The earliest patent for a video game – then called a “cathode-ray tube amusement device” – took place in 1947-1948, but this and other prototypes were mammoth projects and too expensive to make it out of the science lab. Since their introduction in our homes, video games have grown immensely in popularity, with the world’s population spending many hours per week today playing online games.
At its birth, video game history started with gigantic computers in science labs and billions of dollars of investment.
Since its commercial birth in the 1950s as a technological wonder at the science fair, gaming has grown in one of the world’s most profitable entertainment industries.
The revolution in mobile technology has enhanced the industry and paved the way for a new generation of gamers. Indeed, gaming is mainstreamed in modern popular culture, and even grandparents now know what angry birds are. Almost half of the Americans are gamers, and four out of five American households have a console.
Many have asked themselves what the first known video game was created.
Many examples of early game creations exist, but some were just ideas or part of a doctorate dissertation. In the 1940s and 1950s, attempts at writing software programs for entertainment were understandably primitive. High-end computer systems have fired virtual bullets trying to compete with human opponents in games like chess or Nim, which included choosing matchsticks until only one was left for the loser to reclaim. Rarely did these systems have any screen because they used flashing lights to mark moves by making the video component of the first video game a severely missing piece.
Inventor Thomas G. Goldsmith came close, patenting in 1947 a proposed device that used a cathode ray tube, or HRT, as a display and allowed players to rotate buttons that would control lines on the screen to “hit” paper airplanes that were glued on top of the glass. But Goldsmith’s idea probably never got him through the patent phase (so far, no prototype evidence has been revealed).
The very first proof of a video game came in October 1958.
Physicist William Higinbotham created what is said to be the first video game – a straightforward tennis game called Tennis for Two, similar to the classic 1970s video game Pong, which was quite a hit at a Brookhaven National Laboratory open house. Tennis for Two missed the fancy graphics video games that are used today. The cathode ray tube display showed a side view of a tennis court represented by two lines only – one representing the ground and the other representing the net. The ball was just a dot that bounced back and forth. Nonetheless, players had to keep scoring for themselves. The game circuitry was relatively simple, using mainly capacitors, resistors, and relays, though it did use transistors for the fast switching needed when the ball was at work.
Now, after the overview of video games’ general history, let’s look at the future. Games like World of Warcraft allow players to save worlds by encouraging them to learn the heroes’ habits. Most of us have acted as superheroes trying to save the world from an evil threat or alien invasion. In the present time, we have many video games to play and do things we cannot even imagine doing in real life. Big tech companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon have already seized the moment and are all developing gaming products.
In the fall of 2019, Apple released the Apple Arcade, a game subscription service. Shortly after that, Google launched Stadia, which allows users to stream original game titles directly from the cloud rather than having to fuss with downloads or a physical console. On the other hand, Amazon acquired Twitch, the most popular gaming platform, to watch online streams in 2014, which is rumored to launch its streaming service soon. These newcomers in space will compete with significant gaming networks like Sony (Playstation), Nintendo (Switch), and Microsoft (Xbox) for market share.
“The rising tide elevates everything on the surface”.
Annually, mobile games collect more than half of all gaming purchases. Virtual reality and augmented reality games continue to increase their revenue.
What’s next? Culturally, gaming seems to break out of the niche corners of the world and will only continue to become more and more mainstream. But how will technological innovations shape the future of video games and gaming experience?
Artificial Intelligence Gaming
We no longer live in the period when Artificial Intelligence was the stuff of a science fiction story. Now, many people know and understand what’s behind the term AI. In the future, can we count on AI in commercial games? According to experts, this is totally doable, but not everyone is convinced it is coming soon.
The traditional way of developing a video game encourages developers to imagine their plausible worlds and how they interact with each other and pre-determine the challenges and tasks players need to overcome. Each game has a set of levels, graphics, characters, sound features, and stories that are expended and programmed before players enter the game world. Gamers are eager to experience more complex games being developed that can accommodate hundreds of thousands of active players and can be updated and enriched in real time.
AI is not just a part of the gameplay experience. What is more, it is part of the game-making experience. For several years, designers have been using AI to create their dream games. AI can generate game resources, freeing designers from painstakingly drawing each tree in a wildness or rock in a canyon. However, designers can offload that work on computers using a technique called procedural content generation, which has become a fairly standard practice in the industry.
Maybe AI needs to be more capable of developing games autonomously from scratch. Still, it can provide valuable feedback to game designers who can adjust their creations on the fly, which is quite common.
Games are so much about creating an engaging and immersive experience that will stimulate people to keep coming back repeatedly, making AI the perfect suit for the gaming industry.
Virtual Reality Gaming
For decades, virtual reality has plagued gamers with the prospect of a completely immersive experience. But the technology has yet to fulfill that promise. When it comes to VR, we’re still in its early stage of development.
Here’s how it works … the players gather in a physical space, like inside a warehouse, and strap on helmets and computers as backpacks. Together, they participate in virtual activities. However, unlike the typical VR experience, where everything takes place inside the goggles, hyperreality game players will note that what they experience in their headphones precisely corresponds to the physical space of the external world. So they can run around, duck, and, in some cases, even reach for a virtual object and feel it – in the form of a strategically placed physical prop. The interaction between virtual reality and tactile feedback creates an authentic and reliable experience. Still, there are promising developments on the horizon.
Augmented Reality Gaming
The technology that powered Pokémon Go wasn’t new. This type of geo-based AR gameplay was already around. It took a well-established brand (Pokémon) to get consumers to try it. And once they played it, they loved it. In the summer of 2016, parks and plazas swarmed with smartphone-wielders on Pokémon-catching missions. The public was playing Pokémon Go, an augmented reality mobile game in which virtual images were projected onto the existing world. The game has generated over $3 billion in sales, mostly from in-app purchases, as it is free for download.
Mobile 5G
If you have used your phone to stream a movie or play an online game, you’re likely well-acquainted with the spinning wheel indicating your content is loading. That’s because internet speeds are slow. It’s kept mobile gaming’s ceiling lower than it could be. Telecommunications companies are in the early stages of rolling out 5G for mobile devices to remedy this. Soon, smartphones will be much faster, and laggy game experiences will be a thing of the past. It is not just great news for mobile games in general, which currently chew through a phone’s computational power. It’s also great for AR games that are worth playing with real-time data input.
With 5G capabilities, you will be able to pull up an AR game, look through your screen, and – with lightning speed – get instantaneous data about the world around you. Imagine that people are in a social AR experience, and they created custom avatars for themselves. Hence, anybody using the same application to overlay their experience sees this person in whatever costume they designed for themselves. … It is necessary to have some fast way to make that data available.
The technology behind 5G promises to solve this. This breakthrough will not only make mobile gaming better, but it will also likely create a network effect in which more and more people will get into mobile gaming – especially AR – due to an increase in a cultural buzz about the high-quality experience of AR gaming.
Conclusion
The evolution of gaming from its humble beginnings to the present day has been nothing short of remarkable. This industry has seen tremendous growth, from mammoth projects in science labs to becoming one of the world’s most profitable entertainment industries. With the rise of mobile technology and significant-tech companies’ introduction of new gaming products, gaming has become more mainstream than ever before.
Technological innovations such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, and the advent of mobile 5G are set to shape the gaming experience in unprecedented ways. While AI has the potential to revolutionize game development and enhance gameplay, virtual reality, and augmented reality are still in their early stages, promising unique and immersive experiences for players.
Also, the rollout of mobile 5G is expected to significantly improve the overall gaming experience, especially for augmented reality games. As the gaming industry continues to evolve, it is evident that technology will play a pivotal role in driving the next phase of innovation and growth. With new and exciting developments on the horizon, the future of gaming holds great promise for both developers and players alike.