The video game is on the rise.
Gone are the days of the shunned gamer, playing alone in the dark, Mountain Dew at his side, fingertips orange with Cheetos dust. All right, maybe the Mountain Dew and Cheetos fingers haven’t changed, but the perception of the gaming industry sure has.
I’ve been noticing the definite shift in gaming’s popularity the past decade or so. Years ago, playing Nintendo’s “Mario Kart 64” with friends, I remember thinking, “This is awesome! Why don’t more people play games like this?”
Every week this column will study the rise of video games as Hollywood heavy-hitters, the ever-changing technology that is clearing the path to truly spectacular innovations and the effect this constantly changing medium will have on the world.
Early in gaming’s history, Atari’s “Pong” was the most technically advanced game out there, and watching a pixelated ball bounce off paddles you controlled must have blown the minds of the early home-system adopters. But now it’s commonplace for video games to resemble blockbuster movies, with production budgets to match.
Rockstar Games’ “L.A. Noire” had a budget of more than $50 million to create its sprawling Los Angeles of the 1940s. But the biggest game budget goes to BioWare and EA’s “Star Wars: The Old Republic,” which reportedly spent about $200 million. Compare that to recent Hollywood blockbusters, many of which cost more than $200 million to make.
The gaming industry is clearly creeping up to match this figure. That’s a lot of tokens.
The gaming studios are looking into the future and seeing dollar signs. As a result, the games are receiving more funding and promotion, and are becoming progressively better. Hollywood writers, directors and even actors are starting to become interested and involved with the new era of game-making.
A program called New Cinema has been developing the future of cinematic gaming. New Cinema aims to merge gaming with the cinematic experience, and it is experimenting with new technology for the next generation of gaming – and cinema.
New Cinema just showcased its breathtaking (literally) accomplishment, “We Make The Weather,” which combines visual storytelling with immersion technology. In the program, an anonymous figure tries to cross a bridge, but the size of the bridge and the reaction of the water changes and impedes him depending on the user’s breathing rhythm. The player wears a headset that tracks the intensity and ebb and flow of his breath and translates that into the movement of the bridge and water.
Think of what this could mean for a video game: dialogue choices based on breathing rhythm, combat that uses your heartbeat to know when to attack, horror video games where the action is based on fear – your heart rate and breathing indicate you’re calm, the perfect time to send a disfigured laboratory experiment lumbering out of the darkness toward your character.
These advancements are not only possible – they’re inevitable. In the coming years, gaming and cinema will merge even more, creating a new genre of interactive storytelling that immerses the player into the game so completely, it will be indistinguishable from a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster, essentially casting the player as the hero in his own movie.
The way things are going, games will someday even surpass movies in terms of entertainment value – why just watch a movie when you could live it? The movie industry is always looking for new hooks – just look at the rise of 3-D. The newest technology could be the merger of game and cinema, creating an immersive, memorable experience.
Welcome to the future; you’re gonna love it.