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What will gaming be like in the year 2050? The first idea which pops into every kids mind when asked that question is, "virtual reality", but how will this affect daily life? How would it be possible? And will gaming really be based around VR rather than the good old-fashioned games console? Wouldn't it change the way we see the world, and the way we act upon things?
Researchers are currently working on the future of the computer age. Things are becoming a lot more high-tech and user-friendly with a lot more features, but that is all that I see happening at the minute. Things don't seem to be moving towards VR. The closest we've got so far is basically two screens the size of your eyes which fit into a pair of glasses, or a room where every wall, floor and ceiling tile is a screen, giving the idea of being inside a digital world.
But think of the limits that VR will put on developers when it is finally "invented". Currently, the only limit to making a decent game is the imagination of the producers. If you can think up the idea, it is usually possible using today’s computers, and all sorts of games are being released every month with some weird and wacky ideas, and some realistic and intriguing ideas. It can be done successfully without any harm to the user, unless, obviously, they have photo-sensitive epilepsy (no offence meant if anyone here has it), but if they do, then they probably won't be playing games which will upset the condition anyway, which means that developers can run wild with ideas and stuff as long as they can fit it onto the disc!
There would also be other limits on the developers if VR was the must-have gaming experience of the future. How would the producers make sensations like taste, smell or feeling? It wouldn't feel realistic if, when you got shot, all you felt was a soft shake from a rumble-pack sort of gadget inside the main gaming thingymajig. How would they render pain, without actually causing any physical damage to the gamer? There would be major concerns if, after playing a game like "Metal Gear Solid 3048 - Sons of the sons of the great great great great great great grandsons of Liberty", you have a big fight with Solidus, who, by that time, is probably wrinkly, in a wheel chair with false teeth, and you "wake up" to find yourself in intensive care. There might be other problems with the other senses as well. Take the sense of smell, for example. Using MGS2 as the example again, you could be outside, on the CD connecting bridge, smelling the cool fresh air and catching a quick whiff of stale, oily sea water below, and then you walk into strut C, the dining hall, and smell bacon and eggs burning in the kitchen as it is left unattended as the guards are out searching for you, and you go into the bogs to freeze the bomb, when you find that one of the guards has left a floater! How would they do that? How would they be able to control the sense of smell in a game? What chemicals would they use to create the smells, without risk of suffocating or poisoning the gamer? I'll leave you to think about that one!
The sense of smell and taste would be the hardest, whereas touch and sight are fairly easy. Sight is basically an image projected by some sort of futuristic device into the eye, and hearing would obviously be controlled by speakers, which may or may not be visible, depending on how the VR machine is designed.
And there's another pint raised by the design of VR - how would a third person game work effectively? Or a game like Resident Evil, where the camera doesn't even move? It's just stuck in the corner of a room where you can see everything, and thus everything your character does? Also, on a similar subject, how would the menus work at the start of a game where you make your choices about difficulty and stuff? And how about in an FPS or TPS, what would it be like to fail the mission by dying?
I think I'll leave it on this note. I'll let you give it some thought. What do you think gaming will be like in the year 2050? Will it be VR, or the good ol' games console? And how do you think designers will cope with sensations?
Thanks for reading
Happy days
Twain
Researchers are currently working on the future of the computer age. Things are becoming a lot more high-tech and user-friendly with a lot more features, but that is all that I see happening at the minute. Things don't seem to be moving towards VR. The closest we've got so far is basically two screens the size of your eyes which fit into a pair of glasses, or a room where every wall, floor and ceiling tile is a screen, giving the idea of being inside a digital world.
But think of the limits that VR will put on developers when it is finally "invented". Currently, the only limit to making a decent game is the imagination of the producers. If you can think up the idea, it is usually possible using today’s computers, and all sorts of games are being released every month with some weird and wacky ideas, and some realistic and intriguing ideas. It can be done successfully without any harm to the user, unless, obviously, they have photo-sensitive epilepsy (no offence meant if anyone here has it), but if they do, then they probably won't be playing games which will upset the condition anyway, which means that developers can run wild with ideas and stuff as long as they can fit it onto the disc!
There would also be other limits on the developers if VR was the must-have gaming experience of the future. How would the producers make sensations like taste, smell or feeling? It wouldn't feel realistic if, when you got shot, all you felt was a soft shake from a rumble-pack sort of gadget inside the main gaming thingymajig. How would they render pain, without actually causing any physical damage to the gamer? There would be major concerns if, after playing a game like "Metal Gear Solid 3048 - Sons of the sons of the great great great great great great grandsons of Liberty", you have a big fight with Solidus, who, by that time, is probably wrinkly, in a wheel chair with false teeth, and you "wake up" to find yourself in intensive care. There might be other problems with the other senses as well. Take the sense of smell, for example. Using MGS2 as the example again, you could be outside, on the CD connecting bridge, smelling the cool fresh air and catching a quick whiff of stale, oily sea water below, and then you walk into strut C, the dining hall, and smell bacon and eggs burning in the kitchen as it is left unattended as the guards are out searching for you, and you go into the bogs to freeze the bomb, when you find that one of the guards has left a floater! How would they do that? How would they be able to control the sense of smell in a game? What chemicals would they use to create the smells, without risk of suffocating or poisoning the gamer? I'll leave you to think about that one!
The sense of smell and taste would be the hardest, whereas touch and sight are fairly easy. Sight is basically an image projected by some sort of futuristic device into the eye, and hearing would obviously be controlled by speakers, which may or may not be visible, depending on how the VR machine is designed.
And there's another pint raised by the design of VR - how would a third person game work effectively? Or a game like Resident Evil, where the camera doesn't even move? It's just stuck in the corner of a room where you can see everything, and thus everything your character does? Also, on a similar subject, how would the menus work at the start of a game where you make your choices about difficulty and stuff? And how about in an FPS or TPS, what would it be like to fail the mission by dying?
I think I'll leave it on this note. I'll let you give it some thought. What do you think gaming will be like in the year 2050? Will it be VR, or the good ol' games console? And how do you think designers will cope with sensations?
Thanks for reading
Happy days
Twain
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What will gaming be like in the year 2050? The first idea which pops into every kids mind when asked that question is, "virtual reality", but how will this affect daily life? How would it be possible? And will gaming really be based around VR rather than the good old-fashioned games console? Wouldn't it change the way we see the world, and the way we act upon things?
Researchers are currently working on the future of the computer age. Things are becoming a lot more high-tech and user-friendly with a lot more features, but that is all that I see happening at the minute. Things don't seem to be moving towards VR. The closest we've got so far is basically two screens the size of your eyes which fit into a pair of glasses, or a room where every wall, floor and ceiling tile is a screen, giving the idea of being inside a digital world.
But think of the limits that VR will put on developers when it is finally "invented". Currently, the only limit to making a decent game is the imagination of the producers. If you can think up the idea, it is usually possible using today’s computers, and all sorts of games are being released every month with some weird and wacky ideas, and some realistic and intriguing ideas. It can be done successfully without any harm to the user, unless, obviously, they have photo-sensitive epilepsy (no offence meant if anyone here has it), but if they do, then they probably won't be playing games which will upset the condition anyway, which means that developers can run wild with ideas and stuff as long as they can fit it onto the disc!
There would also be other limits on the developers if VR was the must-have gaming experience of the future. How would the producers make sensations like taste, smell or feeling? It wouldn't feel realistic if, when you got shot, all you felt was a soft shake from a rumble-pack sort of gadget inside the main gaming thingymajig. How would they render pain, without actually causing any physical damage to the gamer? There would be major concerns if, after playing a game like "Metal Gear Solid 3048 - Sons of the sons of the great great great great great great grandsons of Liberty", you have a big fight with Solidus, who, by that time, is probably wrinkly, in a wheel chair with false teeth, and you "wake up" to find yourself in intensive care. There might be other problems with the other senses as well. Take the sense of smell, for example. Using MGS2 as the example again, you could be outside, on the CD connecting bridge, smelling the cool fresh air and catching a quick whiff of stale, oily sea water below, and then you walk into strut C, the dining hall, and smell bacon and eggs burning in the kitchen as it is left unattended as the guards are out searching for you, and you go into the bogs to freeze the bomb, when you find that one of the guards has left a floater! How would they do that? How would they be able to control the sense of smell in a game? What chemicals would they use to create the smells, without risk of suffocating or poisoning the gamer? I'll leave you to think about that one!
The sense of smell and taste would be the hardest, whereas touch and sight are fairly easy. Sight is basically an image projected by some sort of futuristic device into the eye, and hearing would obviously be controlled by speakers, which may or may not be visible, depending on how the VR machine is designed.
And there's another pint raised by the design of VR - how would a third person game work effectively? Or a game like Resident Evil, where the camera doesn't even move? It's just stuck in the corner of a room where you can see everything, and thus everything your character does? Also, on a similar subject, how would the menus work at the start of a game where you make your choices about difficulty and stuff? And how about in an FPS or TPS, what would it be like to fail the mission by dying?
I think I'll leave it on this note. I'll let you give it some thought. What do you think gaming will be like in the year 2050? Will it be VR, or the good ol' games console? And how do you think designers will cope with sensations?
Thanks for reading
Happy days
Twain
Researchers are currently working on the future of the computer age. Things are becoming a lot more high-tech and user-friendly with a lot more features, but that is all that I see happening at the minute. Things don't seem to be moving towards VR. The closest we've got so far is basically two screens the size of your eyes which fit into a pair of glasses, or a room where every wall, floor and ceiling tile is a screen, giving the idea of being inside a digital world.
But think of the limits that VR will put on developers when it is finally "invented". Currently, the only limit to making a decent game is the imagination of the producers. If you can think up the idea, it is usually possible using today’s computers, and all sorts of games are being released every month with some weird and wacky ideas, and some realistic and intriguing ideas. It can be done successfully without any harm to the user, unless, obviously, they have photo-sensitive epilepsy (no offence meant if anyone here has it), but if they do, then they probably won't be playing games which will upset the condition anyway, which means that developers can run wild with ideas and stuff as long as they can fit it onto the disc!
There would also be other limits on the developers if VR was the must-have gaming experience of the future. How would the producers make sensations like taste, smell or feeling? It wouldn't feel realistic if, when you got shot, all you felt was a soft shake from a rumble-pack sort of gadget inside the main gaming thingymajig. How would they render pain, without actually causing any physical damage to the gamer? There would be major concerns if, after playing a game like "Metal Gear Solid 3048 - Sons of the sons of the great great great great great great grandsons of Liberty", you have a big fight with Solidus, who, by that time, is probably wrinkly, in a wheel chair with false teeth, and you "wake up" to find yourself in intensive care. There might be other problems with the other senses as well. Take the sense of smell, for example. Using MGS2 as the example again, you could be outside, on the CD connecting bridge, smelling the cool fresh air and catching a quick whiff of stale, oily sea water below, and then you walk into strut C, the dining hall, and smell bacon and eggs burning in the kitchen as it is left unattended as the guards are out searching for you, and you go into the bogs to freeze the bomb, when you find that one of the guards has left a floater! How would they do that? How would they be able to control the sense of smell in a game? What chemicals would they use to create the smells, without risk of suffocating or poisoning the gamer? I'll leave you to think about that one!
The sense of smell and taste would be the hardest, whereas touch and sight are fairly easy. Sight is basically an image projected by some sort of futuristic device into the eye, and hearing would obviously be controlled by speakers, which may or may not be visible, depending on how the VR machine is designed.
And there's another pint raised by the design of VR - how would a third person game work effectively? Or a game like Resident Evil, where the camera doesn't even move? It's just stuck in the corner of a room where you can see everything, and thus everything your character does? Also, on a similar subject, how would the menus work at the start of a game where you make your choices about difficulty and stuff? And how about in an FPS or TPS, what would it be like to fail the mission by dying?
I think I'll leave it on this note. I'll let you give it some thought. What do you think gaming will be like in the year 2050? Will it be VR, or the good ol' games console? And how do you think designers will cope with sensations?
Thanks for reading
Happy days
Twain