Incredible Immersion With Video Games

Hundreds of millions of people around the globe have adopted a new leisure activity. Through the generations, relaxing media came in the form of reading. Then radio became popular in the first half of the twentieth century. The second half brought the advent of television. Finally, computers, the Internet, and video games were widely adopted near the turn of the millenium. While the other media are still widely popular, video games offer unprecedented levels of interaction and immersion that the other media simply cannot compete with. A book might be read several times throughout its life, a movie might provide two or three hours of entertainment, and songs on the radio are fleeting at best, but games blow them all away by effortlessly immersing players in worlds apart.

Multiplayer is the Future

Video games became really popular in the eighties, but with the vast increase in broadband infrastructure, gamers have been able to play games online easily for the past decade. Online video games are more popular than ever before, and single player games are beginning to fall behind. Some games like Valve's incredibly popular Left 4 Dead are entirely built around multiplayer, and the single player feature is added on as an afterthought. Some notable single player exceptions are Fallout 3 and Dead Space, but these are becoming the minority.

More and more video games are increasingly not only including more online features, but making those features the entire foundation of the game. MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online roleplaying games) like World of WarCraft and Lord of the Rings Online attract millions of people, offering thousands of hours of content, far beyond anything seen in a single player game. This absolute wealth of content makes them perfect time sinks, but people genuinely feel accomplished playing them. As players are allowed to interact with one another as never before in a living, breathing world with consequences that span beyond their actions, video games can now offer a lasting sense of pride.

On the emotional side of things, video games are far more effective than books, songs, and movies for drawing up deep feelings in players. When players have to work hard to save each other in Left 4 Dead from the zombie masses, they become emotionally attached to the characters. Success can bring up deep feelings of pride time and again, while defeat can be agonizing. Such emotional investments are starkly absent from other forms of media. Video games are just one more media that we use to weave great tales, and nobody can begin to guess what the next big innovation shall be.