Video games have steadily risen in popularity for years. And with people looking for new ways to socialize and stay entertained during the pandemic, the trend has only accelerated. Gaming is now a bigger industry than movies and sports combined. Revenue for gaming grew 12 percent in 2020, up to $139.9 billion from $120.1 billion in 2019, according to a report by market research firm SuperData. And at one point last year, four out of every five people in the United States had played a video game within the previous six months.

“It used to be ‘what to watch’ and now it’s ‘whether to watch,’” venture capitalist Matthew Ball wrote. “And the answer is increasingly ‘no, I’m going to play a game.’”

So what’s next? Culturally, gaming will only continue to become more mainstream. But what tech innovations are shaping the future of video games, and how will they influence the gaming experience?

WHAT WILL THE FUTURE OF GAMING LOOK LIKE?

• Virtual reality

• Augmented reality

• Artificial intelligence

• Cloud gaming

• High-fidelity graphics

• The metaverse

Virtual Reality

For decades, virtual reality has tantalized gamers with the prospect of a fully immersive experience. But the technology has been slow to deliver on that promise.

Polygon’s Ben Kuchera put it bluntly last year: “VR has been five minutes away from some kind of breakthrough for about eight years.”

VR is still a niche category when compared to the rest of the gaming industry (it accounted for less than half a percent of all gaming sales in 2020). And despite its buzzy status, it continues to give many consumers pause.

“Right now we’re sort of in this trough of disillusionment about VR,” Kevin Mack, a VR game developer, told Built In in 2020. “There was a lot of hype around it in 2015 and 2016, and then the whole world sort of got butt-hurt that their first-generation VR headset didn’t instantly morph into the Holodeck.”

“The whole world sort of got butt-hurt that their first-generation VR headset didn’t instantly morph into the Holodeck.”

Although VR has yet to live up to the hype, tech companies like Facebook, Valve and Sony are busy trying to advance the industry, investing considerable resources to develop VR hardware and games.

Most VR headsets weigh over a pound and must be strapped tightly to a user’s face. It’s not terribly comfortable. You get sweaty and after a half hour of play your energy is sapped.

This experience chafes against that mode of playing which is typical of gaming enthusiasts — spending hours comfortably sunk into a couch. If VR hardware can’t align with the preferences of gamers, will it be able to survive? Until companies slim down their VR headsets, get rid of cumbersome connector cables and lower prices, most gamers — save the early adopters and tech enthusiasts — will continue to balk.

VR’s gaming future

Companies are busy making VR more appealing to a wider audience, and hardware prices are dropping. But even when those hurdles are cleared, the fact that the typical VR experience is so socially isolating might limit its upside.

“[VR] is a solitary experience. It’s a thing that you’re doing on your own and it’s a thing that you choose to do to the exclusion of anything else,” Mack said. He enjoys playing VR games, but if someone else is around, he thinks twice before strapping the headset on.

“I still generally wouldn’t really wear one that much at home if my girlfriend is there too,” he said. “Because I feel like I was completely cutting myself off from the social environment.”

Though he recognizes the limitations, Mack remains optimistic about VR’s future.

“VR, I think, will remain niche, but it could potentially turn into a big niche,” he said. “I think we’re going to see some very impressive stuff and very compelling stuff come down the pipe in the next couple of years.”

Mitu Khandaker, a professor at New York University’s Game Center, is hopeful about VR’s role in gaming, she said in a 2020 interview with Built In. Khandaker just doesn’t think it’s going to look like people alone in their homes playing through a headset, so much as a co-located experience that multiple people share in.

“I think that the future of VR is more through social VR,” she said.

Indeed, several VR games — such as Rec Room and VRChat — offer social experiences where users can interact and hang out with each other in real time.

If VR unlocks more, not less, connections with other people, it will be able to earn a prominent place in gaming’s future.

Augmented Reality

In the summer of 2016, parks and plazas were swarming with Pokémon collecting enthusiasts.

Pokémon Go is an augmented reality smartphone game in which colorful animals called Pokémon overlay a person's natural range of vision.

The game was most people's first experience with AR and remains the technology's largest success story.

But Pokémon Go's long-term success is due to its treasured intellectual property. There are many different games, novels, and movies where Ash Ketchum and Pikachu may be found. The game's virtual-real interaction between digital characters and realistic locales is the true secret sauce.

That's why AR is growing faster than VR: People want games that interact with reality rather than remove them from it.

“I don't believe AR entertainment will strive to be immersive,” Mack added. “In [Pokémon Travel], I would go to particular locations simply to catch a Pokémon. That's a big societal driver.”

The x-factor that catapulted Pokémon Go into a multi-billion-dollar craze was farther out into the neighborhood rather than deeper within goggles. Its success will motivate additional gaming firms to attempt to capitalize on customer desire for virtual-real hybrid games.

“I could picture a game like hide-and-seek or laser tag,” Mack added. “It's a natural fit.”

AR, says Rogelio Cardona-Rivera of the University of Utah's School of Computing, will be more fruitful ground for game makers than VR in the immediate future.

“Instead of completely simulating reality, I believe designers might better track complementing reality,” he told Built In 2020. “Then we could see some AR lessons reapplied to VR.”