Pong. Donkey Kong. Mario Bros. The Legend of Zelda. These were games that revolutionized the industry at the time they were released. The Mario Brothers and Zelda franchises have continued to lead the industry in innovative gameplay to this day, with games such as Super Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess, respectively. Other franchises also brought incredible innovation to the table, like Wolfenstein 3D and Halo did for first-person-shooters. So, one might ask where else the gaming industry will go. Well, it turns out that there is still plenty of growing room.
The method of distribution is one thing that has changed in the gaming industry. Valve launched Steam in 2003 to distribute merchandise digitally. Other companies (such as Electronic Arts) also have moved to embrace this new method. Digital distribution is easier and cheaper for the distributor and more convenient for the customer. There are some concerns, though. One of the major worries with digital distribution is the loss of physical ownership. Many people enjoy owning a physical disk. Physical ownership also brings certain perks, such as the ability to easily loan out a game to a friend, as well as portability.
Another feature that seems to be coming into vogue is convergence — that is, making consoles that do more than play games. The Wii, for instance, not only plays your games, but also accesses the Internet and gives you weather forecasts. The Playstation 3 also comes with a browser, and has a Blu-Ray player to boot. Even phones have tried to break into the gaming arena. The Nokia N-Gage was one of the first serious attempts at mixing hand-held gaming and telephone technology, and was considered a joke by many gamers. There is some concern that by creating gaming systems that can do anything and everything, consoles will eventually lose their focus on gaming. Because many gamers enjoy the fact that consoles are used first and foremost for gaming, they may very well be reluctant to support anything that dilutes that purpose.
Another question about the future is one of genres. There are so many different game genres out there that it seems impossible to invent something actually new. Then, something like Katamari Damacy comes along and blows expectations and convention out of the water. Then again, Katamari is, at heart, simply a growth game, which has been done before. So one might ask, is there anything new to invent? A very good question, but one whose answer is unfortunately beyond the scope of this article.
One final aspect to address is the sheer technology behind today’s games. Graphics continue to improve every year, and technology such as physics engines continue to become more and more sophisticated and more capable of simulating reality. Even now, Nvidia has released goggles that transform an image from a computer monitor into 3-D, further immersing gamers into whatever game they happen to be playing. Perhaps one day the holodeck will become a reality.
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