Ten years of entertainment: what has changed?Remember back when 3D games were blocky and crude, when your only option for watching clips from last night's TV was the VCR, and when buying games always meant a trip to a retail outlet? In other words, remember 10 years ago? We're looking back at biggest changes in entertainment of the past decade, and we need your help.By Jon Stokes With the decade drawing to a close soon, we considered doing a "Decade in Technology" retrospective to cap it off, but that's an extremely broad topic. Instead, we decided to narrow it down to a look back at the ways in which we've come to use technology to entertain and distract ourselves. What are the big innovations of the past decade that have fundamentally changed some aspect of the way that people use their free time?We brainstormed answers to this question for a bit, but then we thought, why not just ask our readers? And so we throw open the floor to you: what revolutions—both big and small, visible and obscure—has this past decade brought to the ever-changing world of entertainment?What follows are three of our answers to this question; please drop into the discussion thread attached to this article and share yours.Jon Stokes, Deputy Editor: the programmable 3D graphics pipelineIn the early years of the post-GLQuake 3D gaming revolution, the first generations of consumer-level 3D graphics cards were all very limited, highly specialized devices. The GPU that these cards hosted was not the full-blown coprocessor that it is today. Rather, it was an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that implemented a standard rendering pipeline in fixed-function hardware. If your card didn't support some hard-wired bit of eye candy, like bump mapping, then you had to turn that option off in your game's settings menu.In 2001, NVIDIA and ATI introduced the first GPUs with partially programmable pipelines. These pipelines let 3D engines modify a scene by running short bits of code, called "shaders," on the GPU. Specifically, NVIDIA's GeForce3 was introduced in March of 2001 as the first Direct3D 8.0-compatible GPU, and it was followed later that year by ATI's programmable Radeon 8500. Since the launch of those first two programmable cards, the hardware-accelerated 3D pipeline has gained in flexibility and programmability over the past decade to the point where the latest GPUs from NVIDIA and ATI look in some important respects like many-core processors.As GPUs have gotten more programmable, the palette of visual effects that they enable massively expanded, and the level of realism in 3D games has gone through the roof. It's this programmability that we have to thank for the stunning visuals in modern console and PC games.Ben Kuchera, Gaming Editor: networked distribution platformsWhile some gamers find comfort in the physical product that comes with buying a retail game, online game distribution services like Steam and the PlayStation Network have completely changed the way that many of us buy and enjoy games. With these services, the games you own are no longer tied to your discs, your PC, or game console.My wife spent more than a month in the hospital recently, and I brought the laptop to the hospital where I stayed with her. I find it nearly impossible to sleep in unfamiliar environments, and I had more than enough weighing on my mind, so I downloaded the Steam client using the hospital's WiFi and was soon playing Doom 2. Then I beat Max Payne again. It was the equivalent of gaming comfort food, and I was amazed that I was able to access my game collection so effortlessly.Steam isn't the only technology that allows this sort of freedom; a Sony PSP allows you to log into your account from any system and download any games you have purchased digitally. Compared to Nintendo, a company that requires you to send in your physical DSi before they can move your digital purchases to a new system, this is remarkable freedom.While some will argue that with these services you're licensing products instead of owning them outright—as if that isn't true with boxed PC games as well—you do get advantages by purchasing your games on the PlayStation Network or Steam. The ability to sit down at any PC and soon be playing one of your favorite games—all without keeping track of discs and CD key—is just too compelling. If this is the future, I'm done fighting.Ken Fisher, Editor-in-Chief: YouTubeLess than five years old, and already thriving in more than a dozen languages, YouTube is arguably the biggest revolution in entertainment technology of the decade. It has more viewers than any single television network or movie studio. Its content by and large is user generated, and not content reappropriated from traditional sources (with some notable exceptions). And every business on earth has lost at least some productivity to YouTube's siren call.YouTube is undoubtedly one of many factors pulling viewers away from the TV towards their computers. As a font of democratized content, YouTube facilitates expression in a way previously unknown, and there's truly something there for everyone. And let's not forget that YouTube impressed everyone by not only allowing free video uploading, but also by giving everyone the ability to embed video on their own pages.Your turnThe Ars audience is plugged into so many parts of the tech world that we know you will have some great suggestions on major revolutions in entertainment in the past decade. We'll take some of your suggestions and turn them into articles, so send them our way via the discussion link below.
