Gaming and Technology: How Video Games Have Changed Over Time

Gaming and technology have enjoyed a long and successful relationship spanning many decades. Thanks to new advancements in technology, video games are now much more realistic and intuitive than ever before. Let’s take a look at some of the ways that video games have changed over time.

Technology in Games

The rise of artificial intelligence has fundamentally transformed the gaming experience. Back in the old days, in multiplayer games when you did not have anybody to play against and had to battle the computer, it was a dull and unpleasant experience. Nowadays, when you play these same types of games, the computer is much smarter and cunning thus mimicking human intelligence. For example, if you are playing a war game where your army is battling another army, the computer i.e. your opponent, might come up with some advanced tactics or they might lob a grenade if your army is too far for a closer strike.

Both technology and video games have come a long way since the days of Tetris and Pong and even though technically, some version of AI existed even in those games, it cannot be compared to the advancements we are seeing today. Nowadays, we have reached a point where AI is teaching a computer-controlled adversary how to act in certain situations. Since AI has played such a great role in the history of video games and its projected role in the future of video games, you can make a good argument that AI is the most significant video game technology advances of all time.

Augmented and Virtual Reality

We all remember the Pokémon Go craze that took the world by storm and showed once and for all the huge demand for AR and VR games. A lot was invested in augmented and virtual reality games development and all of these investments paid of big time with creation of interactive games which come alive like never before. The biggest AR/VR games hits of this year were:

• Ingress
• Temple Treasure Hunt
• Sharks in the Park
• dArk: Subject One

When we compare the graphics of today’s games with the ones that existed in the 1990s and even the early 2000s it is a night and day comparison. The games of those days do not have the sophisticated textures, shaders or sprites that exist in today’s games and, just as importantly, they have been significant strides made in the way that these graphics are rendered on gaming platforms. Today we have the necessary hardware that allows for greater pixels and shading on a massive scale.

Convenience

Making everything portable is certainly trendy these days and the gaming industry has been keeping up with this trend. Even before smartphones hit the scenes, the gaming consoles themselves were made portable with the introduction of systems such as Nintendo DS, PlayStation Vita, and many others. This gave users the freedom they needed to take their games wherever they went, and online play was the cherry on top of the cake. With the evolution of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), the online play experience has fundamentally changed since it allowed one player can battle another player regardless of geographical location. The undisputed champion of MMORPG is World of Warcraft which has more than 8 million subscribers.

So far, we have looked at how video games have changed over time but do these changes come with any problems that will need to be resolved. Perhaps the biggest problem is the market over-saturation. Many developers make great games every day, but it is hard for the users to find them. Wonderful free tools such as Unity and Gamemaker provide relatively low entry barriers but all of these games will become increasingly harder to find due to the ocean of content. In fact, the great games that are discovered and recognized today are only a small percentage of what exists on the market today. If this trend continues into the future, we will reach a point where all of the established players on the market who have lots of money will simply devour all of the smaller companies and developers.

Many experts agree that predictions regarding technological advances have always been wrong since we cannot predict how much we will deviate from the original creation. Having said this, it is very satisfying to see the gaming industry tackling new challenges and entering uncharted waters. Perhaps it would be even more satisfying to sit back and relax and watch how the future of the gaming industry unfolds on its own.