It’s hard to think of anything in our lives that hasn’t been vastly altered by technology, especially over the last decade, and gaming is no exception to that. Getting a casino experience is now possible without even leaving your lounge, but how has technology innovation changed the way we play in the gaming industry?
One of the biggest developments has been the introduction of live dealer roulette games. These games use online streaming technology to connect players with real dealers, who spin real roulette wheels so that you are as immersed in the experience as possible. Streaming has become a regular part of our lives, with sites like YouTube and Twitch providing a platform for creators, gamers, educators, and many more to share their work and gain followings. And it’s no small business, with YouTube receiving over 2 billion global visits every month, streaming has proven itself to be a popular, easy-to-use technology that is perfect for entertainment purposes.
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Before streaming, the introduction and popularisation of mobile phones completely changed the gaming industry, with brands like Nokia installing Snake on their phones in 1997 and paving the way for a completely new, handheld form of playing. Almost everything is now accessible from a small rectangle that we carry everywhere with us, from betting, to lotteries, to arcade games – and this transformed the way that consumers viewed gaming. Moving into the mainstream thanks to its convenience, mobile gaming was encouraged to produce different types of games, aimed at all different types of players. To credit their variety and popularity, the number of mobile gaming apps on the Google Play Store alone currently sits just below half a million.
Along with the developments of in-game software, the hardware has changed too. Virtual Reality is still a fairly new technology but is being improved constantly, and many now consider it to be a comfortably viable element of their gaming. The spread of VR is wide and seems to be a way of achieving the goal of reproducing casino experiences for players in their own homes. Although it is most popular amongst horror game creators, thanks to its 360-degree viewpoint, which allows for great jump-scares and usage of the peripheral vision, these same qualities make it fantastic for recreating a casino atmosphere. In the future, the combination of streaming and VR could make for incredibly realistic, immersive experiences in the gambling industry.
The way that we pay for games, place bets and receive payouts has also changed thanks to blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The increase in popularity of currencies like bitcoin has meant that more is being invested into the technology, so it is improving alongside the actual games that we play. Cryptocurrency allows online consumers to transfer and receive money anonymously, with the knowledge that their payments are secure and efficient. This changes how online casinos operate because they no longer have to rely on other financial institutions to carry out their transactions.
It is, of course, inevitable that gaming will see a whole new set of developments as we move through the 20s and into the future, but for the minute, we can appreciate the current technologies that make the industry more entertaining than ever before.
