In 5 Years, Games Experience Will Move From Discrete To Indiscrete, Says EA CEO (theverge.com)

The Verge has an insightful interview of Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts. In the wide-ranging interview, Wilson has talked about how the landscape of video games have changed over the years, and where it will be in the next few years. One remarkable comment he has made is about how video games will move from discrete experience that we have today to indiscrete experience in the next coming years. From the article (condensed): The biggest shift I think we'll see is games moving from being a discrete experience to an indiscrete experience. When I was 15 years old, if I wanted to listen to music, I had a couple of choices. I could sit up all night and hope they'd play what I liked on the radio, or I could go down to the record store. [...] Today, by virtue of the fact that almost every device I own plays me music, and services like Spotify curate and cultivate and personalize that music for me, music permeates almost every aspect of my life. It's moved from being something I have to make a conscious decision to engage with, to something that really surrounds every aspect of my life from the minute I get up in the morning to the minute I go to bed at night. When we think about games today -- already we've got more people playing more games on more platforms in more geographies around the world than ever before. It's not just a console business, or a PC business, or even a mobile business. We've now got virtual reality and augmented reality and streaming, too. Now fast-forward that to the future, and you think about what the world looks like with a 5G network streaming latency-free gaming to every device you own. It's really easy to imagine that games would permeate our lives much the way digital music does today. From the minute I get up in the morning, everything I do has an impact on my gaming life, both discrete and indiscrete. The amount of eggs I have in my internet-enabled fridge might mean my Sims are better off in my game. That length of distance I drive in my Tesla on the way to work might mean that I get more juice in Need for Speed. If I go to soccer practice in the afternoon, by virtue of internet-enabled soccer boots, that might give me juice or new cards in my FIFA product. This world where games and life start to blend I think really comes into play in the not-too-distant future, and almost certainly by 2021.

Comments

Interesting use of the word "indiscreet"

[Geoffrey.landis]

Does he own a dictionary?

Re:Interesting use of the word "indiscreet"

[kalpol]

came to say this...hurt my eyes to see discrete and discreet mixed up so freely.

Re:Interesting use of the word "indiscreet"

[Minupla]

Does he own a dictionary?

If so, he should look up 'latency' - because unless he's got a solution to the speed of light in his back pocket, we're not going to have 'latency free' anything in 5 years.

Re:Interesting use of the word "indiscreet"

[Anonymous Coward]

Examples used were how many eggs are in your fridge and how far you drive affect your game play. That means these things are being reported to the game company to be tracked. So I think both indiscrete and indiscreet are correct.

Ironic gamification is still gamification

[Anonymous Coward]

The obvious pushback: why should videogames influence and be informed by everything I do in my life? They're fantasies and by definition not related to real life at all.

Re:Ironic gamification is still gamification

[GrumpySteen]

You're trying to understand it from the wrong point of view. Think of it from a marketing executive's POV...

Gamers push back against obvious ads in games, so we've come up with a more subtle and effective method of advertising by allowing gamers to connect the game to the smart devices in their homes.

Let's say we want to make a deal with PepsiCo to push the Game Fuel flavor of Mountain Dew. If a gamer has connected to a smart fridge, the game can detect how many bottles of Game Fuel are in the fridge. Based on that number, we give them a boost in energy in the game. More bottles, more energy. PepsiCo gets a sales boost and we get advertising dollars above and beyond the profit we make on the game.

In other words, it's another crass attempt to take consumers' information and make money from it, privacy be damned.

Re:Ironic gamification is still gamification

[Bing Tsher E]

why should videogames influence and be informed by everything I do in my life?

Because the system needs to give you a reward for endless 24/7 telemetry. When EA knows how many eggs are in your refrigerator they can know when to market more eggs to you. When law enforcement knows how long it took you to travel to work, they can know if you sped getting there. And those are just little tidbits of information. When the total picture is being recorded for everyone, trending analysis can be used to insure 'social harmony.'

And we'll all be on the leaderboard.

Nope

[Fire_Wraith]

Really, the absolute last thing I want in my games is overlap with reality. I play games (in part) to get away from reality.

What I think he's really talking about, when you read between the lines, is cross-marketing. "Hey, let's run a cross promotion where if you buy product X, you get some benefit in the game (and we get kickbacks)." We've seen it before in certain limited areas (like buy Mt. Dew, get double xp in CoD or whatever), but games where it becomes all but necessary to play? No thanks.

I don't get it, or it's about miserable games

[Anonymous Coward]

He lost me at the eggs changing his Sims (and similar things). It got weirder with the "One of the core reasons why we engage with games is for social interaction" comment.

I think this guy, while maybe he's good at something, either doesn't know anything about games, or he's warning everyone that if you want to do something fun, don't bother looking at the EA titles, since they'll all be networked-RL-grind-jobs. "Hey, team, I ate 3 eggs today. Anyone got a spare egg credit to trade for my mileage credit?"

No no no

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"The amount of eggs I have in my internet-enabled fridge might mean my Sims are better off in my game."

I do not want my life merged with some bullshit gaming "experience", which will sell the details to marketers who will then exhort me to "Buy more eggs!"

This is not about a richer or more immersive gaming experience, this is about finding newer, more invasive ways to market stuff to you.

So "gamification" plus access everywhere?

[King_TJ]

I think it's a mistake to equate a passive activity like listening to music in the background with an activity requiring your full attention and active participation like gaming.

Just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea, and IMO, this is one of those situations. People really don't NEED to have access to video games from the time they wake up until they go to bed, from every single device they happen to get in front of.

We've already got problems with video game addiction as it is!

I think gaming is just fine, but it's best done in one environment where you've configured an optimal experience for it. And the rest of the "hype" promised in the original article is just talking about "gamification" -- something that marketing and advertising people have been focused on for the last few years or so. "How do we take a game and tie it into real-world activities?" I think results are mixed with such things, but it's generally going to be a tool to subconsciously motivate you to do more of something in order to earn the in-game reward. If they're rewarding you for exercising, for example -- maybe that's a net positive and a valid selling point for the game. If it's rewarding you for driving your car around more, it's probably not doing anyone any real good.