A weird thing popped into my head earlier. That I think games are now, what war used to be for technology.
We all know that a lot of science and technological advancements of the past were driven by war. To create weapons, to break communications encryption, achieve space flight, and loads more.
But what drives technology now, or at least consumer technology, are games.
Sure, not all improvements are because of games. But why do we have powerful computers? Mainly, the power is to play games. And a lot of extra stuff gets achieved along the way.
The most common marketing example of the power of smartphones is showing a game demo. Because games constantly sit on the edge of whats possible. They encourage technology companies to push boundaries.
Right now, the next step is Virtual Reality. But that's just a stepping stone to the real destination, Artificial Reality. That's where I think we will see the next major technological breakthrough. But what's pushing VR? Games.
It doesn't exactly mean much. But it's interesting to see that games are a fundamental part of pushing technological advancements. Both as a reason for advancements as with more power can come better games, and as a marketing tool that can be used to help push the development of a product, as in VR and AR.