Card games are one of civilization’s oldest forms of entertainment, with some of the earliest playing cards being traced all the way back to ancient China. Since then, things have come a long way, with there now being quite literally thousands of different variations of card games that players across the world continue to enjoy every day, with new ones constantly being invented and reinvented.
As with every other aspect of our lives, new technologies are disrupting traditions at an unprecedented rate, including how we play cards. Let’s take a look at how recent technologies are changing card games and what the future of cards might look like.
Changing What We Play
Technology has already changed how we play cards in ways no-one could have predicted. The biggest strides have been in the virtual world, where online and digital card games have exploded and the online casino industry now takes the lion’s share of the market.
It all started back in 1995 when Microsoft added a virtual version of popular card games such as Solitaire and Texas Hold ‘Em to their Windows 95 operating system and, since then, things have really taken off.
The ability to play cards anytime, anywhere through the Internet has allowed card games to flourish like never before, as developers have the freedom to develop new card games for everyone to access. On top of this, players can now play hundreds of previously unheard-of card games all in one place, with entire websites stockpiling the full range of new games.
The biggest advance in recent times is the advent of live card games, allowing players to actually play card games like blackjack with real-life dealers and players on the other side of the world, all via the Internet.
You can play cards online with another person when you’re on the bus, on a plane, lounging on the beach or sitting at work, all thanks to modern technology. Few people pick up a physical deck of cards these days, which is undoubtedly the biggest change to gaming yet.
Changing How We Play
Taking things further, the way we play traditional card games looks set to be transformed again in the coming years. Virtual reality card games are just starting to take off in both Las Vegas land-based casinos and within the online gaming sector. This allows people to have the full, immersive Vegas casino experience just by putting on a VR headset and booting up a game.
Behind the scenes, things are changing in ways that are less easy to see. Casino operators are now using big data in much the same way that mega-corporations like Facebook and Google do, to collect vast amounts of information in order to fine-tune the card playing experience.
Embedded technology is starting to be used in card tables, gaming rooms and even in decks of cards themselves in order to monitor how we play cards, why we enjoy playing cards, how to ensure card players are relaxed, and pretty much every other metric you can think of, in order to maximise that card-playing experience.
The future of card games is an exciting one and we look forward to seeing just how dramatically the industry will change in years to come.
