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Player-Made Content Is The Future
ZDNet reports from The Entertainment Gathering conference last week, giving out some perspective on the future of games as it's seen by Will Wright and J. Allard. From their points of view, player-made content will be king in the coming years. With the expense of making games primarily due to the cost of content, allowing players to build the game they want to play will be popular ... both with designers and players. From the article: "Players' eagerness to go beyond the conventional boundaries has been seen in almost every online game. In the first major massively multiplayer game, Ultima Online, developers saw their swords-and-sorcery stories expanded by players who opened taverns to host online friends and create theater groups to perform 'A Christmas Carol' inside the game. That behavior helps create new content for the game and gives players a stake in the game to keep their interest piqued longer--a critical thing for online games in which players pay a subscription fee every month. "
I think the future of TV will be video game like episodes, where a player/viewer can interact in a virtual reality episode story, turning the "broadcast" into a choose-your-own-adventure Sims type game. Every game will have a set and entertaining ending though just in case the player sucks, or doesn't want to participate on a given day.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I can't wait until deforming terriain is common in video games. It would not only add an element of strategy for many first person shooters (blow out the supports for a building to take out someone on the floor above for instance), but it also gives the sense that you are actually affecting the world.