¶ … Interactivity in Video Games and Movies Information technology has changed the way we live in today's world. Everything from our television to our cell phones are connected through network medium. Computers define the way we do many of the things in our lives, such as, how we maintain our bills and expenses to even conducting business activities online. Therefore, it comes as no surprise to know that the gaming industry is worth over nine billion dollars worldwide. This paper is a dissertation, which aims to compare the interactivity of games to movies and how their consumers view them.

Chapter I The Rise of Video Games

Chapter II Games as a Major Form of Entertainment in Today's World

Chapter III Studying Games

Chapter IV Games, Media and Interactivity

Chapter V Exploring interactivity in video games and movies

Chapter VI Home Entertainment Networks

Chapter VII Violence in Games

Chapter VIII Are Games Just for Boys

Chapter IX Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider

Chapter X The Use of Streaming Media in the Gaming and Video Industry 30

Chapter XI Online World of Games called Linden Lab:

An Example of Streaming Technology

Chapter XII Problems Associated with Streaming Technology

Chapter XIII What makes Streaming Technology so Successful

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Information technology has revolutionized the way we live today. Information technology has entered our homes, offices and educational institutions. One of the most vital areas of development in the Internet is E-commerce. The concept is simple, we can send an email to the nearest grocery shop for our daily grocery needs. The information would be sent to the grocery shop through the Internet and be delivered on our door- step. E-commerce goes beyond this. Corporate firms can float their tenders and projects through Internet. The vendors, management consultants and other business associates can discuss projects and other business issues online. All these facilities are possible because of E-commerce.

Over the last ten years, there has been a technological revolution in the computer, which has also increased the interactivity between the computer and the user. Computers today, are not only user-friendly but the creation of new software's such as adobe has made the home PC into a world of knowledge and information with new artistic styles and more consumer related. Adobe's Photoshop and Macromedia together are now bridging the older versions of art forms to create new forms of art and entertainment. An area of growing interest in the computer industry is the gaming industry. With the creation of Pong in the 1980's, the industry has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry and in the year 2002 made more money than Hollywood. Some of the new games can cost more than a Hollywood film to make and can take several years to develop.

Artificial Intelligence is making breakthroughs in the gaming industry and simultaneously finding wider applications in areas that revolve around virtual reality.

The development of this software is mainly through the usage of 3D tools such as Maya, PhotoShop, Bryce, and Poser. The streaming technology developed by Linden Lab itself is dynamically used in producing the interactivity and enabling the user to actually be able to be enjoy an environment created in real time.

Chapter I

The Rise of Video Games

In 1999, more than 20 billion game sets and software were sold, surprisingly more than the Hollywood box office for the first time in history. This just tells us that more and more people are playing games than they were before. This also means that more people are playing games instead of watching movies or even reading books. Making games the most popular form of entertainment on planet Earth. This also makes us see the transformation of digital entertainment into a proper art form.

In 1978, the game Space Invaders, was a runaway success at arcades, general...

This game has led to the gaming industry becoming a multi-billion dollar industry. In the 1990's, Nintendo and Sony's Play Station were almost in every home. They were successful unlike their predecessors. They attracted a large audience, selling over 70 million systems worldwide. Surprisingly, since then not much has changed. There is a small case study. Space Invaders allowed the players to manipulate the spaceship on a single screen in order to destroy the tiny alien ships. Doom also allows the players to manipulate a human character around a three dimensional maze in order to destroy a series of aliens. Doom is just a more modern version of the other game. They both deal with killing the aliens. The game tactics are basically the same.
For more than two decades, games still serve as the medium of providing game players with excitement and thrills, manipulating players in the same manner. Games are like music, they can get you excited, sad, and even surprise you or make you laugh, and if you continue to lose, they can even make you get really mad. Nowadays, what developers are looking at is to see how they can improve games and at the same time affect the emotions of the audience just like movies do. They want to see where they don't like the games and where they do.

Their manufacturers conceal the new aspects of these systems. Sony calls it a new age of entertainment. Sony is calling the processor the heart of the new system as the emotional organ if it. This may sound absurd but this is the new change in games and how the developers and consumers are now accepting the.

The emphasis here is to state that the games are moving towards a new dimension. Game developers are now focusing their attention on ways to tell better stories and also communicate ideas in a three dimensional strategy. Instead of having different levels, games now have environments with a single goal oriented objective that control the story line and how the play chooses to make decisions along the way. New software games like Vampire: The Masquerade, allow one player at a time to combat the game, throwing the enemies, puzzles, and situations into the path of other players. There is another game called Republic from Elixir, which contains over a million characters and a three dimensional representation of an entire European country. This should impress you because it has fine details and even has individual flower petals and autumn leaves.

Whether these games are successful or not doesn't really matter, what really matters is the fact that the approach towards software development is really changing in comparison to the methods used in the past. Today's software games are more closely associated with the movies making them into entertainment software for game players. Vampire, is one game, which allows the players to come up with their own script for an adventure movie and just enjoy. These use artificial intelligence to create many elements of the game. These software tools make the games more like a movie camera instead of a finished movie.

The games all cash in on one thing that is 'interactivity.' All the successful games contain thrills from novels and movies, which the developing companies use to make the games more interactive. They are now adventure games, which have three-dimensional environments instead of a scene by scene scenario. These new environments allow the player to have a different environment every time, thus, preventing them from becoming bored. There is immense possibilities and opportunity to make games taken at a more serious artistic player level.

Chapter II Games as a Major Form of Entertainment in Today's World

During a recent Game Developers Conference in the year 2002, it was calculated that the gaming industry was worth nearly $9 billion. They also prophesized that this would be the new form of entertainment for the next generation. Games make lucrative businesses and that's why the annual conference allows the expert developers from all over the world to share ideas, build skills and also learn about the new tools and technologies available.

Interactive entertainment has the potential to exist on the same level as television and cinema but it will take time. There was a time, when people believed that movies could never really compete with classical theater but all that changed when a few years later television came along and became more popular amongst the masses than ever imagined. Interactive entertainment is going through the same process. This is undoubtedly a new frontier that has immense potential and opportunities.

Games require not only animation but also actors and writers who can write up a script for the game. Game developers use movies to make games that have a movie-like presentation. The process does take time, but at the same time the integration of the movie and the game increases the production value of both the game and the movie. From a design point-of-view, the players feel like they have entered a virtual world with a rich environment. The characters are given realistic personalities, and not just there to give information on how to solve the game. The locations are made to appear attractive to the player, so that the player doesn't just have a good story line but also a good environment to enjoy…