Extrapolating the Near Future of Gaming

Sci-fi author Charlie Stross gave a keynote address at the recent LOGIN 2009 conference about what we can reasonably expect from games and game-related technology over the next 10 to 20 years. He takes a realistic look at the limitations we'll face with regard to processing power and bandwidth, and goes on to talk about how augmented reality software and aging gamers will affect future titles. Quoting: "But the sixty-something gamers of 2020 are not the same as the sixty-somethings you know today. They're you, only twenty years older. By then, you'll have a forty year history of gaming; you won't take kindly to being patronised, or given in-game tasks calibrated for today's sixty-somethings. The codgergamers of 2030 will be comfortable with the narrative flow of games. They're much more likely to be bored by trite plotting and cliched dialog than todays gamers. They're going to need less twitchy user interfaces — ones compatible with aging reflexes and presbyopic eyes — but better plot, character, and narrative development. And they're going to be playing on these exotic gizmos descended from the iPhone and its clones: gadgets that don't so much provide access to the internet as smear the internet all over the meatspace world around their owners."

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Re:Addendum

[ahabswhale]

Q3 is hardly the pinnacle of twitch gaming. UT2k4 is the pinnacle of twitch gaming. There's nothing more twitch than that. I know, I've played every FPS you've ever heard of. There is no game that moves as fast or requires as rapid and accurate a response as UT2k4. Unfortunately, U3 moved away from that. They killed the skill of the game and as far as I'm concerned FPSs are in a downward spiral where it's all about great graphics and gameplay is a distant second. Btw, I'm 44 and I LOVE twitch. I expect to always love it so please don't speak for everyone by saying that twitch has no future. Twitch gamers still exist, they still LOVE twitch, it's the game producers who have abandoned us. Every game is dumbed down so that any no talent hack can play and have a chance. It's the LCD formula that so pervades society. I don't mind the existence of such games per se except for the fact that publishers know there's more money in making them so real gamers get left out in the cold.

Sadly, I have a feeling I'll still be playing UT2k4 ten years from now.