Most significant gaming innovations

[GartarkMusik]

As I look on games and game talk today, I tend to pick up a lot of what "the next big innovation will be" discussions. Everything from VR helmets to implanting games in your brain. (me and my friends come up with some ridiculous ideas)I tend to feel like we should look to some of the innovations of the past to find out what we can do for the future. So tell me, Escapists, what do you think was the innovation that had the most impact on games as we know them today?

 

[Wayneguard]

3d real time rendering is the big one imo. Nowadays (unfortunately), we don't see many 2d games or games with prerendered/handdrawn backgrounds and we certainly don't see any AAA releases with those characteristics.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Blue-mothereffin-Ray DVDs. They add a whole new degree of clarity, detail, and realism without hitting the uncanny valley (with a few exceptions).

Sure graphics aren't everything, but if you can make a game look good, as well as awesome to play, why not?

 

[Comando96]

The ability to pay for a game... with something other than money.

I like the Extra Credits (Damn you the Escapist legal and pay departments respectively) idea of paying for a game for a portion of your computers processing power, like the cost of this game will cost you 10GB's of data calculations over the period of: X Months.

Or maybe advertising paying for larger parts of games so that to just play the game nets the owners money through a massive building collapsing with a motherfucking huge Coca Cola sign falling towards you in a future COD game (as lets face it, they aren't gonna fucking die).