Why It’s Important To Know Where The Future Of Video Games Is Going

Before I got my position as editor here at Gaming Blend, I had a high-end interview with a very large company for a job in Mobile Gaming. And even though I play mobile games religiously and couldn't stop talking about the advancements of mobile gaming(which included VR), the hiring manager couldn't understand how VR played into the future of mobile gaming. And after this interview, I sat down and really thought about what had happened; I see where the video game industry is going, but sometimes others refuse to see the advancements or are completely blind to its impact.

It's no secret that VR is quickly and aggressively encroaching on our lives from every direction---quite literally. I mean you have VR porn, VR travel, VR pictures,VR streaming and VR animated shorts, and then there's of course the newly advanced mobile VR gaming which utilizes products like the Samsung Gear VR, which works with Galaxy mobile phones.

During my interview, I was asked a number of times about the mobile games I play to which I rattled off games like Monument Valley, Temple Run, Mean Girls: The Game (I'm ashamed), Sonic Dash, Sisters (a horror VR mobile game), My Singing Monsters, Jurassic World: The Game, Game Of War, Candy Crush and more. I couldn't stop commenting on everything I knew about the games. I know mobile games, it's a part of the industry I work in. But the one thing I wanted to stress to the hiring manager was where gaming was going.

So I made sure to talk up VR, because that's exactly the direction video games are moving in. I mean just look at the VR lines at E3. I couldn't even get in to see Resident Evil 7---it was that popular. Mobile games are quickly hopping onto the VR bandwagon with advancements like Google Cardboard and The Samsung Gear VR. I even went on about how innovative Pokemon GO was for using augmented reality to bring Pokemon into the real world. There are a number of mobile games you can play in VR now and with how popular VR is getting, the video game industry is only going to move further in that direction.

But somehow he didn't get it. He questioned why I talked about VR so much and if I had any interest in mobile games at all, even though I had just finished going on about how VR is changing the face of the mobile gaming industry. And then I realized: this guy doesn't know what's going on in the gaming industry, not really. Either he wasn't a gamer himself or he didn't care what direction video games are advancing, kind of like when I worked at GameStop and all the higher-up business dudes hadn't touched a game in decades because all they cared about was business and making money. Mobile gaming isn't just about mobile games on your phone anymore. It's advancing into something bigger and greater than we ever could have imagined, evolving into the advanced version of itself. I mean, if you just look at how quickly live mobile streaming has gotten on platforms like Facebook Live and Periscope, it's a reflection of just how fast all of this is changing. Developers are finding new ways to use the mobile platform and it's exciting to see how it's all evolving.

That interview made me understand that it's important to know and to recognize these advancements happening, like VR, because it's happening hella fast, and if you don't hang on and stay up to date, you'll get left behind. And who knows, before you know it, we might be full-bodied in virtual worlds like straight out of Sword Art Online, and we'll have headsets tapped into our brains.

Well, one can imagine that's where we're headed.

But to understand where games are going is to understand games today, and I think everyone should own that knowledge, everyone who loves and enjoys video games as much as I do.