The history of computer games, concluded.

The turn of the millennium saw the evolution of video games once again, user created content became a revolutionary step forward and the online phenomenon gave birth to a broad selection of new gaming genres. At the beginning of the decade, developers soon saw the potential found in user created content, in particular the well known first person shooter ‘Counter-strike.’ The popular online shooter was created by two amateur programmers, utilizing the source engine associated with the ‘Half Life’ series. Here lied an opportunity to enhance the long term value of video games, and was soon supported by several other developers encouraging its creation.

Besides the increasing popularity of third party content, a new generation of consoles hit the market to appease the gaming community. The Sega ‘Dreamcast’ made its initial appearance just before the turn of the century, alongside the ‘Playstation2’ launching another period of successful gaming. It wasn’t until Microsoft entered the fray a few years later with the introduction of the ‘Xbox’ and the innovative live services that gaming had truly become mainstream media. The innovative use of online services, the increasingly higher video definition and the growing population of gamers caused a huge boost in production and development budgets, once again pushing towards the next season of consoles. This time, Microsoft made the first move, releasing the ‘Xbox360’ just four years after the original console, supporting high definition graphics, hard-disk based storage systems and integrated networking, ultimately raising the standards for the other consoles. It was soon followed by the late ‘Playstation3’ and the unexpectedly popular ‘Wii’ the latest generation of gaming had been established, and provided a strong premise for developing a collection of pioneering titles.

The question that is left standing now is ‘Where do we go from here?’ In recent years gaming has progressively grown more and more sophisticated, both technologically and in entertainment. How can developers create engrossing storylines and believable environments which develop the overall gaming experience? Motion control has been considered to be the next step towards creating a more realistic virtual reality, and a more involved gaming experienced, but how can this applied to create the ultimate gaming experience. This is the problem future developer’s face and the pressures they must live up to.