself and it’s something you do without regard to any other activity,” Mack said. He is a fan of gaming with VR games, however, if there’s someone else around He thinks twice before taking off the headset.
“I typically wouldn’t wear one too often in the home, unless my girlfriend is also there,” he said. “Because I feel as if I’m completely shutting myself from my social setting.”
Although he acknowledges the limitations of VR, Mack is positive about the future of VR.
“VR I believe that VR will be a niche market however it could become a major segment,” he said. “I believe we’ll witness some truly impressive and really compelling stuff coming out of the woodwork in the next few years.”
Mitu Khandaker, who is a professor at the New York University’s Game Center and Game Center, is optimistic regarding the potential of VR for gaming, she stated in an interview in 2020 in a conversation with Built In. Khandaker doesn’t believe that it will look like gamers at home using a headset in the sense of an experience that several players share.
“I think the next phase of VR will be more connected to social VR,” she said.
Indeed, many VR games, like the Rec Room and VRChat -are social games where players can chat and socialize with one another in real-time.
If VR allows an increase, but not connections to other players It will be able to be a major player in the gaming industry’s future.
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Augmented Reality
This summer the parks and plazas were crowded with mobile-equipped Pokemon hunters on Pokémon-catching missions.
The entire population was taking part in Pokemon Go the interactive mobile game that uses augmented reality where digital objectsin this case colourful critters known as Pokemon — are able to overlay on the player’s normal field of view.
It was a game which has brought in more than the five billion in revenue it was the first experience with AR and is still the biggest story of success for AR.
However, the longevity in the long-term success of Pokemon Gois partly due to its loved intellectual property. There are many other games, books, and films where players can play together with Ash Ketchum and Pikachu. The key ingredient in the game is the blend of real and virtual interaction between digital characters and physical places.
That’s one reason AR is growing faster than VR: people have an the desire to play games that integrate with the real world, not just remove them from it.
“I think that the entertainment experiences in AR will not be able to be fully immersive,” Mack said. “When I played Pokemon Go I would travel to certain spots simply because there was there was a Pokemon there. It’s a strong social motivator.”
Out into the community instead of deeper inside the goggles was the catalyst which led to that phenomenon of the network which turned Pokémon Gointo an industry-wide multi-billion dollar phenomenon. Its popularity will surely stimulate more game studios to attempt to meet the demand of gamers that combine the virtual and the real.
“I can totally imagine games where you play hide-and-seek or a game like laser tag game,” Mack said. “It’s an ideal game at that stage.”
Rogelio Cardona-Rivera, a professor at the University of Utah’s School of Computing, likewise believes that in the short-term at the very minimum AR will be a better platform for game developers than VR.
“Instead instead of trying to replicate reality in all its entirety, I think designers may find complementing reality as a design challenge that is more trackable,” he told Built In in 2020. “And there is a chance that we could be able to see some of the lessons learned from AR brought back to VR.”
To date, AR gaming has gained the most popularity on phones on the move. However, tech companies such as Facebook, Apple, Snap and Magic Leap think that the direction of AR will be played out with specially designed glasses.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence has been a part of gaming for years — but particularly in non-player characters such as the colorful ghosts of Pac-Man and innocent bystanders from Grand Theft Auto.
In recent times, game designers have adopted an increasingly sophisticated strategy for NPCs. A lot of NPCs have been reprogrammed with behavior trees that permit them to execute more sophisticated decision-making. The enemies that appear in Halo 2 for instance can cooperate in coordinating their attack instead of rushing towards gunfire one after another like they’re in a cartoon action film.
However, NPCs can only do only what’s written in their code. Their behavior, however smart it appears, is predetermined by the game’s creators.
In the near future, should we see more advanced AI appearing in games that are commercially available? According to experts However, not all are certain that it will be happening anytime soon.
“You could try to create an amazing, complete AI system that’s about the character’s behavior in ways that the creator hasn’t thought of,” Khandaker said. “But If there’s too much of it there’s no way to know how the story will play out and if it’s going be enjoyable.”
Also If we were to provide NPCs minds that are themselves and allow them to play freely in games, the chances are that their independence could create a less exciting gaming experience for the participant. A unruly NPC might decide to ignore its obligation to assist the player progress to the next stage or send the player on a bizarre journey in which nothing happens.
“Games are a fairly moderate industry in the sense of the willingness studios or publishers have to risk their business.”
Alongside presenting problems in game design Free-range NPCs could be unwise from an economic standpoint too.
“Games are a fairly cautious industry because of the fact that studios and publishers are required to risk,” Khandaker said. “Because there’s an incredible history of design and what will play in the world of games, you can get an underlying desire to continue the same process.”
The introduction of more advanced NPCs in games is feasible. However, if it costs lots of money and does not make the game more enjoyable for the player Studios lose the incentive to implement it.
However, some designers remain focused on NPC improvements, specifically in the search for ways to create NPCs more human-like and believable.
“The greatest challenge facing AI is to replicate the perhaps most complex and mysterious ability that the brain has: imagination.” Julien Desaulniers, the head of the AI programming team and gameplay for the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, told GamesRadar. “Having AI generate narrative content is taking this to an entirely new level that even human beings are able to do.”
AI isn’t just a part of the gaming experience however. It’s an integral part of the game creating an experience. Since the past few years designers have used AI to generate game assets, freeing designers from the tedious task of sketching each tree in a forest , or the rock formations in the canyon. Designers can instead delegate the work to computers using a technique known as procedural content generation. It is now a common method used in the industry.
Procedural content generation can also be employed to design game levels — often randomly, so that the player will have a new experience every time. (The game of the year No Man’s Sky used this technique to its extreme, because the whole open-world setting of the game is generated procedurally and not planned prior to its creators.)
Some game makers also use neural networks to customize game play levels for players, using an approach NYU faculty member Julian Togelius calls experience-driven procedural creation of content.
For instance In 2009, researchers gathered information from players playing Super Mario, measuring the preferences of each player as they played. Perhaps a level was too many jumps, or not enough sewers or coins were difficult to find and the bad guys were difficult to take down. Researchers fed data from players to the computer. When the computer had digested the data, it spat out levels that showed the preferences of the player.
Although AI can create game assets, and in some cases, whole levels, the existence of designers who are human aren’t at risk -at least, not yet.
“For the next few years we won’t have AI systems that are able to develop a full game from scratch. It will be nothing as good or even the high-quality consistency, as human game designers can,” Togelius wrote in his book of the year 2018. “HTML0”: Playing Smart. “Playing smart.
Game designers and academics alike are trying to develop AI systems that can manage the game in a an approach that is enjoyable and enjoyable for players.
Cardona-Rivera envisions a world in where AI functions as an expert in games that decides the shots for human players.
“Imagine what it would be like having an AI director who is watching what you’re doing , and then directing the experience as it unfolds in your place,” He said. “That’s something similar to the research I’m doing and the way that a lot of fascinating research done in the fieldand not just meis trying to achieve.”
“Imagine what it would be like for you to be able to hire an AI “director” who is watching the things you’re doing and controlling the process to you.”
In the meantime, until they can figure it out, we’ll watch human and computer programs working together to design new video game concepts.
AI may not be capable of creating complete games from scratch, however it certainly can provide important feedback to game creators, who can refine their games quickly. It’s quite common.
“It is difficult to find a commercially-released game that doesn’t ‘phone back’ game’s creator to provide information about how the game is playing,” Togelius wrote.
Game developers regularly gather data about how players experience the game. This data is fed into an algorithm, and then utilized by humans to alter the game based upon its prediction of what players will enjoy.
“Games are about creating an engaging experience that people be able to keep returning to” Khandaker told me. “That’s the essence of the goal of what AI serves to provide.”
Cloud Gaming
Gaming’s future could be played on a different computer. It could be on the cloud.
Cloud gaming gives users the possibility of playing games that are streamed via remote servers run by tech companies similar to how you stream Netflix movies to laptops, without having to insert the DVD first.
Theoretically this arrangement, it makes the hardware of the player less important since they are able to stream their games on any device.
Cloud gaming is generally marketed as a subscription service it’s shifting gamers away from the notion about owning physical media, and towards leasing digital media.
In the last couple of several years Sony as well as Microsoft both, who are longtime gamers who dominate consoles they have now launched its own gaming cloud platforms. The gaming chip maker Nvidia is also offering cloud gaming.
And even Big Tech is getting in on the game. Google has launched the cloud-based gaming platform, Stadia, in 2019. In addition, Amazon unveiled its cloud gaming service named Luna in 2020. It’s not just Amazon. Netflix has a cloud gaming offeringthat, to at this point, has just produced TV and film has begun to show the signs of entering cloud gaming. The company has recently made its first hire as vice president of gaming..
Cloud gaming is predicted to bring in $1.6 billion in revenues in 2021, by the time it’s over with over 23 million customers who pay, according to projections by gaming analytics company NewZoo.
However, the most significant hurdle cloud gaming must overcome for it to be popular is being capable of providing an uncomplicated, smooth gaming experience for players. That kind of gaming experience isn’t easy to find with a poor WiFi connection.
In addition, operating cloud gaming services is expensive and highly computational. Therefore, implementing the right technology will take some time.
In the year 2019 Xbox chief Phil Spencer told GameSpot that: “I think this is some time away from becoming the norm for people to play. It’s years, not just many years.”
High-Definition Graphics
In the quest for high-quality graphics video games have advanced a lot.
Computer gaming firms such as AMD, Nvidia as well as AMD have made significant progress in developing graphics cards that support high-fidelity gaming as well as techniques such as Ray Tracing.
In the past such as reflections, shadows and shadows and lens flares were painted onto objects inside the game. This created the illusion of light emanating from the moon or sun and reacting the way it would upon hitting an object. Through ray tracing an algorithm lets it accomplish exactly this.
The technology is predicted to transform the gaming industry but only if consumers can obtain it. An problem with chips has been a problem for the industry throughout the years 2020-2021. This is mostly due to the rapid growth of mining cryptocurrency that rely upon the exact same equipment.
However, not all games in the future will feature realistic graphics. Particularly not indie games.
In the way Mack believes Mack sees it, there are two distinct paths game developers can follow in terms of graphics.
One way to approach this is what you can see in big triple-A tournaments where they hire thousands of technicians and visual artists to provide huge quantities of artwork for high-quality graphics. This means huge budgets, large teams and ever-more realistic graphics right down to the last bit of dirt.
Another option is to create an elegant and sometimes cartoon-like — look of your games. This way, costs remain low, but the game still looks awesome and deflects criticisms like “It isn’t realistic!” Mack said this approach is becoming more popular within the world of mobile VR market.
Metaverse Metaverse
The discussion on how gaming is going to evolve will be not complete without talking about the metaverse as a concept that has impressed the top world technology firms.
A concept that was popularized by writer Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science-fiction novel Snow Crash, the metaverse is best described as an online cyberspace the virtual universe that is a virtual parallel that allows everyone to log into and live the rest of their (second) life. In the ideal case, the metaverse would incorporate both augmented and virtual reality and will have its own functioning economy and will allow for total interoperability.
Although we’re far from that, hints at the metaverse are becoming more apparent. It is evident in gaming platforms such as Roblox and Fornite, where high-end fashion brands such as Gucci hold events and games such as Fornite in which players can dress as their favorite Star Wars or Marvel characters and play the virtual Ariana Grande concert.
The metaverse, similar to the internet, can be utilized to do more than gaming. It could include office work too.
Gaming is growing in its meaning. It’s not about competition anymore — it’s about the connection. That’s the concept Keith Stuart describes as”a “digital third-place,” that is more like skating parks as opposed to an arena.
If the recent trends and projections for the gaming industry lead us in any way about us, it’s that our desire to connect exceeds our desire for escape.