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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."
It wasn't too long ago that I realized that in 2050 and 2060, old folks homes will be blasting metal so loud that their hard of hearing residents can hear it. By then, heavy metal will be what grandpa listens to and the young'ns will be listening to something equally infuriating and weird as linkin park is to our parents.
Anywho, instead of bridge or cribbage, there will be virtual dungeon crawls and WoW guild reunions. I think that the direction that games have been taking over the past 10 years has already pushed games to a point that they can be enjoyed by almost everybody with the proper background. While I won't be able to play quake 3 as well in 40 years as I did 8 years ago (when twitch gaming was at its peak and I was in practice), I might be a challange in 40 years in a game like bf2 that is more about resource usage, anticipation, and strategy. Granted there are narrow alley encounters where twitch wins, most of the kills (ignoring air combat) in bf2 came from having a resource (tank or apc), being in the right place, and seeing somebody before they saw you. All of that came from knowing the flow of the map and the more experienced player would most likely kill a rookie who doesn't know what's going on or how to handle the map. The experienced player will track along a hill, not make a silhouette, and watch choke points, they probably won't camp, and I will never equate camping with skill. So knowing how to traverse a map, handle your in game weapon, and not make yourself a target comes with experience and will lead to more kills than being able to whip around and headshot someone. If they can't pick you out, they can't headshot you.
So what I'm saying is that I will probably be playing games with veeery similar mechanics to those that I am playing now. Twitch gaming, a style that favored picking out movement from a sea of chaos, fast reflexes, and precise movements hasn't been in vogue for the past 5 years. I am certain, dead certain, that playing games like COD and bf2 have killed my abilities to be competitive in games like unreal 3, but in every pick up game I drop into in u3 (for the pc), I dominate. I was pretty OK in UT when it was at its peak and was mediocre at q3. I'd say that U3 is far more twitch than UT, but not as much as Q3. The twitch players aren't the majority of the FPS community. By the time i'm old and wrinkly, Twitch will be a long forgotten relic that we will talk about like people talk about terminals and punch cards.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
While i prefer something with non-linear levels* that and a non-rigid plot, i think there is a place for final fantasy, halo, et al. An good plot can definatly defiantly a positive, but i do hope that games based that don't really care much for a plot and are just about the game stick around too. There is a balance somewhere between HL(1) and FF
*these seam to be disappearing because it takes so long to develop levels that studios don't want to waste development time on stuff that will never be seen.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
... If anything it is the OLD TIMERS in the game industry making games, Chris Taylor, will Wright, etc... hardcore gamers grow up and get jobs in the gaming industry. The so called "young gamers" will get old one day too.
This stupid idea that all older gamers are a homogenous group vs younger gamers is stupid, there are lots of young gamers that prefer games that the older generation does because they are at HEART gamers. They aren't in gaming for the fads, they are in it for the fun.
There is discontent among older gamers about what they best games were newer vs older, we are not a homogenous group so lets not pretend that somehow young gamers will not like anything older gamers like and vice versa.
I thought entirely the same thing - can't we get through a story without an irrelevant Apple slashvertisement?
Handheld gaming was hardly invented by the Iphone, nor was Internet access in phones. Apple are long playing catch up here. And they didn't "popularise" it, either - the Iphone is no Ipod, both in terms of features and market share. To suggest that the other devices are clones is ludicrous, and insulting to those companies that worked hard to bring those devices, often long before Apple thought of doing so. As you say, the Gameboy is the obvious popular reference.
It becomes tediously circular - people freeload off the hype as you say, and by doing so, it adds to the hype.
It's also patronising to Slashdot readers: yes, I know that the average layperson has to be told "Ipod" instead of "mp3 player", "Windows" instead of "operating system", "Gameboy" instead of "handheld games console" or "Nokia" (the obvious realistic choice) instead of "mobile phone", but I think readers here are capable of knowing what the products are, without it having to be explained in terms of brandnames.
("Hey, I've got a web page you might be interested in! It's a webpage that can be read on Iphones and clones, isn't that great?")
By the way, in my post I made a few assumptions that should be cleared out. I ignored single player games because I have no clue if they'll be around in 40 years. Yes, there will be a demand for them, but they're also the easiest to pirate and have less replay value than multiplayer games. So while there may be a market for them, developers may stop making them in favor of MMO's or as tutorial modes for multiplayer. They may also finally find a voice and become as established as novels and graphics and authoring tools may become so advanced that a single author can purchase something titled gameshop pro and start whipping out a game that will be marketable in a year and the single player game market may be just as expansive as a borders book store, and just as affordable due to the competition.
I have no clue what is held for the SP market, but I did focus on the multiplayer dynamics, which is also what the summary focuses on. (I refuse to RTFA).
By the way, what I talk about in bf2 sounds similar to map control in q3, but map control is half of victory in q3, the rest is skill, reflexes, and winning fire fights. In bf2, winning an encounter is often an instance of spotting someone first, lining them up, and killing them first, less dodging, jumping, and fast reflexes. Its a fine difference but I could imagine a 64 year old Me doing just as well as a 24 year old Me in BF2. I can't say the same of q3. I also view Q3 to be the pinnacle of twitch gaming, almost everything after that was made more "accessible" to the "casual" gamer.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
I think you've failed (like a lot of the "Luddite" nerds ) to grasp what the iPhone has done. The interface is not "childish", it's good. In that, it does what you expect it to, and doesn't make me angry. It also feels more "real". Multitouch done properly is really, really nice, and no amount of elitist nerdy pouting is going to change that.
I have never, and would never, buy a handheld gaming device. I have, however, bought an iPod touch--which I got for reading Slashdot in bed--but have actually bought quite a few games for it.
What I expect is such basic features as "copy and paste" and "multitasking". I don't even have to try the iPhone to know that it's bad.
like a lot of the "Luddite" nerds
An ironic accusation - it's not "luddite" when those people embraced technologies that did handheld gaming and Internet access years before the Iphone. Quite the opposite.
The interface is not "childish", it's good. In that, it does what you expect it to, and doesn't make me angry. It also feels more "real". Multitouch done properly is really, really nice, and no amount of elitist nerdy pouting is going to change that.
And there's not a single actual argument put there - you might as well say "Iphone rules! Nokia sucks!" It's not "childish", it's good, it does what it's supposed to, it doesn't make me angry, it "feels" more "real". It's really really really "nice", anyone who disagrees with me is just nerdy pouty! Please - let's have proper intelligent debate, and actual evidence and examples, not vague terms, assertions and childish insults. (And saying "really" a lot of times doesn't make an argument anymore convincing.)
I have, however, bought an iPod touch--which I got for reading Slashdot in bed--but have actually bought quite a few games for it.
So not actually an Iphone then. But good for you. And I have a Motorola V980 that I can use to read Slashdot from bed - your point?
Movies are art because movies can inspire the full range of human emotions. The only emotions a good game inspires are frustration of defeat and joy of victory (which cannot exist without the former). These emotions are intrinsically linked to the game itself, and don't require any cutscenes or dialog.
If a game is trying to inspire any other emotion it is failing as a game. You can tell this is true because removing all the "gameplay" would improve it, eg. JRPGs would be better without all the random battles, wandering about the map, item management, etc. If the game were really good you would get annoyed at all the interruptions to the playable parts. It would be better to separate the "artistic" parts and repackage them as a movie or illustrated novel.
Games are supposed to be fun, not something you have to grind through to get to the "plot" and "achievements". The fun comes from challenging yourself and developing your skills, not mindlessly pressing buttons like a laboratory rat.
The 'aged' sector of the population is an ever increasing one. With the increases in med-tech over the next 20 years, 60 will still be quite spry.
The sector of growth that's slowing down in the younger generation, as especially in areas of Europe, the land is becoming increasingly overcrowded.
Most likely, the 14 year old sector of the market will be smaller by dint of being a smaller segment of the population as a whole.
The majority of games aren't directed at 14-20 anymore. The casual market is exploding, and that covers all ages, and is of marked interest to the older. The 'hardcore' 14-20 something is decreasing, although still released with hype and ceremony; That sector probably isn't going to go away, as there'll always be good money in it, however the larger electronic gaming market will take over a lot of places that are currently occupied by older games (card games etc.) in society.. That's what the article seems to be predicting, and has a stab at seeing how the games companies are likely to adapt to bring in this ever growing segment. After all, it'll have a lot more disposable income than the 14-20 segment. A LOT more.
Sci-fi is Hollywood entertainment with explosions, technobabble, and spaceships that make rumbling sounds as they travel through space.
The near vacuum of space does not transmit sound. But it does transmit electromagnetic signatures from a spacecraft that the navigation systems in the cockpits of other craft may render as sound.
Reading through that article made me think of the novel "Rainbow's End" by Vernor Vinge:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End
He spends a lot of time in that novel describing a world where augmented reality and total interconnectedness makes our day-to-day living into an ginourmous Second Life-esque, instant-messaging, avatar-riddled inferno.
I found it to be a difficult book to get through, because I kept thinking to myself, I don't believe people will be so banal as to take such incredible technology and make it into something so frivolous and pointless.
But, then I realize, it has already happened, and it's naive to think it won't happen again.
-- Marcio
Games of today look great, but a couple of aspects of some of the most popular games like GTA, Call of Duty and Resident Evil are outdated and I'll take the optimistic risk to say they'll soon start to disappear.
I'm talking about ultra linearity (yes, even GTA is very linear) and the annoying aspects that accompany it, most noticeably the "try this missing again and again and again until you succeed it", and to a lesser extent to put the player in a ultra scripted environment where you could pretty much dictate them what they have to do, and have to prevent them from doing such trivial things as jumping over a small fence. As games become ever increasingly realistic, those sorts of unrealistic limitations are becoming important threats to the player's suspension of disbelief, and game designers will I believe have to get more subtle and work their way around it.
But in my opinion both the problems of linearity and unrealistic limitations means that game designers and developers will enter an uphill battle to rethink the aforementioned ageing paradigms, but I think that in a way those new paradigms will be the new shiny graphics. To use the GTA series as an example, right now it's basically all centred around a long string of very scripted fixed missions cut with cinematics, with an "either succeed in all the required aspects or try again like nothing happened" system which is arguably incompatible with realism. In my opinion, the GTA of the future should be much more life-like, dynamic, one way to see how it would work would be like the Sims series, you are one person, you make encounters, create connections, obtain things from your connections such as jobs or whatever you may need, and everything you would do would have an influence of sorts. Fail a job and you have to deal with the consequences and impact on your reputation, start shooting people at random and you earn a reputation of psychopathic killer, by drugs, sell them on someone else's turf and watch things escalating with them, become a real estate agent, spend ten years in jail, join a gang, start a gang and delegate tasks, become a politician, etc, in other words, a free unscripted crime world/business world simulator.
I'm not saying it would be easy at all to create, but I think there is lots to be done and innovated in that domain, and I think and hope that within the next few years game designers will see themselves forced to explore such solutions, and if it becomes a crucial aspect of making a successful game then great resources, talent and work will be put into it and the results will be very much worth it. Since both the market and technology push us towards realism we'll have to make things realistic in more ways than just the reflections on cars or the physics of driving.
You just got troll'd!
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
Today's sixty-something gamer doesn't like being patronized either.
If you began with the PC in your thirties, you entered a game market that remarkably diverse and often explicitly "adult."
But not as the adolescent imagines it. You can't shoot your way through a Lucas adventure or a Maxis simulation.
For a senior, the most satisfying moments in a stealth shooter, an RPG or strategy game, come when you sense the most economical solution. You aren't role playing as 007 in his prime - you are playing the aging, wounded Batman of The Dark Night Returns or perhaps the very young Carrie Kelley.
Without gadgets. Without armor.
Using only her wits to survive.
No, the iPhone reference was important: the keynote was about "Extrapolating the Near Future of Gaming". When you extrapolate, you pull from what is happening today. The iPhone has shown that many normal, non-techie folks will use technology in unexpected way, and to an unexpected extent, if you make it easy enough for them.
It doesn't matter if hardcore techies think that the iPhone is "childish" or if they think it is a badge of honor to continue using their Motorola V980, it really doesn't matter at all.
What matters is what the mass of ordinary consumers move towards and, right now, today, Apple are creating a mobile platform and eco-system that could very well remain dominant for the next couple of decades, just as MS did on the desktop.
But the key point is that the iPhone shows that good design can pull mainstream users towards technologies that were previously adopted only by relatively small niche groups, such as /. readers - our use of technology in twenty years will depend not only upon what is possible but, also, upon the good design and implementation that packages the possible and persuades the mainstream to integrate it into their lives.
He's missing the point of achievements - although, TBH, some of their current implementations miss the point too:
Games are about writing stories - achievements are merely the record of the story that's been written.
Now, the main thing left to do, is to enable the player to write a unique story with unique achievements...
The biggest problem I see in games atm, is that too many people are focused on them purely as a story TELLING device, rather than story writing - which, in a way, kind-of defeats the purpose of the exercise IMO. (And the mention of plot/narration in the summary is a case in point).
'Stupidity is an often fatal disease' - R. A. Heinlein
I agree, but you should really clarify "stress".
Negative emotion stress is, of course, not good. The adrenaline, edge of your seat, put you in the zone stress is great.
It's one reason I find some games totally miss the mark be it via controls, atmosphere, achievements, or even gameplay. They can pull out either of these stresses depending on if they do it right. You need that feeling of urgency and distress to get your mind into the game, for that suspension of disbelief. Negative emotion stress is quite different, rage quits, anger, smacktalk, etc.