We are 5 years away from ‘Ready Player One’ and here’s why.
The significance of video games over the last 50 years.
This is not a review of Ready Player One, the films cinematography, acting or screenwriting. Instead, this is about the impact this film is about to have on society, and how wrong they’ve got the timeline.
Ready Player One is a film set in 2045.
1972: Pong is release by Atari. Computers can be fun.
6 years later.
1978: Space Invaders is released by Taito. People compete to reach the highest score; it’s cool to be good at a game.
7 years later.
1980: Adventure release by Atari. 2D games become ‘adventures’. The first easter egg, games can have continuous outcomes. This spawned the Adventure genre and changed video games forever.
5 years later.
1985: Super Mario Bros released by Nintendo on the NES. Games have levels, hidden rooms, boss fights.
8 years later.
1993: Doom released on the PC. Developers create basic 3D using 2D game engines and clever programming.
3 years later.
1996: Mario 64. Games go fully 3D. Games now employ the same dimensions as reality.
2 years later.
1998: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Games become the new platform for storytelling. Escapes, tales told by writers but played out by you. For the first time, the player becomes the character and experiences full immersion.
2 years later.
2000: SIMS. The most played video game in the world at the time; the sims let you become someone else and live their everyday life.
1 year later.
2001: Grand Theft Auto 3. Games Go open world in 3D and give players a sense of freedom to break the rules.
3 years later.
2004: World Of Warcraft. Millions of players can connect and play in a real, living 3D world, collaborating or fighting with each other in seek of rare items, gold and glory. Players can play it as a game or play on a ‘Role-Playing’ server, where they act out, just like in Dungeons and Dragons, the role of their avatar they create.
2004: Facebook. Over the next ten years, Facebook will take over the world and change society forever. We communicate online, and we share online, we absorb online. Everything about us is online. Through this social platform, we create a new identity, our online identity. Psychologically we evolve to manufacture the way we are perceived online by our friends, family and followers.
Facebook has changed the way that we present ourselves; now, we’re art. The feed is our canvas, our pictures and statuses our paint.
12 years go by. Video games go from the dark rooms of PC gamers and fortunate kids with Playstations to the mass market.
Technology is so cheap and easily accessible; for the first time, the world has more access to smartphones than they do necessary living requirements. Apps and games are free to download, and the whole world is addicted to collecting coins, buying gems and getting a higher score on Candy Crush.
At the same time, a game like The Last of Us tell stories that connect with players on a new level, the avatars move, emote and speak like real people, and we psychologically associate them as REAL people, we become emotionally connected to the characters we play.
2016: Oculus Rift. We’re here. Now you’re inside the game. 80% of people who play VR, end up buying one. Games will never be the same because now you’re actually inside it and it’s as real as the reality we live in. With 80° field of view, you still feel like you’re wearing goggles.
One year later.
2017: Skyrim VR. Every game ever made, every adventure, all of the incredible quests, stories and emotional connections people experience inside role-playing games become viewable from YOUR perspective. Now you’re the character; you can see through their eyes, hear in 3D, feel the vibrations on each had as you touch and see the world around you like it is your own.
Another Year.
2018: Pimax 8K VR headset. The screen is the same fidelity as an iPhone X; you can see only perfect corners and lines. 200° field of view is almost identical to the human field of view, with each human eye having 95° of view, the brain combines each eye to give an effective 140°. It’s almost 100% immersive. You forget you’re wearing a headset.
Moores Law states that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits has doubled every year since their invention. Every year, the size and power of a chip doubles. It’s exponential.
Here’s my video game sequence, i’ll call it.
var videonacci = [6,7,5,8,3,2,2,1,3,1,1]
Enter Ready Player One. The world is introduced a dystopian story with the promise of Utopia.
It’s a mere 27 years from today.
I will leave this for you to explore yourself, I hope I have painted a picture for you to think about.
Ready Player One is not like 1984… it’s not like Total Recall or even Back To The Future II when predicting 20–30 years into the future…
