Future of Gaming

Electronic gaming has come a long way since the days of Pong, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong. First was the shift from black-and-white to grayscale, then to color. After that, the first home consoles were produced, bringing gaming from the arcade into our homes. More recently, the shift from 2d to 3d has opened up many new types of games and game play. The latest new trend in gaming is now online gaming. Online gaming started in the early 90s with direct connections and then evolved into connecting to a matchmaking service, like Battle.net. Currently, subscription-based massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are becoming more and more popular. It seems that every major company is making at least one, ranging from several MMORPGs (massive multiplayer online role-playing games) like Everquest II, World of Warcraft, and Star Wars Galaxies, to MMOFPSs (massive multiplayer online first person shooter) like Planetside. Even The Sims has gone online. These games will continue to grow and prosper as more and more people dial-up and broadband internet connections.

This brings us up to current-day, but the future is sure to hold many new and exciting games. I feel one of the major upcoming trends will be virtual reality gaming. Granted, the technology to make a virtual reality game exists today. However, the quality and cost of the games will not make it a possibility until technology improvements are made, which I would estimate to be around 10 years from now.

These games will not only be able to visually show what is going on, but also be able to receive input from the player. Such things are much more complex than just a pair of gloves, which has been tried in the past. For the experience to be lifelike, a very complex (and large) machine will be needed or the player will need to artificially experience it.

The first way (a large machine) would most likely not be something people could buy and take home. More feasibly, these would be in the arcades, something you go and pay money to play. It would involve a helmet for vision and audio, as well as sensor plates attached throughout the body, including the hands and feet, which would most likely be in the form of a suit you would wear. The feet are the tricky part, as you have to have the impression of walking while you are actually stationary. This could be done in a variety of ways, such as a treadmill or being suspended in the air and having the suit slightly "resist" the movement in certain areas of your legs. The suit would also have to be able to "harden" in order to give the illusion of a hard surface, such as a wall, or a weapon. Thus one would feel they are actually a part of the game. Since the player will actually be touching hard surfaces, measures must be taken to ensure that the player does not get harmed. This can easily be done by making sure the suit does not tighten around the player a certain amount, so it won't crush them.

The other way (artificial experience) would have to be achieved by "hacking" into the brain. You could fake any of someone's senses this way, such as telling their brain that the person is seeing, hearing, or feeling something. This method is portrayed in the movie The Matrix, where it is used to keep people's minds in an artificial world. This way is more dangerous and risky than the other one (brain damage could occur), and more likely would not be used until far into the future.

Before "totally virtual" games come out, I think we will be seeing a lot of half-virtual games. These will be games where you are in some sort of vehicle, in which the windows show the outside world. The whole vehicle would move according to its movement, so it would feel pretty realistic. Some of these already exist today, such as roller coaster and flight training emulators. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens, but the possibilities are endless!