The future of Gaming

[Sharrd]

Unfair comparison of movies and games.

Don't forget the modification part available for games; do you see people modifying movies at home and making something new and great out of it?

 

[Styloid]

Funny, I was thinking about this same issue recently. Personally, I'm not very optimistic about the future of gaming. It seems like the idea of advancing the strength and complexity of expression in gaming is dying while money value is becoming the number one issue (long post coming up).

With HL2, and to a lesser extent (to me) Doom3 and Halo2, there is definite progress in storytelling and visual storytelling (as well as other aspects). Feelings/thoughts are being conveyed to us in ways games have never done before-- think of how you felt when you first passed Water Hazard and reached BME, for me it was amazing because I felt like I had actually travelled for a long distance and was meeting up with old friends; every bit of game design added to that feeling. Games have not always been like this, this is progress.

Puzzles, interaction, action/combat, dialogue, the way the path leads you, exploration, visual cues, sound effects, etc: they were all used together to give the best possible experience. I thought that a video game's power of expression was getting closer and closer towards that of other media like literature, like Charles Dickens, "Thus night at length with slow-retreating steps departs, and the lamp-lighter going his rounds, like an executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire that have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus the day cometh, whether or no." ...Using every tool (language or 3D polygons) at your disposal to express ideas, images and emotions.

Instead I find that there are still many who saw nothing like what I did. They just saw short games without enough value (HL2, Halo2, Doom3-- same treatment... from opposing camps). 50+ hrs of gameplay, replayability, non-linearity, lots of unlockable secrets, hundreds of maps/weapons/models/cars/items, etc.. these things seem to be the direction of video games in the future-- just look at the rise (explosion) in MMORPG's compared to the death of puzzle-adventure games in the last ten years or so.

I don't mean to imply that non-linearity or MMORPG's are bad (diversity is something needed in every form of art), or that narrative FPS's are going to die off soon (it'll be around for ages thanks to iD); I just question the goals of the industry and the opinions of the public as of right now. Are they the healthiest choices for gaming in the future?

 

[Mouldy Punk]

I'll be amazed when they create realistic virtual reality games. Holy crap, a head crab jumping at you and you can feel its rubberyness on your head....*cringes*...it would be cool though.

 

[sgtrock]

I'm not so sure gaming is going in the right direction. At this rate, PC gaming will be dead in a few years, gaming becomes some mass product like movies (which generally, suck ass) and huge companies like EA take all over the smaller creative studios to make them all pump out sequels every year. Individual companies are struggling, and many very creative developers either died or got taking over.
I wonder how many years developers like Valve, Lionhead and Blizzard will be able to survive.

Gaming is like a tumor, sure it's growing like hell, but is that a good thing?

And everyone knows, movies don't make any money. The video gaming industry is a multi-billion dollar business, it is not going anywhere, anytime soon.

 

[Plug]

I think the most interesting aspect about the future is steam and mods... No company as large, and as respected as valve has ever made such a bold move in the gaming (or any!) industry.

Mods are the future of games. The amount of passionate people who make mods easily make up for the abundance of companies making mediocre and un-innovative titles, and with a platform like steam allowing them to mass-distribute and gain exposure... how is that not bright?

Now by saying this i don't mean the gaming industry is going to turn into an underground thing at all... there will always be an industry leader, such as valve, epic, or id... but gamers will make the games that they want to play, and this will drive everything forward.

These are the most exciting times!

 

[Tyguy]

I agree, but valve is small comapared to the other companies. Still, they tried it and it worked...so good for them

 

[CriYam]

First game played in 1983 on mattels intellivision,I think it was called armored battle. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 6 years old.

I remember when wolfenstein 3d came out, I thought it couldn't get any better than that. I can't wait to see what the next 10 years will bring.

 

[StainlessJ-FPGA]

Maybe but they can't even use realistic grass and land yet...Thats the thing I want most indiviudal blades of grass!

SoF2 had grass. TALL grass I might add, which is fun to hide in. I sniped a guy from 6 feet away because he couldn't see me. Yay for camo.

 

[NB.]

I agree, but valve is small comapared to the other companies. Still, they tried it and it worked...so good for them

What makes you say that? they have a massive amount of money and a very large developement team (what was it 70'ish people for Hl2?). Valve were a small developer pre-HL1, but nowadays they are pretty much as big as it gets.

Small developers do not have the luxury of spending 6 years and $40+m on projects.

 

[StainlessJ-FPGA]

I'm not so sure gaming is going in the right direction. At this rate, PC gaming will be dead in a few years, gaming becomes some mass product like movies (which generally, suck ass) and huge companies like EA take all over the smaller creative studios to make them all pump out sequels every year. Individual companies are struggling, and many very creative developers either died or got taking over.
I wonder how many years developers like Valve, Lionhead and Blizzard will be able to survive.

Well I for one hope blizzard dies quickly. I don't know why anyone likes their games, smaller companies have made better ones. But blizzard has better marketting to keep their fanboys happy, so they never try those other games. Blizzard is just a tentacle of Vivendi which is just like EA.

And really the state of gaming you fear is already here. Tons of games are released every year that suck ass. But just like movies, there are still many that are very good. The ones that are good shine a lot more because everyone is used to the sucky ones. I only buy like 4 PC games a year...

 

[Nick1814]

I agree, I don't want to feel like I'm killing people... and realistic gore is a bit much, don't want to see stuff like in Saving Private Ryan, thanks.

awww, i want it to be as realistic as possible, to where it traumatizes (spelling?) you when you shoot someone. Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

 

[StainlessJ-FPGA]

Realistic gore is great, try out SoF2. It's a couple years old but the graphics are still good and it has 16 body parts you can blow off!

 

[-TaNaKa-]

real photorealistic gfx would suck imo. We will see in the future.

 

[Tyguy]

Valve has gotten larger since hl1, but when you look at companies like EA, Activision, etc, you can see a notable difference......

 

[PvtRyan]

Realistic gore is great, try out SoF2. It's a couple years old but the graphics are still good and it has 16 body parts you can blow off!

Just found the answer to the great mystery why you think Blizzard sucks....

And everyone knows, movies don't make any money. The video gaming industry is a multi-billion dollar business, it is not going anywhere, anytime soon.

And no one told you that PC gaming isn't doing that well? It's the console industry that's making by far the most money. It's hardly worth while making a game for the PC. Just make 'em for the console and port it to the PC. That's the future for PC gaming, unless console and PC somehow merge into one central entertainment system.

 

[surferjoe]

First game I every bought for my computer was Half-Life. What an introduction to computer gaming! It was awesome

 

[MadLog1c]

The next step other than graphics is definately AI. Who knows how long it'll take to perfect artificial inteligence.

 

[BetaMaster]

Valve were a small developer pre-HL1, but nowadays they are pretty much as big as it gets.

Ok, this really annoys me when people do this. Why do you pluralize "Valve"? I realize that Valve is a team of people, but would you say "The school board were strict on my cherrybomb"? No. You'd say "The school board was strict on my cherrbomb".
I've been trying to let it go, but it just annoys me so much seeing that....Sorry, you can go back to your discussion now.

 

[ShadowFox]

A lot of odd comments in this thread.

Personally, I don't see why anybody would want Blizzard to go away. I am not a huge fan of their gameplay.. but I can tell that the games were well made. They are the premier strategy PC developer, especially with Westwood long gone. If Blizzard goes, then you know something is wrong.

As for how long Blizzard, Valve, id, Lionheart etc last.. well I say they last as long as they make good games. There are some exceptions, such as Looking Glass, but in general if you make a good product, you will stick around.

And no one told you that PC gaming isn't doing that well? It's the console industry that's making by far the most money. It's hardly worth while making a game for the PC. Just make 'em for the console and port it to the PC. That's the future for PC gaming, unless console and PC somehow merge into one central entertainment system.

This is interesting as well considering 2004 has been a banner year for PC gaming. Consoles have ALWAYS made lots more money than the PC, ever since Nintendo. That is the nature of the beast. The PC industry has lasted 15 years in such conditions. It will last some more.

Valve has gotten larger since hl1, but when you look at companies like EA, Activision, etc, you can see a notable difference......

That is because Valve is a developer while EA and Activision are publishers. Although EA does have in house studios.

 

[CookieCuttah]

PC will last long...Eventually all the cool kids will get tired of video games since there is nothing special about being a virtual gangster anymore and consoles will cease to exist. Either that or PC's will get cheap enough for you to update it super frequently and have all top of the line stuff.

 

[Ownzed]

They won't get 100% photorealistic or 100% realistic AI

 

[Thadius Dean]

^i dono, check out the gallery on 3dtotal.com, some of that stuff is nearly , if not photo realistic, and thats TODAY. mabye 2 years from now we will be seeing that stuff in realtime gameplay. :O

 

[StainlessJ-FPGA]

^i dono, check out the gallery on 3dtotal.com, some of that stuff is nearly , if not photo realistic, and thats TODAY. mabye 2 years from now we will be seeing that stuff in realtime gameplay. :O

I'd like Santa to bring me a computer than can play games with that level of detail. Seriously, that's nice. Watch the Last Flight of the Osiris in the Animatrix, it's that good too. Highest detailed video I've ever seen.

 

[Vesh]

I'm looking for open worlds with realistic causality and a storytelling heuristics. Developers could craft worlds, then lay down what they consider proper storytelling schema and allow the game to play itself out with the player as main character. They could easily outline a central thread or major points of a plot and let the peripheral occurances happen within the causal simulation. Everybody gets basically the same story but things could unfold in totally different ways.

But that kinda thing's so far down the line it's silly. Maybe I'm overthinking the whole idea, but that'll probably be for the quantum computing days. I cant imagine current computing platforms being capable of simulating that many realistic artificial psychologies and the mechanical/causal physics. Still... it would be amazing to be in the middle of a totally unpredictable world full of ever-progressing characters. You could argue that you can get that from real people in MMOs, but they're too mired in the D&D "You've leveled up! You can now use the Flameco Flamey Dagger of Flamedom!" crap to have an actual breathing world with a livable plot.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Well to be honest, the future of gaming in a few years is gonna be using different engine methods. I mean how many millions of polygon creatures can we make? Maybe there will be a new display system or system, but as we stand now I don't think that the engines which have been using the same method for years, will hold up for many more years (although as of now, its great)

100% photorealistic stuff could possibly be cool... 100% aliens would be awesome, but when stuff is like indistinguishable from reality and I can relate and connect (like photorealistic dog or something with good AI) then I wouldn't want to do anything...

Well then a game called Postal10 and let you just go loose

Anyways virtual reality, and true 3d displays in 3d space is what I'm hoping for...

not a clue what I just said just typing without thinking

 

[KoreBolteR]

I agree, I don't want to feel like I'm killing people... and realistic gore is a bit much, don't want to see stuff like in Saving Private Ryan, thanks.

i do

 

[DigitalAssassin]

The increasing rate of computer technology is finally slowing down. Physics is bashing heads with silicon. Until we start crushing graphite, making diamond, and creating computer chips with that diamond (which is already being done experimentally), we won't see any giant leaps in the computer world (and therefore, no great leaps in the computer gaming world either).

With the next generation of gaming consoles coming out soon, we should see a shift toward high end graphics, but not much more spectacular than we've already seen. The Unreal 3 & ElderScrolls 4: Oblivion-type games will be as good as it gets.

Do a search for 'diamond computer chips' and you'll see that this technology is already in the making. In 20 years, we could very well have 20ghz processors sucking more power out of our walls than anything seen before. Diamond has a 200 volt tolorance (as opposed to 20 volts for silicon). I wonder where graphics cards are going next...

 

[Tyguy]

The next thing for gaming is to have realistic enviroments...meaning night turns to day, shadows are correct, etc....

its all the little things that make games good, hl2 did a great job with that, and I sure hl3 will too

 

[uberBullsquid]

I'm looking for open worlds with realistic causality and a storytelling heuristics. Developers could craft worlds, then lay down what they consider proper storytelling schema and allow the game to play itself out with the player as main character. They could easily outline a central thread or major points of a plot and let the peripheral occurances happen within the causal simulation. Everybody gets basically the same story but things could unfold in totally different ways.

this is really what id like to see as the future, complete open endedness and characters on the verge of ai... it would allow for a shitload of replayability too.

that and VR or something that allows a realistic feeling of interaction. I would prefer the same level of gfx in hl2, but have the control that vr would offer as opposed to having a 100% photo realistic world on a screen in front of me using a kb and mouse to interact. Visually, things have come far, but not control wise...

The thing is, we are alot closer to seeing photorealistic gfx than what i mentioned above, but some day...

 

[Tyguy]

that would be cool.....having beaten a game and having a completely different perspective the second time playing it....im sure games like this are around the corner

 

[Mr.Wotsit]

Ultimately, I would say that this industry needs to get to a point where everybody is working under a single engine that simulates reality and may be tweaked in the direction of whatever purpose the game serves.

I mean, until all games start off with an equal potential environment, comparisons between them will forever be tainted by talk of graphics and hardware capabilities and they will become ugly and unplayable within a couple of years of release.

For example, Final Fantasy VII was an awesome experience for me personally however, I now cannot face the horrific display of the characters and other features. This isn't a problem with formats such as literature or films.

This is why I think this is the most significant step before games achieve their own true recognition as a format of entertainment and may inherit their true potential.

As for photo-realistic situations, it would be beyond horrific to actually perfectly simulate killing someone. That is not something that I *ever* want to experience in anything other than a "hollywood"-ised and unrealistic manner.
Due to the nature of computers and their ability to create environments beyond those possible in reality, more abstract games also seem to offer an opportunity for games to prosper and provide a unique experience.

The future's bright