As several streams of technological progress, such as semiconductors, storage, and Internet bandwidth continue to grow exponentially, doubling every 12 to 24 months, one subset of this exponential progress that offers a compelling visual narrative is the evolution of video games.
Video games evolve in graphical sophistication as a direct consequence of Moore's Law. A doubling in the number of graphical polygons per square inch every 18 months would translate to an improvement of 100X after 10 years, 10,000X after 20 years, and 1,000,000X after 30 years, both in resolution and in number of possible colors.
Sometimes, pictures are worth thousands of words :
1976 :
1986 :
Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16206844
1996 :
By Screenshot taken by Steerpike from the DOS version of the video game., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3925813
2006 :
Now, extrapolating this trajectory of exponential progress, what will games bring us in 2010? or 2016?
I actually predict that video games will become so realistic and immersive that they will displace other forms of entertainment, such as television. Details on this to follow.
The future will be fun...
Related : The Next Big Thing in Entertainment
Okay video games have progressed so much that now, some vidoe games are so grphic that they have tp pull them off shelves
Posted by: Samantha | February 28, 2006 at 09:57 AM
Yes it truly is a revolution, who knows, the next gen of entertainment could very well incorporate all of our senses for an absolute awesome and addicting world of entertainment.
Posted by: technoluvver | April 07, 2006 at 02:34 PM
Read the other articles here to see more on exactly what you are saying.
Posted by: GK | April 07, 2006 at 02:41 PM
"Okay video games have progressed so much that now, some vidoe games are so grphic that they have tp pull them off shelves"
Yes but the "they" how require them to be pulled off the shelves are the people who never played the games themselves and who make up statistics and studies which don't hold water.
Why has the crime rate in the US dropped while the violent games, movies etc have exploded? No one who is convinced of the violent media yields violent behavior has ever answered that for me.
Posted by: Totally T. | April 11, 2006 at 07:59 PM
That should read: "Yes but the "they" who...
Sorry.
Posted by: Totally T. | April 11, 2006 at 08:01 PM
Article fails to mention what legal --or any other-- basis this asinine provision has. Why only video games? Consistency requires that oening a printed history of the Battle of Stalingrad renders the reader liable to equal sanctions.
WHen doofus legislators attempt to ban "virtual violence", why not ban the "virtual pornography" of stupid "laws" as well?
Posted by: Acheron | December 14, 2006 at 05:31 AM
Possibly one reason crime has gone down in whatever statistics you choose to believe, is that the justice and thus the penal system in the grand ol US of A has currently incarcerated 1 in 27 adult men. At this rate, and it is growing every day, there will be no adults to send to prison. The big question is when do we send all the kids to prison instead of school (or is that another issue of 'one of the same').
Food for thought.
Posted by: Super Dave Osbourne | January 05, 2007 at 09:15 PM
Games already are displacing other forms of entertainment.
Posted by: | January 08, 2007 at 11:40 AM
I love video games
Posted by: Arturas | March 25, 2007 at 06:51 PM
I think this example actually shows the problems with Exponential growth... While computer speed and memory is growing exponentially, the actual output is not.
The difference in graphics from the Atari to the Nintendo was incredible, you went from squares that represented people, to actual graphics that had personality, and full interactive worlds.
From the Nintendo to the Genesis, you had another great leap, but not as great as the first.
From the Genesis to the Playstation, you had even a smaller increase in graphics as you broke into the 3d realm.
The difference from the Playstation to the Playstation II, was moderate, but not huge.
The difference from the PS2 to the XBox 360 is almost null.
In fact the leap in graphics in the last generation was so small, that Nintendo decided making a system was better graphics was pointless, they decided to change the actual gameplay... And now the current top selling system actually has graphics that are best the same as the last generation of consoles.
You can see this in all realms of personal technology. The first spreadsheet was amazing, changed the way we did business, the new spreadheets are still amazing, but do not affect our daily lives like that first.
The difference between the first GUI and today's GUI's are not all that great, the main factors -ease of use and compadibility - are still the two main functions of todays OS's.
We have these two great forces evening everything out, the law of exponential growth and the law of diminishing returns.
read this to understand better
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/crash.html
Posted by: Jdeal | July 15, 2007 at 05:24 PM
The difference from the PS2 to the XBox 360 is almost null.
Output resolution jumped from around 300K (480p) to around 2000K (1080p). You must not have a HDTV.
Posted by: RM | April 30, 2009 at 11:22 AM
It will be interesting when the processing speed of the chip approaches the capacity of the brain. I think that was proposed by the Semi Roadmap to be around 2010. By then petabyte storage capability in RAM as well as 3D matrix memory will be a significant contributor to the entire game solution.
What will really be the slow poke will be resolution of TFT's, etc.
Posted by: Disco Prime | July 25, 2009 at 07:41 AM
The first two games (pong, and maybe Hang-On?) did not use polygons, the 2nd game was a pseudo 3d game that used different tricks to appear 3D. Also, modern graphics cards (and cards of 2006) do not just push polygons, they also use shaders and other goodies and every year more stuff is pushed onto the GPU.
One game I can recall off the top of my head you can easily compare is Brothers In Arms. The first game was released in 2005, it's sequel in 2006, and the 3rd game BIA: Hell's Highway at the end of 2008. Since all three were created by the same developers you can easily compare them without worrying about differences in artistic abilities.
Compare the graphics, AI, physics, and sound of the first game to the 3rd and you'll see huge improvements. Another improvement are the production values of the cut scenes. Hell's Highway lacks awkward silences and weird cuts seen in the first games, and seen in most games.
Posted by: Noah | September 05, 2009 at 09:57 PM
Noah,
Good info. Would you say that the rate of improvement has been steady through 2009? Some are arguing that we have reached the point of diminishing returns, and with human graphics, the uncanny valley will not be bridged for a long time.
Posted by: GK | September 05, 2009 at 10:17 PM
Was that road rage in the second picture here?
A long time before its bridged? I don't agree with that at all. If anything, its rapidly approaching. We're practically there, already, if you ask me.
Posted by: Teddy@Gaming Mouse | October 27, 2009 at 06:55 PM
I think this prediction won't be fulfilled so fast. Current GFX progress is zero to none. Gamedev moved to consoles which have ridiculously long generation cycles. Also when you come home tired you might be more likely to choose entertainment that does not require actions.
On the other hand introduction of the fast internet and services like http://www.onlive.com/ which don't require users to upgrade hardware might do the trick.
Posted by: TheSupaDen | February 11, 2010 at 03:07 AM
With all the pictures given above, we can all clearly see how video games change through the years. That's why today, video gaming is more fun because of more beautiful graphics.
Posted by: NCAA 2011 Rosters | June 10, 2010 at 12:42 AM
With all the pictures given above, we can all clearly see how video games change through the years. That's why today, video gaming is more fun because of more beautiful graphics.
Posted by: aion kinah | June 11, 2010 at 01:25 AM
I already submitted a comment but its not appearing. Please fit it up
Posted by: Account Deleted | June 28, 2010 at 12:21 AM
An excellent post. Clear, practical, insightful. I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this post!
Posted by: creative recreation | August 19, 2010 at 07:29 PM
I'm working on a virtual reality simulation that is indistinguishable from any world.
Posted by: jerrydean smith | February 19, 2015 at 07:12 PM
In 2018, video games generate $137.9 billion per year, and almost 50% of the earnings come from mobile phones. Experts say that by 2021 mobile will represent 60% of the total video games' income.
As of 2018, the global box office for movies was worth $41.7 billion.
So video gaming is already 3 times bigger than the movies and climbing. Whether it is more immersive is beside the point, it is certainly more popular.
Posted by: Geoman | April 16, 2019 at 01:56 PM
Geoman,
So video gaming is already 3 times bigger than the movies and climbing.
Yes. This is despite the fact that things like VR haven't really taken off.
This article was updated for 2016 :
https://www.singularity2050.com/2016/04/the-technological-progress-of-video-games-updated.html
Graphics are at a level of saturation where more advancement takes longer now. Nonetheless, it is edging ahead.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | April 17, 2019 at 08:57 AM
That is a strange technological outcome - many times technology advances till it is "good enough". It could advance or improve even more, and eventually will, but the pace of innovation slows while the technology becomes entrenched - the last 10-20% improvement is often never realized because there are more pressing issues attracting investment.
It's a little like TVs - we started at 720 pixels. Then 1080 pixels. Then we went to 2 million pixels. Then 8 million pixels. Now we have TVs with 33 million pixels. Problem is the difference between 8 million pixels and 33 million is slight to the human eye. And it is harder to film and record at 33 million pixels, and it creates problems viewing older content at that resolution.
So adoption rates have slowed at the 33 million pixel level - what's the point? I have little doubt research is slowing as well. The research money is better spent on other things.
Posted by: Geoman | April 17, 2019 at 12:06 PM
Geoman,
With video games, it may be a combination of simple mobile games taking up a larger share of consumer time, combined with many more cycles of Moore's Law needed to get full graphical realism in PC and Console games.
The demand for realistic humans in CGI is large (and not just for adult entertainment), but somehow this has taken far longer than the industry has anticipated.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | April 18, 2019 at 11:21 AM