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Ok, fine. We can sit here for as long as we like talking about where gaming is going, what the best next-generation console will be, and the intergration of gaming into everyday life etc.
But to find any truth about the future we have to look to the past. Where did gaming come from? how did it develop into a black (or grey) console we play through our TV, or 3D shoot em' ups on our PC's?
Are we lucky to have gaming at all? after all, it only takes a small change in the past to affect the future. What if that victorian child DIDN't get bored with his doll, and decide to try something new? What if people decided Monopoly was the best game on earth, and society didn't need video games? We wouldn't have them!
We also have to look at the way gaming has developed. When Mr. X (sorry forgot his name) invented the first computer, it was designed for, well, computing. What twist of fate made someone, in later generations of the computer, to invent pong? was he not happy playing monopoly?
Why did some guy decide two bars and a ball on a PC screen was not enough? how did he come to invent the spectrum? How did that evolve into the N64, or PS2? we have to decide this to evaluate where gaming is going
I have explained that any little twist or turn could have changed how we know gaming. There is no way to predict the future, and anything could happen!
Scientists say we'll have colonised the moon in 40 years time, imagine what could have happened to gaming.
VR units in mid space with no gravity! wicked.
But to find any truth about the future we have to look to the past. Where did gaming come from? how did it develop into a black (or grey) console we play through our TV, or 3D shoot em' ups on our PC's?
Are we lucky to have gaming at all? after all, it only takes a small change in the past to affect the future. What if that victorian child DIDN't get bored with his doll, and decide to try something new? What if people decided Monopoly was the best game on earth, and society didn't need video games? We wouldn't have them!
We also have to look at the way gaming has developed. When Mr. X (sorry forgot his name) invented the first computer, it was designed for, well, computing. What twist of fate made someone, in later generations of the computer, to invent pong? was he not happy playing monopoly?
Why did some guy decide two bars and a ball on a PC screen was not enough? how did he come to invent the spectrum? How did that evolve into the N64, or PS2? we have to decide this to evaluate where gaming is going
I have explained that any little twist or turn could have changed how we know gaming. There is no way to predict the future, and anything could happen!
Scientists say we'll have colonised the moon in 40 years time, imagine what could have happened to gaming.
VR units in mid space with no gravity! wicked.
Mr. X = Charles Babbage and his 'counting machine', although there is a lot of dispute nowadays over whether this was a true 'computer' in the current definition of the word. I'll let the historians and lexicographers sort that one out between them.
Scientists have been predicting colonisation of the moon in 40 years since the 1930's. They should stick to things they are good at, like cloning sheep and easy stuff like that.
The first computer game, again loads of dispute here, was probably a text-based adventure written by a nerd at MIT, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology (and nerds)) in the late 70s.
One type of 'game' that has yet to explode into a genre is the AI type of game that first appeared in the form of 'LIFE', again at MIT. This computer program simulated an organism that lived according to certain rules, and charted how this organism grew into a population and then how that population expanded and contracted over time according to those rules imposed by the programmers.
This type of programming could gave great ramifications in the future, allowing games that 'evolve', levels that 'change', gameplay that 'mutates' over the period that the game is played for, allowing the user to have a different experience each time the game is played. If you complain about the cost of games going up all the time, then this kind of thing would be a boon, but the programming techniques were never really developed as engines, which is a pity.
I'd have done it myself, but too many other interesting projects got in the way, but I may return to it at a later stage in life and devote a bit more time to it.
Scientists have been predicting colonisation of the moon in 40 years since the 1930's. They should stick to things they are good at, like cloning sheep and easy stuff like that.
The first computer game, again loads of dispute here, was probably a text-based adventure written by a nerd at MIT, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology (and nerds)) in the late 70s.
One type of 'game' that has yet to explode into a genre is the AI type of game that first appeared in the form of 'LIFE', again at MIT. This computer program simulated an organism that lived according to certain rules, and charted how this organism grew into a population and then how that population expanded and contracted over time according to those rules imposed by the programmers.
This type of programming could gave great ramifications in the future, allowing games that 'evolve', levels that 'change', gameplay that 'mutates' over the period that the game is played for, allowing the user to have a different experience each time the game is played. If you complain about the cost of games going up all the time, then this kind of thing would be a boon, but the programming techniques were never really developed as engines, which is a pity.
I'd have done it myself, but too many other interesting projects got in the way, but I may return to it at a later stage in life and devote a bit more time to it.
Ok, fine. We can sit here for as long as we like talking about where gaming is going, what the best next-generation console will be, and the intergration of gaming into everyday life etc.
But to find any truth about the future we have to look to the past. Where did gaming come from? how did it develop into a black (or grey) console we play through our TV, or 3D shoot em' ups on our PC's?
Are we lucky to have gaming at all? after all, it only takes a small change in the past to affect the future. What if that victorian child DIDN't get bored with his doll, and decide to try something new? What if people decided Monopoly was the best game on earth, and society didn't need video games? We wouldn't have them!
We also have to look at the way gaming has developed. When Mr. X (sorry forgot his name) invented the first computer, it was designed for, well, computing. What twist of fate made someone, in later generations of the computer, to invent pong? was he not happy playing monopoly?
Why did some guy decide two bars and a ball on a PC screen was not enough? how did he come to invent the spectrum? How did that evolve into the N64, or PS2? we have to decide this to evaluate where gaming is going
I have explained that any little twist or turn could have changed how we know gaming. There is no way to predict the future, and anything could happen!
Scientists say we'll have colonised the moon in 40 years time, imagine what could have happened to gaming.
VR units in mid space with no gravity! wicked.
But to find any truth about the future we have to look to the past. Where did gaming come from? how did it develop into a black (or grey) console we play through our TV, or 3D shoot em' ups on our PC's?
Are we lucky to have gaming at all? after all, it only takes a small change in the past to affect the future. What if that victorian child DIDN't get bored with his doll, and decide to try something new? What if people decided Monopoly was the best game on earth, and society didn't need video games? We wouldn't have them!
We also have to look at the way gaming has developed. When Mr. X (sorry forgot his name) invented the first computer, it was designed for, well, computing. What twist of fate made someone, in later generations of the computer, to invent pong? was he not happy playing monopoly?
Why did some guy decide two bars and a ball on a PC screen was not enough? how did he come to invent the spectrum? How did that evolve into the N64, or PS2? we have to decide this to evaluate where gaming is going
I have explained that any little twist or turn could have changed how we know gaming. There is no way to predict the future, and anything could happen!
Scientists say we'll have colonised the moon in 40 years time, imagine what could have happened to gaming.
VR units in mid space with no gravity! wicked.