Gaming is a phenomenon of the progress of the modern world and is here to stay.
Gambling is a cult activity and the video game industry has already surpassed the film industry on a large scale, so that you have a sense of the phenomenon it is.
Being a Gamer is nowadays a common thing and, from kids to grownups, everyone has fun with the wide variety of games and platforms to play the same.
One day you want to be the best Formula 1 driver in the world, the next you want a hero with a drawn sword or a weapon in hand, the next you want to build a city or dominate a galaxy… in gaming, all of this is possible.
You are always the center of attention, you fight for a cause or objective, you use your intelligence to solve a puzzle, you solve conflicts between nations and, at the end of the day, you will drink a coke with your friends from the real world and talk about the story or graphics of this or that video game.
In reality, a Gamer knows how to distinguish the real from the fantastic and does not confuse the morality of his personal life with that of the video games he plays. Deep down, he knows that a game is like an interactive movie where he is the main character.
Since the 1980s of the 20th century, video games have evolved in a fantastic way, both in content and graphics. With this evolution, there are now games that reflect real physical mechanics and many are used to simulate real mechanical structures, such as the simulator games for driving cars, trains, trucks and airplanes.
It started with pixelated square graphics, created by garage enthusiasts and culminated in multinationals with multidisciplinary teams of programmers, testers, scriptwriters, graphic artists, financiers, psychologists, among all other specialties that contribute to the development of a video game.
Manic Miner - 1983 © Matthew Smith & Bug-Byte
Many will remember the games of ZX Spectrum®, NES® and PC with 286® processors and less than 1 MByte of memory, where the graphics were two-dimensional and sometimes only in one or a few colors. The game mechanics were rudimentary, but Gamers at that time never failed to show their enthusiasm for playing these ancient gems, since from the beginning the processing capacity of the hardware could not keep up with the evolution of the games, as well as the price and Top hardware availability was almost always prohibitive.
Much has changed with the emergence of 16bit consoles such as SEGA Megadrive® or SUPER NES®, which have made Gaming soar and create an urban subculture that has influenced and has influenced successive generations.
After that came consoles and PCs running at 32bit and this brought a considerable improvement to the graphics and processing speeds of the CPU and GPU. A good example of this was Windows XP® machines and Sony's first PlayStation®.
Gaming has revolutionized the world and its way of looking at everything that is computing and computing. Technological advances in Gaming have enabled professional tools such as AutoCAD® or Solidworks® to use GPUs designed for video games, together with their great 3D processing capabilities, to design parts, machines, buildings, boats and airplanes. The truth is that this was only possible through the efforts of hardware companies that tried at all costs to always keep up with the graphic evolution of video games.
This proves that technological advances, although driven by the economic interests of hardware and video game companies, have been beneficial for the evolution of humanity as a whole. All the technology we use today was motivated by the need to reduce the price to the highest technology, so that it was accessible to everyone - from the richest to the poorest - and that everyone could experience in its first person the potential of it.
Likewise, video games have evolved from single-player to multi-player according to the evolution and availability of the internet, so it is now possible to play a game with dozens or hundreds of players at the same time.
What will be next? Virtual reality? Total sensory immersion?
It is not known well because only the future will dictate the tendencies of Gamers to accept new forms of Gaming and new hardware that allow them to have an increasingly immersive interactivity with video games.
For now, the classic controllers, keyboards and mice are the favorite and most used interfaces of Gamers, but tomorrow it could be that someone invented the new peripheral that will revolutionize the way of interacting with games and a new path will be traced… The future of video games and of Gaming will be dictated by Gamers and their acceptance of the new technologies that will be at their disposal.
Now go and have fun with your friends!
And don't forget: games are for fun, not for hating or hurting others, as that is not the true Gamer spirit.