Weekend Reading: Taking Part in the Video Games Revolution

I have so far backed two Kickstarter video game projects, one of which, the Project Infinity from Obsidian, actually got the funding it wanted and will be launched in 2014.

The other one was withdrawn, even though it could have hit its own target, because the development team was able to communicate with the fan base and understood that the core concept was flawed and how it could be improved.

I also backed a video game-related podcast series, the excellent Idle Thumbs revival, and a series of monthly articles, Tom vs. Bruce, which show the pair playing a game in a competitive manner.

Eighteen years ago, when I first started playing games (the original Prince or Persia and a F1 simulation), I would not have been able to do anything similar and my only way of contributing to the video game industry other than buying games or picking up a magazine that wrote about them.

Now I am almost buried under video game podcasts I have not yet listened to and articles that offer interesting insight.

And I, and like me millions of other players, can also choose to contribute in different ways and actually influence the kind of experiences that developers and publishers deliver in the coming years.

Developers, from small indie teams to those at Treyarch and BioWare, are more open than ever to input from potential customers and they are taking to forums and Twitter to ask questions and evaluate reactions.

Payments services, credit card companies and crowd funding make it easier than ever for an idea to get past the prototype phase and become a real podcast, something a player can actually engage with and experiment.

We live in an age of possibilities for video game creators and players and my only wish is that more of us would use the opportunities of the current revolution and contribute with either ideas or money, to get better games in the future.