Technology in gaming is advancing fast, and investors are always on the lookout for the latest developments.
Here are some of the most exciting developments in gaming.
Virtual Reality And Augmented Reality
VR and AR are providing more immersive gaming experiences. Headsets like Oculus Quest 2 and PlayStation VR allow players to step into virtual worlds and interact with them in ways they’d rarely imagined before.
More games are beginning to integrate VR and AR, allowing games to blend physical and digital environments and objects.
Half-Life: Alyx is one particularly successful game that incorporates VR. The Games Machine’s review said, “Valve [the game’s developer] selects the best features of VR action games and takes them to another level,” and the game received a critics’ score of 93/100 on Metacritic (indicating “Universal Acclaim”).
Star Wars: Squadrons supported VR headsets and incorporated VR “comfort options” to reduce gamer fatigue, such as limited locomotion.
Online casinos
Investors will have a keen eye on whether the next generation of consoles (including Microsoft’s Xbox One X/S successor and Sony’s next PlayStation) will include betting apps and online casinos.
This is a hugely lucrative arm of the gaming industry, so it’s no surprise that a lot of industry insiders have been wondering for a while if the online casino will ever bridge the gap between PC and console.
Consider the fact that some gamers currently use the internet browser on their console to access casino sites. This method is not the most user-friendly, and it can yield a very slow, laborious experience compared with what we’re used to on PC – and yet, it’s what some gamers are willing to put up with in order to get their preferred genre on their preferred platform.
True, you might argue that these consoles would have embraced casino gaming a long time ago if they were interested, but a new generation of technological advancements could be the ‘inciting incident’ they’re looking for. Perhaps it’s never been about jumping on the bandwagon but about offering something entirely new to a well-loved format.
Esports and live streaming
Professional gaming has become increasingly popular in the last decade. Professional eSports (simply meaning “electronic sports”) leagues, teams, and tournaments draw in millions of viewers.
Platforms like Twitch, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube Gaming let gaming fans interact with professionals in real time. Investors will no doubt be interested in competitions like League of Legends, which had a cumulative prize pool of almost $8 million in 2021.
Social media has played a large role in the development of esports, with stars having large followings in the same vein as more traditional sportspeople.
TV networks such as ESPN have begun to broadcast esports events, which has brought competitions to a wider audience.
Biometric sensors
With biometric sensors, games can monitor players’ health. By sensing things like heart rate, eye movements, and even skin conductivity (which varies with sweat and indicates heightened emotional responses), games can provide personalized feedback and adjusted difficulty settings and prevent gamer fatigue.
One example of difficulty settings being adjusted is if a player’s heart rate dropped, which may indicate boredom, a game could introduce more challenging elements or increase its playing speed.
Another exciting area of development is in electroencephalography technology. This tech monitors brain activity.
Intriguingly, developers will have the possibility of modifying storylines based on gamers’ emotional states. This could create deeper and more immersive games.
The New York Times reported that electroencephalography caps are being studied at Virginia Tech University, which is looking at dance neuroscience. Scientists are exploring dance’s “unusual brain-body connection”. With dance games one of the most popular genres, it will be exciting to see how developers use gamers’ brain states to enhance their games.
Elinor Harrison, who teaches a course on the neuroscience of movement at Washington University in St. Louis, says, “The way dance integrates the mind and the body, that’s something I’ve felt myself. So when we see evidence of these things on a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan [which measures the brain’s blood flow] it’s the science justifying this embodied knowledge dancers have.”
Game developers are going to have more data and more insight into how dancing can affect gamers.
Ensuring the security and privacy of biometric data will be a technological concern. Developers will have to implement robust measures to protect gamers.
Monitoring gamer fatigue may be a particularly important development: amid concerns about people spending too much time on games, biometric sensors could play a crucial role in keeping gamers healthy.
Advanced Graphics
Technologies like ray tracing have enabled developers to design more realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows, helping to produce some stunning games.
In recent years, games like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Cyberpunk 2077 have blessed gamers with amazing visuals.
Even going back to 2011 when Minecraft was released on PS3 and Xbox 360, ray tracing looked great even with the series’ trademark blocky graphics.
Higher frame rates also help make games smoother and more detailed.
The Future
With technologies like VR, AR, live streaming, and biometric sensors, the possibilities of games are expanding. Software is progressing at a faster rate than ever before, and developers have more exciting tools to create the best games. The future of gaming looks bright.
