The Future of Gaming

My gaming career started in my grandpa’s basement when I was a toddler playing Mario and Zelda on the original Nintendo. Since my first experience, I have not put down the “sticks”. Video games provide entertainment, a visual escape and also displays humans’ continued digital innovation. I credit video games for shaping me into who I am today. They were an outlet for creativity, a social escape (when online gaming became big) and provided a window into technology, which fueled my passion to continue to learn and become a member of the industry in which I work today.

Developers have continued to evolve the video game space and because of these achievements, the gaming industry is now a multi-billion dollar industry. Let’s take a look at what innovations today are driving revenue and look ahead to what is in store for this ever-growing industry.

Today - COD Elite: Blending Social w/ Gaming

The top selling franchise in the gaming industry is Call of Duty. With every new release, Call of Duty breaks it’s own sales records and projections. Activision’s latest venture, Modern Warfare 3, which reached $1 billion in sales in just 16 days, gives gamers the option to join a Call of Duty social network named Call of Duty Elite. This service records and aggregates statistics for the player as well as gives them the opportunity to create/join groups, compete in tournaments and connect with other gamers on the platform. This application also allows users to upload videos and works in conjunction with the player’s Facebook and YouTube accounts.  Users now have the opportunity to share their gaming experience with their social networks in a way that never existed before, exposing the old “underworld of gaming” to the mainstream population.

http://www.callofduty.com/elite

The Future – Allowing Physical Objects to Appear in Digital Space

Virtual Reality has been a dream for gamers for decades. Since the beginning of the gaming revolution, the gamer has wanted to physically participate in the fantasy worlds that their character lives in. With the introduction of motion sensor technology, first steps have been made with Xbox’s Kinect, Playstation’s Move and Nintendo’s Wii. The next steps are being made in this direction. WowWee recently developed AppGear which allows users to interact with their action figures in a whole new way. Each action figure interacts with both iOS and Android devices to allow the user to play with their action figure in a digital space using augmented reality. Activision has also developed a title “Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure” which uses a cross-platform panel that allows users to play with their action figures in the video game.

Video games played a huge role in my life growing up and continue to develop me into a better person today. As they continue to evolve it will be interesting to see how these technologies are adopted by other industries to benefit users in all walks of life.