The future of gaming

A nice article in The Economist on video gaming. It refers to Marc Prensky's games2train, (discussed in the first edition of Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships), which develops video games for corporate training. Marc originally developed training games for Bankers Trust, the now-defunct highly aggressive trading bank, whose young traders had no time for traditional approaches to training. Its role in entertainment is massive and growing, as represented by the oft-quoted statistic that gaming revenues exceed global movie box-office take (though neglect to point out that total movie revenue including videos, DVDs and licensing is still far higher than that of gaming). Current negative attitudes to games will shift. Steven Johnson's latest book Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter makes the case that gaming develops the skills that are most valuable and relevant in today's world. However the big frame around gaming is very simply that it will be embedded in many aspects of our future. Movies and games will merge (far more than they have already), and gaming technology will be used to create immersive environments for, among other applications, high-bandwidth collaborative spaces, and visualization and access of information. A lot more fun - and effective! - to search the world-wide web inside a 3D game than through the stark Google interface we use today.