Taking a step beyond the augmented reality that is set to become part and parcel of our daily lives in the near future, one will arrive at a far more ambitious concept. The potential of this latter technology in terms of a gaming future is actually remarkable, if one will only open their minds to allow the possibilities to flow in. The history of Virtual Reality is short, even though popular culture has done a remarkable job at allowing people to view what it is capable of. However, films such as ‘Tron’ and ‘The Matrix’ represent a state that we are still years upon years away from, due to a lack of synaptic response technology being available today. Before getting to that, let’s take a look at the history of the technology.
What may be regarded as the precursors to the modern ideal of virtual reality first came into existence in the early 1960s with the ‘Sensorama’ display. While we generally associate the term with the digital realm, this first foray was anything but. It had a video loop of a motorcycle ride through New York City playing via a set of optical binoculars, a surround sound system to simulate the sounds of the city, a fan featuring synthesised scents to encapsulate the feeling of both speed and smell and a vibrating platform that gave the user an experience similar to what one receives when riding a motorcycle. In and of itself, it was a remarkably forward thinking concept, but the limitations of the technology really do exclude it from being termed a ‘virtual reality’.
Later in the decade, ‘The Sword of Damocles’ emerged. This was more in line with what we expect, as it was a virtual experience. A relatively small world map was built in wireframe to be displayed via an enormous Head Mounted Display (HMD). This responded to the movements of the user by twisting and rotating the digital world in response to their movements in the real world. However, the immense cost and size (so large that it had to be suspended from the roof of the laboratory) meant that further research and development were not immediately begun. Another early example is that of the Aspen Movie Map. This came into being through photography of every street of the city. The thousands of images were then uploaded to a digital map through which users could select a path to travel along.
Both of these allowed you into the worlds, but there was no interaction, no real sense of immersion. So we move forward. HMDs are becoming far smaller and more refined, almost to the point now of being a consumer item, and indeed Sony showed off just such a device at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. More advanced (and more expensive) than this, is the VIEW project, from NASA. This is designed specifically to allow a user to seemingly interact with a digital world in the most realistic way currently possible. It features a stereoscopic 3D HMD unit, a built-in 3D stereo system, speech recognition and synthesis technology and gesture tracking, as well as a processor for showing off digitised environments. Without some form of tactile input, such a setup would be farcical, and it has this. A user can interact with the image being displayed on their headset through specially designed gloves that are capable of communicating with the processor to produce an image to the user of, say, toying with a Rubik’s Cube.
This latter system is already capable of dealing with information boards in a similar manner to what was seen in the film ‘Minority Report’, but that is just one potential use. It has also been used to allow a person to build a small scale architectural design, then expand it to real size for the person to explore at will. Such technology is expected to further reduce the risk of training modules in certain professions, such as pilots and surgeons, by putting them in digitised scenarios so that no human lives are directly at stake through their learning procedures. It is also being experimented with for entertainment purposes. Of course, gaming is at the fore of this. Imagine being completely immersed in the worlds of Call of Duty, Final Fantasy or Uncharted and being able to perform the actions of the characters through your own movements. In this way, it would still feature the same limitations that the PlayStation Move, the Microsoft Kinect and Nintendo Wii face today, as well as also only being capable of first-person display, but it would become more advanced as time goes by.
Before getting into the inevitable advancements leading forward, I’d like to take a moment to argue about the state of virtual reality at the current point in time. Now, it can easily be said that we’re already there. No, we don’t have direct control over aspects of virtual worlds, but they are already in place in the hundreds and thousands of games on the market. Linear games present increasingly realistic world corridors, while non-linear games provide vast landscapes to explore. MMOs are capable of the latter, with built in economy systems and player interaction capabilities, bringing it very much into line with reality. Even social networking sites like Facebook can be considered a virtual world, though Habbo Hotel and PlayStation Home are far better indicators. They’re not games per se, but they do have elements of MMOs, built upon a social networking platform.
So, what makes more sense? To begin to phase VR into typical games, such as shooters, platformers, action games, etc? To begin it with social networking applications, and allow people to meet in virtual representations of real places? Or to blend the two and begin in MMOs, where people can meet and greet, but must also work together? Each option has its own strengths and levels of ambition, but as already mentioned, the technology, in its current form, is limited. There is only so far that a simple glove as tactile input can go, as it cannot allow a full range of movement. Does that make full body suits necessary, or would certain body markers suffice? The latter would be more friendly to the end user, but would still undoubtedly be cumbersome.
You’ll remember at the beginning I mentioned synaptic response technology. Allow me to just say that I’m not exactly sure on that being the correct name for what I mean, but it is most accurate name that springs into my mind. Basically, what I mean by this is what is seen in ‘The Matrix’, where a person’s mind is plugged directly into the computer program, severing them from reality and fully immersing them in this seamless virtual world that is a near perfect replica of reality. Of course, before going in a person would know that it was simply a simulation. In this way, interaction with the game would be perfect. Any action that a character is capable of, the user is capable of. Any and all objects can be touched and felt. Though, in the aforementioned film series, if a person dies in the virtual world, they die in the real world. I can see no way around this. If a person’s brain is plugged directly into the simulation, it means that their nerve endings are exposed, and any trauma suffered within should translate to the body, or at least the mental frame.
But alas, that is all complete supposition. There is simply no way to gauge whether any such reaction would actually occur as yet. The very idea of mentally implanted virtual reality belongs in the realm of far-flung futurity. Human understanding of our own brains is not yet at a level great enough to allow us to interface with them directly.
Without further options to look at, this brings an end to the informational aspect of this edition, which leaves the question:
Is Virtual Reality a viable medium for a future in gaming?
The answer to that is a simple yes. The range of actions and level of immersion, even provided by what is in development today, is above the motion sensing peripherals available, and has promise to be even better. No, it won’t be able to be done tomorrow, but ten years from now, it may well be the norm. There is still a lot of development required, but the future is bright indeed, and like Augmented Reality, the potential effects expand far beyond anything seen by gaming alone. In an educational sense, a person is capable of being whisked away to places and times otherwise unreachable, or learning dangerous procedures without ever needing to worry about a thing. And who’s to say that one day the internet won’t evolve into something akin to a ‘Matrix’, where everyone in the entire world is capable of joining a massive server to live a second life at will?
So, what do you think? Is VR the future of gaming? Is it A future of gaming? Either way, as always, I hope that you’ve learnt something from reading this, and I hope to see you return with the next edition of GTT, based on the current trend of Motion Sensing next week (I hope). Until then.
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