Preface

The computer games industry is continuously growing and attracting new players and game developers. At the end of 2021, the value of the gaming industry was about 200 billion US dollars. All industries, including the computer gaming industry, are under constant pressure to keep up with the latest technological developments. Thus, computer game developers have no choice but to adopt these new technologies, otherwise, they risk being left behind.

The growing performance of hardware has transformed the visions of game designers and developers into reality and led to better game mechanics, graphics, storytelling, and processing. Computer games provide players with hundreds of hours of fun with well-crafted and fully interactive storytelling with lots of different endings. What's even more fun is sharing the gaming experience with friends. Multiplayer games bring together players from all over the world, allowing them to work with friends to fulfill game goals or to show their skills in a game against other players.

Computer games and the gamification of some human activities on various platforms have become an important part of our daily lives. It is very likely that today's young person has played at least one computer game during their lifetime; more people are playing games than ever before. Computer games are usually the first communication step between a human and a computer or game console or smartphone.

This book describes some modern approaches, procedures, algorithms, and devices in the field of computer games. It discusses classifications and types of games, technical means of game systems, game consoles, and the newest tools based on extended reality (XR) technologies. It also discusses visualization and 3D computer graphics, game cores (engines) and platforms, genre selection, proper object, procedural, graphic as well as story design, and trends in game design. The book presents formalizations, algorithms, and mathematical tools for game theory. There is a focus on the application of virtual reality and related technologies to modern game user interfaces. Lastly, the book examines the sociological impacts of computer games and their development.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the authors and co-authors for their contributions. The successful completion of this book has been the result of the cooperation among many people. I would especially like to thank Publishing Process Manager, Ms. Martina Ivancic, at IntechOpen for her support during the publishing process.

> **Branislav Sobota** Technical University of Košice, Košice, Slovakia

**1**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

Collaborative XR Systems

and Computer Games Development

Computer games and, of course, the development associated with them have been in the spotlight for many years; recently, also with technologies, such as virtual reality or extended reality. The main part of this chapter presents the classification of collaborative XR systems, the concept of the major application architectures and the consistency models of shared virtual game environments. The next subchapter briefly deals with the sharing of property ownership. The mentioned concepts and examples used in the chapter are implemented in many works and projects using a collaborative environment (also in gamified form) developed in the laboratory LIRKIS, the home laboratory of the authors. The knowledge presented in this chapter may provide tips and inspiration for some other game projects, and practical and useful notes on the

*Branislav Sobota, Marián Hudák and Emília Pietriková*

advantages or disadvantages of some systems will be interesting and useful.

**Keywords:** extended reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, augmented reality,

has progressed in improving human–computer interaction (HCI).

differs in the way of displaying and controlling.

The development of computer games, the gaming industry in general, is "the driving force" in many ways behind the development of many technologies. From this point of view, perhaps the most important part of a computer game is its core. Its performance also determines the performance of the game itself. However, from the point of view of playability and game immersion, the interface of the computer game is also extremely important. Here is a very modern usage of just new technologies, one of which is virtual reality (VR) and its related technologies. Virtual reality interfaces represent a wide range of devices, applications, and ways to connect the user to the target game system. Recently, the current development of VR interfaces and systems

In fact, there are three basic technological bases of systems that are used as a standard in accessing and interacting with users with three-dimensional environments or computer game objects. Each of these systems can work with a virtual context, but it

• Virtual reality (VR) is the first system with a fully immersive virtual environment. The basic definition says: "Virtual-reality system represents interactive computer system created an illusion of synthetic (virtual) space in real time based on

web-based collaborative environments

**1. Introduction**
