As I work with AI in RL design projects (coding websites), I am learning how to get more from it. This is a ‘revised’ report where I have AI digging for news in more places. Following is what it found.
I am also curious about what is happening in the gaming and virtual world fields in general as I think it will affect Second Life™. So, I have added a section on that. I also have AI analyzing how these developments are likely to impact Second Life. It will take some time to see how well it predicts.
Every so often I look around to see what is happening in the gaming world. This week STAR CITIZEN’S CHARACTER CUSTOMIZER is the subject of an article on Massively (3/23/2018) that caught my interest. They featured this video. While it is an interesting video of what is happening in the design room, we never get to see the character creator. 🙁
But, skipping through the video made me curious. I wanted to see what the game will look like… this video is the impressive one, IMO. The size of the world is amazing. But at time mark 19:00 you are finding the planet was just a small part of this virtual world that is truly a virtual universe.
It is pretty impressive. The size of the cities is surprising. What gets really amazing is the trip up to the space station (time marked link opens a browser). Then the jump to the next system and a trip down to the surface of another planet. For now, the universe in Star Citizen is limited. This is alpha.
By the 32:00 time mark they are down on the ground showing of the detail of the planet.
Oculus is pushing updates. A beta update is available allowing a user to combine their Oculus and Steam games in one library. That will be handy. As it is now I have problems getting Stream VR working on my Gear VR. It does not like the Gear VR’s controller. So, I’ll have to get the … Read more
I think we knew simulator sickness was going to be a problem. It seems to be bigger problem than I expected.
The Death of the King
At the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Intel was demonstrating VR heads sets with a new chip they are making. They passed out headsets to show attendees. Along with the headsets they passed out barf bags.
According to SuperData Research people spent US$91,000,000,000 on games. Billion… This is an all-time record. But, they are hyping things a bit. In 2015 Statistica shows $91.5 billion spent and $99.6 billion in 2016. I suppose it depends on where one gets their numbers and categorizes them. Game revenue is notoriously flaky as companies like to hype their increasing sales and keep decreases secret.
Still that is about a 10% increase year-to-year. Eight billion isn’t chump change, unless your spending $10 trillion on credit, like some governments…
They break the revenue down into subcategories. Handheld games are dying. Smartphone games are the hot item. They show the largest growth from 2015 to 2016 and that is expected to continue, which seems reasonable as smartphones are selling well.
In 2005 smartphones sales were just $3.8 billion. Eleven years later in 2016 sales of smart phones was $55 billion, a 1,447% increase. So, as more people get smartphones there are more possible users of smartphone games. According to Statistica a little less than half of the 2016 game revenue was from smartphone gaming.
Interesting uses of Virtual Reality Headsets are turning up. Some examples: Obduction – Of course games. This is a big Myst sibling puzzle game where you are magically transported to an alien world and have to figure out how to get home. The graphics are awesome. All versions of the game will have VR support. … Read more
