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The Wikification of Games

Posted by Zonk on from the everybody-in-the-pool dept.

This week's Escapist has an article discussing the future imperfect, which touches on some of the same issues (seriously, this time) that the farcical Pointless WasteofTime did this past weekend. From the article: "What is the future of the massively multiplayer game? And I think: More importantly, how long before that future gets here? I've been waiting for ages. Surely with all that soul searching and 'post-mortem analysis' the developers can't be far from that elusive next-gen ideal? Surely someone will spot all the best bits and make a game to end all games? Won't they? Ach, maybe it's hopeless. How can I really know? How can I predict what games are going to do in a year, let alone a couple of decades? Who could have predicted the rise in professional gaming, or the importance of mods, or the black-market virtual cash cultures, or the thronging game cafés of the Far East, where people can lose their lives in arguments over virtual items?" His ending argument is that gaming will tend towards the wiki mentality: Everyone participates.

3 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. You know something is wrong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ...when every reply is something negative about Zonk. Count mine among them. Zonk has single-handedly killed the Games section. Not just maimed. Friggin' killed this section.

    Please, someone in management please either fire Zonk, convince him to quit or just flippin' replace him with someone with talent. The story selections suck, his reviews are benign and lack talent and he doesn't respond to feedback.

    Gah, why am I even bothering writing this? No one has listened to our complaints for years.

  2. Re:was there really a point to that? by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The point to this article is for everybody to put their "witty remark"-skills to test on /.

    See it as a new game genre, using /. as playground.
    Right now I'm a level 10 comment poster.

  3. Virtual real estate will eat them all by Julian+Morrison · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I predict that the next big thing will be sub-games, set up in the context of larger "virtual real estate" systems eg: Second Life. The VRE acts as a convenient driver and gateway for both small (hobbyist) and large (commercially sublet) inner games. For a new game company, this could make excellent business sense. The software's done for you, there's a ready made in-game economy and customer base, all you need to do is dev the game-world and put a toll-gate at the door.