Being a relatively new industry in the field of entertainment, the big picture of gaming’s evolution can be somewhat harder to grasp at first than film or music, which have both had more time to develop. On the other hand, despite this lack of time, gaming has constantly been evolving due to the way it is intermingled with the development of technology in recent times. As a result, this relatively short timescale has seen enormous changes to how people interact with games – something that continues through to today and makes the question of tomorrow’s games an interesting prospect.
Payment – Arcade Machines to Online Casinos
The idea of game payment is much older than it first appears. The topic of microtransactions in both freemium games and full price AAA examples is contentious, with certain practices particularly being particularly controversial. Despite the former being less so and more expected in the mobile landscape, these aren’t the only gaming payment examples. While regular payment was required in early arcade machines in order to keep the experience going, online casinos are also now more widely integrated into the gaming landscape than they ever have been, making online pokies from kingjohnnie yet another example of this type of game – though one where the financial aspect is arguably integral to the games themselves.
Owning Games – Digital and Physical
Another controversial topic in the gaming world is how the continued emphasis on owning games digitally rather than physically will impact ownership in the future. On the one hand, being able to phase out the plastic containers that games come in will be able to reduce waste that could be negatively impacting the environment. However, if the only way that a given player owns a game is through a digital license, it’s much easier for that to be revoked either intentionally or through some sort of electronic error than if they owned a disc. At the same time, those who live in areas with weaker internet might also struggle with a stable connection.
Cloud Streaming, VR, and AI
Looking towards the future, you immediately get hit by a wall of possibilities. People have been theorizing for many years about how virtual reality would play a role in the future of gaming. Still, now that the technology is finally here and developing, it’s interesting how it compares to traditional consoles. The lack of convenience associated with the use of VR and the implementation into a home might prevent it from being as mainstream as people might have suspected. Still, there is time for that to change as the technology continues to evolve. Cloud streaming, on the other hand, is something that is being used more and more to make games more accessible regardless of the hardware being used.
The question of how artificial intelligence is going to be used in game development in the future is also an open one. Despite the proclamations of various developers, it’s unclear what that use will look like.