Virtual reality gaming is something that we will see expand its way into the video gaming industry and eventually take it over. Have you ever seen the movie Ready Player One? It is a great film that I felt was genius and incorporated the future of virtual reality gaming. The “Oasis” serves as an arena in which you can do anything you want from gambling, racing, social interaction, and an Easter Egg that requires days of time and research nested within the game. The “Oasis” is used to escape from the challenges of everyday life.
Virtual reality is something that we will continue to see honed within the gaming industry. We are already starting to see gaming platforms evolve. For example, shopping malls would have carousels and quarter slot cars that really required you to use your imagination. Now with changing technology, we are seeing more booths and virtual reality goggles being demoed and spreading the awareness of virtual reality gaming. What we once imagined, we now have the ability to immerse ourselves within it.
One of the most interactive games so far has been Mario Kart. Mario Kart is a bit easier to create in relation to other games because it is stationary as the user is in the car. This did not prevent the creators from upgrading this classic. They decided to integrate the mystery boxes into floating boxes that the users would have to reach up and grab while driving. They then can interact with these items tossing them in any direction towards an opponent. The fact that the headsets of the individuals allowed them to all play on the same platform separates the Mario Kart from the other virtual reality gaming systems.
As for now, virtual reality is in the refinement stage; producers are attempting to lower the price of the bundles. The headsets alone on average retail for $250. All of the other equipment and accessories when bundled retail for roughly $1,000. That said, before virtual reality video games enter our homes, they will enter the arcades since they are able to buy multiple platforms on a large scale. China has the largest platform for virtual reality gaming as its population. Lianchao Lan (a reporter and writer) states, “Tens of millions of Chinese have become obsessive players of mobile video games, causing concern that China was raising a generation of myopic youngsters addicted to battle games.” The government has thus intervened and limited the number of new releases. It decreased the value of the gaming market, but China is still expected to single-handedly make up 20 percent of the market.
Part of the reason why this gaming platform has not been adopted as much is because of some ethical problems surrounding the use. The first includes human adaption as they must toggle their behaviors from being inside and outside of the game. The second is in regard to protection when actual movements are required. Once these issues are resolved, we can expect this industry to truly flourish.
As an advocate for virtual reality, I would like to leave you with two questions.
1. What industries have or can virtual reality enhance?
2. What other problems can surface as virtual reality enters our daily life?
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Great article Kinnley! I have heard a lot of news circling the development of virtual reality and I must say it is very interesting. I think a cool industry I would like to see virtual reality involved in is mental health, I myself have worked with HoloLens technology and immediately found it to be an amazing and immersive experience. However, with that same token, I can see people becoming too reliant and addicted to virtual reality that it interferes with their ability to interact with real life.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you and feel that virtual reality has the power to really improve a person's mental health. I think that your idea for entrepreneurship has really grown and developed over the semester into something that our world will soon see.
DeleteI love the topic of virtual reality as I believe it will also revolutionize the way people go about doing things in the near future. While it can be used for gaming, there are many other fields I believe can benefit from this and one of them is in the field of medicine. Surgeons in medical school training could reap the most benefit out of this in my opinion. This is due to the fact that they could gain real world practice using this virtual reality technology. If there were training tutorials on different surgeries and they were perfected in the field of virtual reality, practice could be done using different tools and techniques. This would be more beneficial than practicing on something such as a plastic dummy because of the harsh reality students may recognize they are getting themselves into with many of these different surgeries. There could be scenarios set up where students are doing everything right but a person's body reacts differently than another and they must make a decision in that moment which will affect the outcome of the surgery. I'm no medical student, but I do see where this could take us in the future in this field.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this article. The virtual reality gaming sector is going to change the pace of how society is going to be. It is exciting but also scary. I see the investment people have already with gaming and once the gaming industry makes the experience of gaming more real life, it's going to be very interesting to see what happens. Personally, I think that this will have a major effect on society. Though the committed gaming community is a relatively small community, virtual reality gaming will take over peoples lives. I could see people getting lost into this fantasy realm of gaming. With the advancement in graphics and the interaction between characters in games, its not farfetched to see people fully detached from reality. For this small community, I see it as a slippery slope. At the same time, it will be incredible to see what this sector can really make of itself. What is your thoughts on the possible outcomes?
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you from the perspective that people will have a hard time adjusting back to regular everyday life. This is definitely one of the biggest objectives to overcome before we begin really seeing virtual reality take over. Developers must figure out how they can encompass this technology into life outside the game, because it could really enhance daily activities.
DeleteOn a side note, in the move Ready Player One, after completing the Easter Egg, they were given full rights to the game. One of their first rules was closing the game servers for 2 days out of the week. This would force people to live lives outside of the game.
This article is very good and the topic is very interesting to me as well. Virtual reality is definitely up and coming and we can see it being used in many different industries. As far as the gaming industry goes, this is becoming more and more popular every single day and it is even expected to be in the upcoming olympics. Also you can tell by how popular twitch has become and these famous gamers now making millions and millions of dollars playing video games. I think for virtual reality, this will continue to evolve and I'm sure in the near future more and more developments will come about. But also thinking about the use of VR in other industries, we can see it being used in the automotive industry as well as many others; there are many positive benefits to using it. For instance, it is being used for therapy, fitness, and healthcare, which are all important to use. Problems I can see virtual reality causing in the future is it becoming to advanced and people not being able to stop either what it is doing or stop themselves from using it. Overall, I think this topic is very interesting and you wrote a good report on it.
ReplyDeleteThis article is very good and the topic is very interesting to me as well. Virtual reality is definitely up and coming and we can see it being used in many different industries. As far as the gaming industry goes, this is becoming more and more popular every single day and it is even expected to be in the upcoming olympics. Also you can tell by how popular twitch has become and these famous gamers now making millions and millions of dollars playing video games. I think for virtual reality, this will continue to evolve and I'm sure in the near future more and more developments will come about. But also thinking about the use of VR in other industries, we can see it being used in the automotive industry as well as many others; there are many positive benefits to using it. For instance, it is being used for therapy, fitness, and healthcare, which are all important to use. Problems I can see virtual reality causing in the future is it becoming to advanced and people not being able to stop either what it is doing or stop themselves from using it. Overall, I think this topic is very interesting and you wrote a good report on it.
ReplyDeleteIn movies, directors often go to the extremes. They picture dystopian societies that have failed in the traditional sense and some hero is set to change that outcome. I don't believe our society will ever get to the point that Ready Player One warned us about. But still, it begs the question: how far will it go?
ReplyDeleteI believe virtual reality, at least during our lifetime, will always be seen as an enhancement to our current reality, not a substitution. The fear that people will become addicted to it is always prevalent, as it is with most things causing joy. The benefits of virtual reality outweigh the negatives. Doctors can practice real-life surgery in the virtual world, virtual therapy can help patients feel more comfortable and vulnerable in their sessions, and a myriad of other benefits can be explored with this technology.
I believe one would be synnacle in assuming an epidemic of people escaping reality to create their own will ever happen. However, it would be terrifying if it ever did happen.
Great article and topic.