What is the definition of a computer game? Is it a computer game that we play on a computer? What if the computers are hooked up online to other computers in a network? Is it still a computer game, or are you now playing within a gaming community? The difference between a videogame and a computer game is quite obvious, one is played on your TV set using a video, and the other is played on your computer, even if it is the same exact game.
If you're playing on Xbox, are you playing on a computer or are you playing on a gaming console. So far, we believe we are playing on a computer. What if the game on your television set is hooked to your computer, and your Surround-A-Sound system, and a holographic imaging system, and you are immersed in augmented reality playing a computer game which is turns your living room into a gaming platform? Are you still playing a computer game, even in virtual reality?
Is the world of computer games becoming blurred? And what will be the difference between virtual reality, the computer game, and the real reality? And what's real anyway? It's not that I am trying to bring Nietzsche into some philosophical argument concerning the future of gaming, but it's something we should be thinking about as all these technologies merge, and new technologies are added which allow you to use thought to play the game, and the game can incite fear, increased neurological activity, increased heart rate, and even pain.
In fact, there is a very good book I'd like to recommend to you, if you have also been thinking here. This is a book I do own in my own personal library and believe it to be worthwhile because it shows how this technology has progressed over the last couple of decades. The name of the book is:
"Virtual Reality" (part of the Life in the Future Series) by Holly Cefrey, Scholastic Press, New York, NY, (2002), ISBN: 0-516-23919-8.
You see, science fiction authors, and Virtual Reality scientists have been talking about these things for decades now, and all that technology and research is coming to fruition. Welcome to the Matrix. In which will you rather prefer to participate; your real-life or the Virtual Reality you have created where you become one with your avatar? Indeed, I hope you will please think on all this, and send me your comments, predictions, and questions by e-mail.