Through a glass darkly -
January 02, 2001 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot. I like airports. No, really, I do.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
The poll is over, and thanks to everyone who participated. I've got
to do some heavy duty driving Thursday, so I'll likely include the
poll results writeup along with tomorrow's column, and that'll
have to hold you until I can do my regular Friday gig.
Meantime we've got a lot of great stuff on future gaming predictions,
so...
Onward.
| What else is there? |
| Hey Chris,
I'd have to say that I have no idea what games will be like 10 years from
now. We made the big jump from sprites to polygons back with
the release of the Playstation, now we're seeing the jump from the rather
low polygon count, blocky characters to hig polygon count, more realistic
looking characters. I'm not sure how much things can progress and still be
considered console gaming, at least. We can make the graphics even better
and more realistic, but that's about it. People could argue that there is
still a lot we can do with control, but I don't see many true innovations
coming around any time soon. We already have analog control, force
feedback, and a bunch of buttons. What else is there? Virtual Reality
headsets could be all the rage in 10 years, assuming they've mastered
graphics and can get the units out at an affordable price. I think we
still have a way to go before holodecks, though...
-CTZanderman, working out a deal with mini-standee Borgan to "hit" Agent
Jones for that recent humorless column |
Other people below suggest lots of new directions that games could
take off in, but let me suggest just one. Instead of developing
graphics that grow ever more realistic, let's see some graphics that
grow more stylistic. We can and will have games that have perfect 3D
modeling, but why not make a game that looks more like a cartoon, like
Legend of Mana?
Or better yet, have an ENTIRE GAME done in the style
of, say, Akira Toriyama. Forget him doing just the monster designs, have
everything, from heros to villians to houses, look like an Akira
Toriyama drawing, This doesn't even have to be in 2D - if Futurama can
have a 3D cartoon, no reason it can't be repeated on the PS2. Let's see
something really innovative, rather than just slathering more
infinitely fine polygons on the screen. The power is there, now all we
need is the development talent to pull it off.
| What else there is
(FF7 spoilers) |
| Hi,
I'll get straight to the point. Now that the world of the audiovisual has been
all but mastered, the next step is to spend the next 10 years ramping up the
other facets of gaming to match. Things like voice recognition (which we've
started), massively multiplayer console games (which we've also started), and
so on. One thing I'd really like to see is 'real' artificial intelligence. That's a bit
of an oxymoron, but I'm sure you see where I'm going. Imagine RPG characters
that had real personalities and conversational abilities. For example, I could approach
a town watchman and discuss the weather, after which I could ask him for directions to
various places. And he'd come up with his lines on the spot. Or what about smarter
enemies. I often see (in this letters column, and in other places as well) that RPG
difficulty is equated with "bosses that you can't beat unless you level up a lot".
The RPG model is much more flexible than that, though. Especially now. So who
knows what games would be like with intelligent enemies that could apply even a
tenth of a human's reasoning power? Maybe they would start working together ...
by themselves. Or, how about giving an entire RPG world the power to autonomously
evolve and progress through time? The possibilities are, as they say, endless.
It's no coincedence that the RPG improvements I speak of are along the lines
of making console RPGs a little more like MUDs. In a sense, MUDs are the ultimate
forms of RPGs; you have free interaction (hostile or not) with many characters
backed by human intelligence, and you can role-play to your heart's content
in a world that changes almost every day. There are lots of things that stay the same,
but more than enough variety to keep you interested. Just like the real world. With
powerful AI, console RPGs can head towards that level of interaction, but without
losing the singular vision and direction that gives them the powerful story elements
and endearing characters that we cherish.
Leviathan |
I see where you're coming from, but I disagree with where you're
going. A console RPG, online or not, set up in the manner you suggest
would be a very interesting and compelling thing, but it would more or
less murder what sets a console RPG apart from MUDs, PC RPGs, etc. -
namely, the story. You're arguing for more autonomy and flexiblity in
a game; you want the world to evolve and the enemies to take their own
initiative in fighting back. The problem is, that's completely
contrary to setting up memorable story events.
If Sepiroth could have
altered his plans of his own free will, perhaps he would have struck
sooner or later than he did, or not struck at all. Perhaps he would
have ended up killing Cloud instead of Aeris, or Tifa, or no one at
all. And since the entire story is set up around Aeris's death, where
woudl that leave the rest of the game? We might still have a pretty
good story, but not as good as the original, because the
foreshadowing and setup needed for great drama wouldn't be possible.
The kind of interactive worlds you suggest almost certainly will be
created, and that's great, but they'd be an entirely new genre,
developing in parallel to console RPGs rather than on top of them.
| Things are lookjing
better all the time, so it doesn't matter how things look at all |
| Instead of a wild, divergent theory about the future of videogaming, I can
only offer an extrapolation of a current gaming trend--that of the lessened
importance of graphical splendour.
Remember when the SNES was released? Super Mario World was, graphically,
leaps and bounds above any game up to that point. The Saturn, PSX, and N64
ushered in yet another period of revolutionary visuals. In fact, pretty much
every system that came out in the history of videogames had incredible
graphics for the time. However, things have been different recently. The
Dreamcast was certainly an improvement from the PSX or N64, but the
graphical difference was simply not as large as seen before. The PS2
exacerbated the situation...Dead or Alive 2 is nearly identical on the DC
and PS2 versions.
My point? It seems the law of diminishing graphical returns is finally
kicking in. No doubt there will be another generation or two of graphical
leaps, but with some next-gen games looking almost as good as the Final
Fantasy Movie, how long can it last?
What this will mean for game makers is that games will have to be
distinguished not by their graphical prowess but by something
else...hopefully gameplay, but maybe big-name titles, a unique graphical
style (like in Jet Grind Radio), or some sort of add-on gimmick (Hey You
Pikachu! comes to mind). As the technology will be more or less stable,
creators will more readily be able to express their creative visions, and
gaming will fall farther into the realm of art, just as movies did when they
ceased to become an experimental medium.
Is a golden age of gaming on the horizon? Most likely.
-Ybhan D'Ari |
Dammit, Ybhan, you stole my idea. Or maybe I stole yours... I
dunno, it's late. Onward.
| Futuristic dystopias
can be fun! |
| CJ,
In the year 2010..... *bad Conan show impression*
Sega has become a third-party developer for the remaining console systems:
PS4, GameBox, and XCube. The past two generations of console game wars has
led Nintendo into releasing only kid/party games, while Sony did more
teen/adult titles. Microsoft continued to be the wild card by releasing
games mostly at random, but still managed to get sales by porting every good
game made by someone else to their system after a few months. Ironically,
Microsoft became the Macintosh of the console world.
As far as games go, I'd hope by then that companies would stop restricting
or censoring the original artistic concept and vision of the games they make
(i.e. more sex). But in all seriousness, I hope that RPGs and the like get
mainstream-ed enough so that a 27 year old playing one for up to 40 hours a
week would seem cool. Very cool. Maybe even sexy....
-Red Raven, wondering why that isn't sexy already |
Come on, Red, have a little more faith. Things were far more limited 10
years ago, with Nintendo as the unquestioned king of the world, Sega
running a distant second, and NEC barely making a dot on the radar screen.
Sega's still running a distant second (or third, or whatever) these days,
but the main player on today's scene didn't even exist in the console
world 10 years ago. And things are only going to get more crowded from here
on out - I wouldn't be surprised to see the 2010 market dominated yet
again by companies who aren't even in the runnign at the moment.
| They won't change....
we will |
|
Hardware will be smaller, with a stronger emphasis on portability and the
ability to connect and play with other people. I see the X-Box 2010 (if the
first X-Box succeeds in breaking into the market) ruling network play with
MMORPGs, FPSs, and maybe even some Sports titles. Microsoft will command
because they'll encourage free, temporary servers (that'll last until the
game gets old)--making money from game sales rather than monthly fees.
Sony's attempts will die aborning (along with Square's, alas), because
they'll try to invest too much into each game's online world and charge too
much to play.
Graphics will (of course), only get better, but I suspect that after a few
years, graphics will peak out at near photo-realism. Graphically, we'll get
two sorts of games--those with more cartoonish (though masterful) FMV, and
those that feature video footage of actors (which will be much cheaper to
make). Total voice acting will become the norm.
Between this round in the console war, and the next in 2005(ish), console
gaming will become even more visible in the media and to Joe Shmoe.
Magazines and newspapers will reviews games in addition to movies, plays,
and books. In-game music will regularly feature popular recording artists
and the veterans of hollywood orchestrastion. The music video will feature
game footage. Oprah will do a show on the video games that will nourish our
spirit.
As games become increasingly mainstream, RPGs will see a great change in the
way stories are told. Fantasy will never be left behind, but we can expect
great (and terrible) tales in other genres, especially sci-fi, horror, and
even romance (in the style of American movies). Ten years from now, our
mothers will be playing the latest RPG like she's curling up with a good
book, while our fathers play NFL 2KX with the rest of the neighborhood
guys.
In the next ten years, we will see the more change in the way the culture
looks at gaming than in the games themselves. Or so it occurs to me.
DarkLao
|
I'd love to see this kind of mainstream gaming world you speak of,
but there are a couple of big obstacles in the way first. For one
thing, I very much doubt that anyone who didn't grow up with games will
be ever be converted, simply because they can't see video games as
anything but pushing buttons according to little bleeps and bloops on
a tv screen, no matter how good the graphics get. It's simply a
cultural conditioning thing, and it likely won't ever change.
For another thing, serious gaming demands a lot of time, which is not
in great supply. My sister's still amazed that I can spend 40 hours
playing through a single game, since she's hard pressed to have a 3 hour
movie hold her interest. And it's not that she's some soft-headed
minority, far from it - it's us who are the anomolies, since we've
got the time and the desire to stick with a game for that long. Even
non-RPGs (sports games, fighting games, FPS and RTS)
can take a similar amount of time to get good at, and not everybody has
that kind of time to adapt. Perhaps games will become good enough for
people to start dropping other things (like TV) to pay attention to them,
but I'm not holding my breath.
| Choose your own
adventure |
| What do I see in the future? Well, aside from the usual improvements (load
time, diversity in selection, etc.), I see a new hero, one to surpass all
heroes before him. One that the player can "become one" with, can really
feel compassionate towards. That hero is none other than me.
Yes, that's right. Me, your slightly-brighter-than-average Joe off the
streets. Or it could be Andrew Kaufmann. For a lark, how about you? What
I'm getting at is the one option companies have barely begun to scratch the
surface of: customizability. While the first custom option would probably be
the naming of RPG characters, the most recent attempt that would have made
for a possible breakthrough would probably be the conjunction of the Game Boy
Camera and a certain N64 Shooter... but I digress.
Let me try another example. Take the recent release of the RPG Maker. The
traditional phrase, I believe would be "kick it up a notch." I say, "Notch?
Who cares about notches? Break the friggin' knob!" The general premise, in
my mind, is some way for the player to become the programmer, only instead of
computer languages, which only a fraction of the populace have a basic
understanding of, let alone fluency, some type of "thought speak" would be
developed, so the player could make their own character, tailored to their
own specifications (Hair, eyes, facial expression, general mindset,
abilities/stats, er, "endowments" [Hey, you know there'd be a new genre of
first person games, as much as our dignity wishes for us to deny it.]) .
Next up is the genre/style of play. Mix and match time, folks! You have
your RPG, your shooter, your platformer, your puzzle. Sci-fi, history! , ! !
consipratorial, fantasy. Music! Do you prefer big, brassy swing tunes or a
melodramatic synthesized piano? And, for you RPG nuts out there, magic.
Lightning, death, fire, ice, healing, you name it! Just picture it in your
mind and boom! It's on the screen. While it's obvious that such
technologies are very far off, you have to admit that we're getting ever
closer to such a pinnacle.
Thinking of a cross between Metal Gear Solid and the Lunar universe,
Aleksandrs Bomis |
Again, this is undoubtably something there'll be a market for, but
it's not something I have a burning desire to see. It's really the
same argument I made to Leviathan all over again - great RPGs don't
just happen, they need to be carefully constructed, and they're really
hard to get perfect. Allowing people to practice making their own RPGs
is a fine thing, but maybe one in a million will be able to produce
something more than an interesting curiosity.
Of course, I'd also be thrilled if someone could prove me wrong here,
so it's something of a win-win situation for me.
| Don't know the answer?
Cast suspicion on someone else instead! |
| By the time 2010 comes along, video game company executives will finally
figure out that spending thousands of dollars on developing AI is a waste
and they will FORCE developers to start making just about all of their games
online only. It will cut down on development time, and by then there will
probably be some kind of internet connection in about 100% of american
homes. That will alter the way games are played. How will it? If I knew, I'd
get my @$$ out there and make it happen. I surely wouldn't be so naive to
give it to you. I have a feeling that was what this topic was all about.
Trying to rip off somebody else's ideas. WASN'T IT!!! WASN'T IT!!!!
H-Box
Who can't end any paragraph without some wild accusation. |
Consarn it! And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't
for those meddling kids!
... I dunno what I was thinking there, really. Have mercy, it's too
damn late for this stuff...
| "One of these quotes
must be right." -Ian P. |
| "I think it's time for Sega to move on and be a software developer. I
love the Dreamcast, but it's a shame that with all of its great games
the hardware has so many problems, which clearly hints at the fact that
Sega at this point isn't able anymore to be hardware player." -Julian
Eggebrecht
"Between Xbox and GameCube, one of the dangers that Nintendo faces is
that they're going to be stuck in the market they're in right now, which
is the child's market. That is a big fear I have. They have to be very
careful about selecting certain adult titles so that they don't get
stuck in that market." -Julian Eggebrecht, Factor 5 IGNCube Interview
"Well, Microsoft has a problem because MSN still relies on the internet.
If you’re going to try to go out and get involved in a high-twitch type
of gaming, unless they do something different within MSN that is going
to be a VPN, then you’re no better off than going out on Earthlink or
any of these other ISPs where sometimes it’ll be good, and sometimes it
won’t work at all for them." -Peter Moore
"There are four or five third parties that have never done anything for
this platform that clearly wish we were never around. But we’ve learned
to live without those guys, and with the world’s best first-party
content flow, Sega’s not afraid to play." -Peter Moore
"We are fully committed to the Dreamcast." -Peter Moore, SOA President,
IGNDC Interview
"Sony and Nintendo have proven that they are capable of making the right
choices in the past, but Microsoft definitely is a big contender due to
the large amount of resources available to them." -Bill Gardner, Capcom,
PSM Interview
"PS2 and Xbox will battle it out for the right to be called the dominant
gaming system. Nintendo will capture the "younger gamer" market with the
Gamecube based on popular properties such as Pokemon and their handheld
business. Sega will own the online gaming niche but will find out
quickly that it may not be enough in the long run." -Chris Mike, Konami,
PSM Interview
"Both Nintendo and Microsoft will have to contend with the one-year head
start of PS2. I think the key is not whether anyone will knock Sony out
of the #1 position, but whether the companies at #2 and #3 will be able
to establish a profitable business for themselves and the companies that
publish games on their systems." -Mike Fischer, Namco, PSM Interview
"I have said this many times: the type of developer that is primarily
concerned with the difficulty of developing for a system, rather than
finding the platform which will allow their game to reach the broadest
market, is not the type of developer that will make the games you want
to play." -Jason Rubin, Naughty Dog, PSM Interview
I'm amazed the qoutes are under 500 words. Err. I read the various
interviews these all came from in the span of about two days, and thus
they seemed to be pretty interesting all together. Where do I see games
in 2010? On machines a thousand times more hyped than the ones they're
on today.
~Ian "Luscious Badger" P. |
And who am I to argue with these luminaries, much less Ian P.
himself? Onward.
| From far-future to
near-future speculation... |
| Chris,
Apparently the New York Times ran a story not too long
ago saying that Nintendo was in negotiations with Sega
about buying them out. I guess so far they are just
rumors, but what do you think that would mean for
gaming if Nintendo DID buy Sega? Would they become
just a software publisher? What would be the impact on
Sony and Microsoft to have two competitors fuse into
one, and would the buyout even be approved by the
government (assuming that is relevant)?
SSJPabs,
PS: Since Infograms is releasing a Dragonball Z RPG
this summer, I damn well expect to see it reviewed
even if it gets a -4 rating. |
Being stuck with a narrow bandwidth pipe for the last couple of
days, I haven't been able to read up on this as much as I'd like.
Still, this is a topic whose time has come... see below.
Closing Comments:
All I can say is, I've got to remember to put this column away in
long term storage so I can look it up 10 years from now and laugh at
how far off everybody was in their predictions, me included.
For tomorrow, send in your thoughts on this (possibly spurious) Sega/Nintendo buyout thing.
What does it mean? Sonic as a playable character in Super Smash Brothers
2? Ryo to have access to a virtual Virtual Boy in the next chapter of
Shenmue? Ulala to replace Zelda as Link's love interest? Enlighten me, and
I'll talk to you tomorrow.
-Chris Jones, too damn lazy
to proof this column tonight
|
