Gaming in 10 or 20 years

We are on the cusp of a new generation of consoles, high-end PC gaming is still popular and becoming more accessible, and gaming tech is expanding with new 'advances' like the Occulus Rift, motion-based gaming, and persistent connectivity.

That's whats in store for next year...what about next generation (of humans)?

What sorts of games will we be playing in 10 years? Will the gaming demographics change significantly? What role will games play in culture? In light of what gaming was like in 2003, or better yet 1993, where do you think we will be in 2023 or 2033?

edited 13th Jun '13 11:07:16 PM by PapaJimb0

I can't say much for graphics or overall technological advances anymore. I once thought that by this year most games would already be at Heavy Rain and The Last of Us levels of facial, motion and visual quality, but that's clearly not the case. In fact, many developers are going backwards and using cheaper and easier artstyles for their products in order to avoid extra labor and costs. And while tech like the Oculus Rift looks incredible, it's virtually unheard of outside of the hardcore gaming community, it and any tech similar to it is gonna need one hell of a PR agent AND a smash hit to survive. And a trend of AAA games that truly pushing the graphics limitations similar to what Uncharted 2 and Crysis would be a surprise for me if it happens within the next 10 years.

What I do expect to happen is a resurgence of the PC as a gaming system. Thanks to Free-to-Play games like League of Legends, World of Tanks and all of the MMORP Gs out there, the modding community, and cheap, convenient DRM/software sites like Steam, PC gaming is slowly coming back into the forefront. In fact, I'd wager that the mobile app industry will become the bigger threat against the PC than the consoles in the future. The only flaw about the PC being a gaming platform is the issue of how damned expensive it is to make a worthwhile gaming rig, but that's becoming a moot point too since many new games in development aren't as graphically intensive as they used to be.

As for the consoles themselves, I don't see them doing very well. Systems like the Xbox are slowly becoming more of a hindrance, especially given that you have to pay a monthly fee for their services and the new Xbox One's (frankly moronic) attempts at DRM and anti-piracy. Yet, the one thing that will save that system will not be the hardcore fanbase, but rather the fact that the casual playerbase largely associate the Xbox with being the premier gaming system to play Halo and COD and will buy accordingly, despite how much more expensive and weaker it may be in reality. The PS 4 and Wii U will probably fare slightly better since they're taking a somewhat friendly stance to used games and DRM and have won over a few hardcore hearts and minds at E3 2013, but it's all gonna come down to which system manages to create to a larger fanbase. I doubt the Wii will succeed at this task, though - they're battleplan is honestly kinda alien to what everybody else is gunning for and as a result even the hardcore fanbase gets confused by them at times. It's up in the air whether the PS 4 marketing dept. is up to it or not.

A tiny handful of games will look amazing. Everything else will be a little better than now. Games will be a tiny bit cheaper "off the shelf" because they will be hacked up in a dozen pieces to sell as DLC. Multiplayer? $15. Chapters beyond the first? $10. Play as different characters? $5.

People will still be awaiting resolution to Half-Life.

I admit I haven't really played Half-Life

But I feel totally sorry for you people that have.

Based on the direction games are currently going, this is what I think.

We'll all be playing with weird little mocap balls tied to our hands and feet, since developers seem so hell-bent on getting rid of controllers. Every console will have to be connected to the internet at all times to do anything on it, and require a subscription fee. All games will be digital downloads tied to your account and can't be shared with anyone else who isn't using that account. Multiplayer games will be pay-to-win, with people being able to pay for rank-ups, blatantly overpowered weapons, perks, and other things. Some of them might even have their own subscription fees.

After Call of Duty finally dies out, the most popular genre of games will likely be first-person action adventure games. Single player will have lots of interactive cutscenes and quick time events that make use of the mocap balls so that you can create the motions of the character yourself. Multiplayer will be all about full-on brawls with other players. That's quite a lot of movement for a video game, actually.

I think we'll see more always-online "single" player games with more cloud incorporation, as that is the only method of DRM that is still effective. Then I think we will see crackers devote more time to server emulation and that DRM will also lose it's effectiveness. At that point I think we will see a DRM crash, where companies throw up their arms and say "fuck it", and go back to the Steam method of doing things, which is useless in terms of preventing piracy but creates an effective illusion of functionality. Sadly, I don't think that anyone other than CD Projekt Red will ever see the light and realize that DRM is fucking pointless.

The Tales series will continue to thrive. And the games will still be spread across 3-4 different platforms. ;)

I doubt it's possible to make a genuine prediction on this sort of thing.

We can try but more often than not we'll be proven wrong.

I imagine when people were having this conversation in 1993 or 2003, no one predicted the current state of the industry we are in today. And the same will be true of this discussion in 2023 or 2033

So in that vein, my prediction for the future of gaming is that by 2023, we'll be using cats as controllers, and by 2033 there won't be video games because we'll all be living in the sewers fighting off radioactive eldritch horrors.

edited 14th Jun '13 6:03:14 PM by Mukora

Predicting the future at long term is as futile as endeavors get. My guesses, though, is that between this gen and the next we'll finally hit a visual ceiling, and developers will start focusing on using processing power to make games bigger, not prettier. Games like Sunset Overdrive and Overstrike (before being bastardized into Fuse) focused on a distinctive visual style that makes them instantly recognizable, rather than photorealistic. I couldn't tell COD from Battlefield from Killzone from a screenshot, but anyone can recognize TF 2 a mile away.

We'll hit a visual plateau when even players brought up on the 7th and 8th gens can't tell a HUD-removed Co D or BF recording from a CNN clip. Until then expect continual stabs at improving graphics.

Diminishing returns. The effort and money it takes to make graphics more photorealistic than they currently are is astronomical. Look at James Cameron's Avatar and the budget they needed for CGI. And to reuse the recent-yet-old gag, developers need to spend their time creating AI that makes fish swim away from you.

Monster Hunter players know there's already AI that makes fish swim away from them and it isn't fun.

Like I said in the Battlefront thread. I'd rather have a game with PS 2 graphics, but where the PS 4's absurd power is dedicated to making a battlefield with literally thousands of individual soldiers (to give an example) than a five-hour photorealistic FPS campaign.

Developers really need to leave graphics alone for at least a decade or so. Because pushing the envelope on graphic fidelity (which matters far less than art style and visual distinctiveness, anyway) is the primary reason AAA development is failing to be a sustainable business.

There exists a level of technology and automation (i.e. the pre-sets in casual game makers) that allows middle school students to make a FPS with higher graphical fidelity than Quake III. Maybe in ten years we'll be up to a point where another group of middle school students can make one with better tech than Crysis 3.

edited 14th Jun '13 9:40:33 PM by Recon5

I know that engine you're talking about. Problem is, you still need a good idea on how to code and hide your game's limitations such as draw distance, fog, max characters onscreen, AI routines etc. If not, it'll be laggy as heck and the AI will actually stop working due to the AI's memory limit or some other memory issue. Simply put, if your FPS has more than a dozen characters involved, it's not gonna work very well on that engine.

edited 15th Jun '13 4:46:53 AM by SgtRicko