People have been talking about virtual reality forever. Dan Shefelman remembers a time when it was going to be huge in the ‘90s, but it never reached the heights people predicted it would at the time.
Maria Hwano details what virtual reality is and why, despite not taking over as people thought it would, it continues to capture the imagination:
“If I had one or two words that I have to explain it, it’s just the experiential aspect of virtual reality. You’re actually living it. You feel it. You’re experiencing something that actually isn’t real life in your world.”
The way Hwano sees it, people still love talking about it. There have been multiple booms that at times have even felt like fads. Virtual reality has even been talked about in education
“As a computer scientist, VR is brought up a lot,” explains Hwano. “People ask me about it. People love talking about it. People like to ask opinions about what’s going to happen with virtual reality. It’s a very interesting question.”
As exciting as VR technology is, Maria Hwano believes people need to understand where the technology is currently, and what its evolutionary process might look like.
“A long time ago, when the computer keyboard was not a thing, it used to be a one-to-one input. It was on a piano and a sticker was put on it. And a signal was given to do input. It wasn’t until 10 years later that somebody created the keyboard that we take for granted right now. That’s how long it takes to make a keyboard. So you can only imagine how much we don’t know about the potential VR might have.”
Still, the future of virtual reality is full of possibilities, especially when it comes to augmented reality.
“Augmented reality is basically taking what’s around you and – through a phone or some device – and placing something there virtually so you can see it on the phone,” Dan Shefelman says. “It’s an illusion, obviously, but it’s using the environment around you and putting assets in it. . .You’re using the space that you’re in.”

In the future, technology will be embedded in everything. So, we’re not going to have devices, like a camera and laptop. Instead, when we go see a movie, like Iron Man, it is just going to be embedded in our environment. d we can expect the games to go in a similar direction. Having and playing a console or PC will be obsolete. As we are walking down the street, elements of games will be part of our life.
Gamification
When games are simply embedded in our lives, it becomes gamification. A similar event occurred in a Nordic country, where they put pianos on steps at a train station. People were encouraged to walk more while also playing tunes. People took the stairs more often because it was entertaining.
The same thing could happen in gaming. We will not actually be playing a game, but it will be embedded and embodied into whatever we do in our lifestyle. We are just living inside a game.
The Evolution of Technology
Technology is like an interactive language that has already existed, that may not adapt to new forms. “So, if you look at early television,” Jessica Hammer says, “it’s radio plays where you can see the actors. And I think the same thing happens with games.” As gaming technologies advance and develop, people will need to understand new kinds of experiences.
We are still grappling with AR and VR as new kinds of gaming technologies. Video game designers are still trying to figure out what makes virtual reality games unique experiences beyond just taking existing games and porting them to a virtual reality setting. To Jessica, that is one of the fascinating things about doing game research in the context of computer science. It is less about changing the technology inside the game but rather the way games are played, discussed, consumed, and engaged with.

”I think the future of gaming is having different voices, colors, shapes, and bodies as much as possible,” Says Anya Combs. “I think we as a nation, especially in the US, are changing pretty drastically, so it would make sense that games, art, and entertainment would follow suit with that.”

“When we’re talking about inclusion when it comes to games themselves and the representation that we see within characters, there are two things we started to see. We started to see that the representation that we’ve seen in video games have become multilayered, and they’re not as stereotypical,” Erin Simon explains.

For example, if you look at the first Street Fighter, those characters, especially ones who are people of color, they’re very stereotypical and borderline racist. The companies behind these games are starting to understand that can’t be the representation that you see. They started to make some of these characters that people found problematic more complex. They gave them have layers of different personalities especially within the storyline. We’re starting to see that.

Customization of characters has been another big one. Allowing people to pick the skins and giving people options to pick if they want to play as a male or a female. Within the options of playing as a male or a female, they’re able to pick the skin color that they would like, the hair, and have that option to mold and build a character that they feel could look like them. Of course, there are some bumps along the road with that.

“As we know, African Americans are very underrepresented in the game industry- especially from an ownership perspective. The last statistics that came out and only 3% of developers are African American. The issue with that is without that representation, we’re not able to move the industry forward,” Says Ahmed Abdullah.

“We’ve seen this in other industries, as well. You go back in history, and every time we’re able to open up who actually gets into that industry, we get different games. We get different types of content.”

That’s happened in sports, where African Americans excelled very well. It’s also now happening in the entertainment industry. You’re now seeing the movie industry starting to take in people of color for more of a directing role. Now you’re seeing different, unique content. It only helps everybody.

It’s very important for African Americans to really take in this industry because there’s so much more to grow here. It’s going to happen, and it starts with you. It starts with all the people that are young to go ahead and make sure this next generation can really dive into this industry.

The gaming industry does not look like the people playing their games. Everybody plays games, yet not everybody gets to contribute to making games, explains Jessica Hammer. It’s an incredible loss for the game industry. In Hammer’s experience, her game design classes look more representative of the world than they do the game industry. For example, her classes tend to have at least 50% female students. They also reflect a more accurate depiction of the population in terms of racial diversity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.

And after 15 years of teaching game design Hammer has learned just how much her students are always able to surprise her. Even when imposing strict constraints such as: “You’re going to make a non-digital game one of whose main materials is water, good luck,” they are able to produce exceptional games. Hammer suspects that part of this incredible creativity comes from having a diversity of life experiences and social perspectives that they’re bringing to the table.

When people ask her what they should learn to be a game designer, her answer is simple. Be curious about life. If you consume primarily games, or geek media, or stories, or experiences of people just like you, you are going to make boring games. The secret to brilliant game design is to be what she refers to as ‘a little bit of an intellectual magpie’. You should be looking around the world for fascinating and shiny things that don’t already appear in games so you can bring them home to your nest.

When we talk about diversity in the game industry, we’re talking about people who have a leg up on what we already see in games. They don’t have to go out and collect shiny things. Jessica Hammer is a woman in the gaming industry. There is already an incredible set of experiences to build on. That’s one of the reasons that she believes indie games are one of the richest sources of innovation in the gaming world. Because the barrier to entry is lower, and you see an enormous amount more diversity than you do in, for example, triple AAA games. And that innovation is filtering up into mainstream games. And for Hammer, her vision for the gaming world’s future is to see women, people of color, and queer creators who are the source of this creativity innovation be rewarded and paid for it.

There has been a lot of interest coming from schools. The innovative schools in the early days recognized that if they offered esports programs, they’d be wilfully attracting some of the brightest STEM students on the planet.

STEM is a big part of gaming. Engineering is a big part of gaming. And computer science is definitely a big part of gaming. Some of the brightest kids on the planet are coming into STEM programs because of gaming, and the wise schools recognized early on that they could use esports for recruiting.

In that regard, Wim Stocks helps schools that may not have seen that very early tide coming in. They’ve aided them in building their curriculum. They’ve helped schools create the notion of a career by offering a curriculum, training, and learning opportunities for careers in esports and venue design.

Wim Stocks also had a hand in helping a college cultivate local sponsorships to help support the building and funding for an esports program on that particular campus. But they are not just the intercollegiate competitor, enabler, and league. They are also helping schools build far bigger footprints in esports than they might have been able to do independently. So much of esports is focused on competition.

Let’s use an analogy. First, think about the business of traditional sports. Then, think about all the jobs surrounding traditional sports: production, broadcasting, stadium design, agents, analysis, marketing, advertising, and sponsorship. Those same dynamics exist in esports.

One of the schools that Wim Stocks have a close association with has identified that there are 87 different skill sets that they can base their curriculum around to help students who want to be involved in esports build their knowledge, education, and experience. By no means is this a small opportunity. They also work very closely with production companies. There are very specific things to esports that don’t come into play from any other sports or any other experiences. And so that’s a powerful dynamic for esports, the marketing of esports.

The pathway into professional gaming is an important bridge in creating more opportunities for players. Unfortunately, when it comes to esports, that pathway isn’t as well defined as it is in more established sports industries.
Wim Stocks better outlines the disparity using the talent pipeline in baseball:
“If you want to play baseball, you want to be a professional baseball player in Major League Baseball, you know what to do. You start at T-ball when you’re six years old. You go to little league. You play for your high school. You play for your college. You play Minor League ball.”
According to Stocks, this pipeline isn’t nearly as defined in esports. Luckily, the work he’s doing with World Gaming and Collegiate Star League (CSL) is aiming to turn that around.
“You could say we act like the NCAA of esports,” Stocks explains. “We organize leagues. Every game is a league, no different than there is an NCAA football league. In our case, there’s a CSL League of Legends league. There’s a CSL Counterstrike league. There’s a CSL Dota 2 league. There’s a CSL Madden league.”
These leagues aren’t just to host competitive matches – they’re designed to help aspiring players get better while creating a global gaming society. The collegiate leagues are open to college students. Like other major collegiate sports, the aim is to build an infrastructure around creating enthusiasm for esports, developing talents, and presenting clear opportunities for those who want to take their gaming to another level.
As for what adopting this model means, Stocks is clear about what the future of the esports talent pipeline could look like:
“The more this starts to look like traditional sports that have a template – that have a built-in infrastructure and tremendous understanding – the more we can model that for esports.”