What the Future of Gaming Holds: AI, AR, Blockchain, and Beyond in 2030

Table of Contents

• Gaming and AI
• Where Does AR Stand in the Future of Gaming?
• Where Does Blockchain Gaming Stand?
• How Blockchain Games Are Changing the Gaming Industry
• 1.    The Play-to-earn Games
• 2.    Player NFT Ownership
• 3.    Metaverse Integration
• Conclusion

Gaming has been one of the avenues of significant evolution today. From 2-bit games that barely had any detail, we evolved to 8-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit, and now we have games that are so realistic that they are hard to tell apart from real life. Gaming has certainly come a long way. Once upon a time, it used to be for nerds and geeks, but now everybody plays games, even company CEOs. It has also become a source of income for many. The gaming industry sees new developments almost by the minute such as Rollercoin. It has become bigger than the movie and sports industries combined. But has the industry reached its peak? With all the innovation in AI, AR, and blockchain, what comes next? Read on to find out.

Gaming and AI

AI came with gaming a long time ago. Everybody remembers game NPCs like Reptile from Mortal Kombat and Captain M. Bison from Street Fighter as some of the most formidable AI opponents. But AI in gaming has advanced more than that. Besides designing NPCs with AI, game developers use generative AI to create game elements, characters, and environments. This move is a huge step in how games are designed. We could get games faster because one prompt could generate half the game design, and maybe in the future, generative AI can create entire games. But for now, AI has not advanced to that level.

That doesn’t mean AI has no place in gaming today. AI-generated art is being explored heavily in game creation and may as well be part of the future of gaming, at least in the graphics department.

Another side to the AI story is the efforts of game designers and researchers like Cardona-Rivera, who are trying to create a future in which AI acts as a game master and directs the game for human players.

Lastly, there are also talks of creating games with AI without any specific pattern of behavior. That means the AI will not be preprogrammed with any particular set of behaviors, moves, or actions; they’ll just let the AI do its thing. This might be interesting for the future of AI in gaming, but at the same time, it’s unpredictable. There’s not enough research done in the area yet; however, there has been debate about what the impact of this kind of technology may mean for gamers and the gaming industry in general. On the one hand, some believe it might prove interesting for gamers and be a new challenge. On the other hand, some experts think it will ruin games and decrease sales. There are a lot of factors to consider, and this idea has not been officially tested enough to determine what will happen. But wouldn’t that be interesting?

Where Does AR Stand in the Future of Gaming?

The appeal of augmented reality (AR) is how it blends the digital world into the real one, and the gaming industry is also exploiting this appeal.

Perhaps the most well-known of these AR games is Pokemon Go, in which players collect digital Pokemon overlaid on and around the person’s real-world environment. The game took world blending to another level, and since people already loved Pokemon, it was a big hit that made around $1 billion.

AR’s environment-blending allows users to interact with reality and does not entirely remove them from it, as VR does. Therefore, users love AR more. Pokemon Go and Snapchat and all their AR integrations are good indications of that.

AR in games has not even been fully exploited yet. Professor Rogelio Cardona-Rivera has predicted that AR will likely generate more interest and innovation from game designers than VR. If that is the case, the future possibilities are endless.

The biggest news in AR now is Apple’s Vision Pro, a fascinating piece of AR technology. Although it’s relatively new and does not yet have many games playable on it, the fact that a big company like Apple is investing in the technology is most likely an indicator that big things will ARrive soon.

Where Does Blockchain Gaming Stand?

Blockchain gaming, or crypto gaming as it’s most commonly called, is another sector that has sparked a revolution in gaming in recent years. The crypto gaming market has certainly been one of the catalysts for the massive expansion of the gaming industry, and experts are saying there are even more opportunities to come.

According to Fortune Business Insights, the blockchain gaming industry reached $154.46 billion in 2023. The 2030 predictions also put the number at a potential $614 billion. This means that the future of blockchain gaming is bright.

But to talk about the blockchain gaming industry, we, of course, have to mention the time it took off and took its place in the spotlight- the COVID-19 pandemic.

While many other industries suffered, virtual gaming kept us entertained. Crypto gaming was prevalent because you could earn from them, like free PEPE coins.

As soon as game investors noticed that game coin prediction was looking good, they pivoted their investments and pumped money into the crypto gaming market. Platforms like Pacman and SEGA have added blockchain and Web3 features and incentives to their platform.

But even with the amazing development Blockchain Gaming has brought, factors such as regulatory frameworks, user onboarding, and others are still uncertain about the future of this niche, but they will eventually be settled.

How Blockchain Games Are Changing the Gaming Industry

1.    The Play-to-earn Games

Play-to-earn games, or P2E games, reward gamers with cryptocurrency for their time and effort.

2.    Player NFT Ownership

Games now allow gamers to own in-game assets themselves, while in the past, the game developers owned everything.

3.    Metaverse Integration

Blockchain gaming is also slowly becoming part of the metaverse, which is slated to become a fully immersive digital world. Blockchain gaming is being integrated into metaverse platforms and technologies, including Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence.

Conclusion

The future of gaming is certainly going to be interesting. There has been so much innovation in just a handful of years, and it’s not slowing down any time soon. With gaming’s continuous integration with emerging technologies such as VR, AI, and Blockchain, the future looks interesting, and we can’t wait to play it!