As humanity evolves we find ourselves looking for activities of entertainment. We are always finding time for entertainment and to be entertained. Gaming is one of the newest digital forms of entertainment and it is developing at a very fast pace. Besides, not only us human beings are into this industry, even big companies like Apple, Google and Amazon are seizing this moment to develop gaming products.
For example, in 2019 Apple has released Apple Arcade, which is a platform with games that are available for Apple mobile devices. In addition, even Google didn’t stand apart from the rest, because in the same year Google has released Google Stadia which allows gamers to stream major game titles directly from the cloud. These two major companies are not the only ones that came with innovation for gamers.
There are many more examples, like Twitch in 2014 and everyday developed products even in other parts of the gaming industry, such as the iGaming industry. In this article, we are going to talk about the current state of Gaming and the many recent developments in the domain.
Virtual Reality
For many years, virtual reality has been very interesting for gamers and they’ve been waiting for a fully immersive experience. But technology still needs more advancements until we can reach that level. Huge tech companies like Microsoft, Sony and Google are trying to change it up. Many of them have invested lots of resources into the development of VR hardware and software.
Compared to the whole gaming industry VR does not represent a very big part. It is still a niche category. It hasn’t yet gained the attention of all the gamers. We are still in the early days of virtual reality. There are many promising new technologies but also many challenges that come with them.
However, there are platforms that support Virtual Reality games such as Steam. And game developers even if few are able to make VR games. One good example of this is the launch of Half Life: Alyx, a VR-only game for Half Life fans. Besides, when it comes to other gaming industries, like the iGaming one, which for short means, the casino industry. They also have tried their hand into this technology.
For example, in France there is a land-based casino where in 2019 they came with a revolution of sorts. They created the first blackjack in VR. For short, visitors who come to the casino, connect to the game through a VR headset and enjoy a ride with the train in the Wild West where they can play a game of blackjack. However, unfortunately, for those who would want to play some blackjack online and they also possess the VR equipment, they will be able to play the game only on Steam, because they are available there. On the regular online casino, blackjack isn’t close to VR, it is just like any other regular 2D/3D game that can be played on desktop or mobile.
AI & NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS
AI has been present in video games for decades. The innocent bystanders in GTA (Grand Theft Auto), the bosses in Mario and every other bot in other games. These characters are usually programmed with what programmers call a “finite state machine”. Their “actions” are based on if-then statements, they follow a script, meaning that they have a precalculated set of actions for every move that the player would make.
We could expect much more advanced AI in video games, so that characters could be so sophisticated and smart that they would resonate to humans, but many experts think that it’s not coming anytime soon. AI in games is everywhere pretty much, and even in online gaming, when you have to beat a boss with your group, you have to go through a set of phases and use tactics in order to defeat it.
But when it comes to Ai, this is more than just some bots in games. For example, AI is used even in games of poker. There is one, actually that is very popular called DeepShack which was able to beat the best poker players. Besides, a similar test was done using AI even in MOBA games, like Dota 2. Where an AI has learned all the moves of the best MOBA players and it became unbeatable.
AUGMENTED REALITY
Augmented reality has also come a long way from since it was just “science-fiction”. From a concept it has become reality. Back in the day augmented reality projects were very hard to get in, and also hard to learn for. Today we have augmented reality on our phones in many video-games and other apps as well. If you are a fan of Harry Potter you will know that there is an app that uses Augmented Reality where you can see in your room, for example, a Harry Potter character.
Augmented reality is the technology that allows reality to mix with the digital-world in a “symbiosis”. The first time someone talked about this concept was in a novel written by Frank L Baum in 1901 in which the author wrote about some sorts of glasses that mapped data onto people. It had the name of “character marker”.
Today Augmented reality isn’t science fiction anymore. There are plenty of games and apps available on smartphones that use this technology. A very well known example is Pokemon Go. It was one of the most popular mobile games for a while. It combined the real world locations with virtual pokemons. You could only catch them if you went to the actual location in the real world, and you had to point your phone’s camera towards a particular place where the pokemons were located . Besides the actual, raw recording of the world there was a virtual pokemon mixed into reality.