Gaming and it's potential future

[Wily Duck]

I'd like to bring this recent slashdot article to your attention:

Videogames Doomed for a 'Comics-like Ghetto'?
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/15/2154235

Now it's time to quote DA Gamedev, written by myself:
http://gamedev.digitalamusement.com/gamedev.shtml or http://gamedev.digitalamusement.com/archive17.shtml
5-14-2007
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One gaming note I do want to make. There is a pattern of inevitibility I've called out before, now obvious. We are in a game industry bubble, i.e. the internet bubble which blew out in 1999. We've got until around 2019 until the whole industry goes 1985. For those that don't understand, video gaming went from "wow! cool!" to "the hell with this" really quickly, the whole damn thing suddenly imploded on itself, retailers were as quick to stock game consoles as they were to stock anatomically correct barbies. The businessmen-sharks (yes the kind with lasers on their heads) have gotten a foothold on the industry and are prepared to drive it into the dirt while holding a net out the window catching dollar bills flying by as they burn off the engine. I'll explain all the gritty details in another post.
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It appears a few others are starting to see this too. I don't write the above as some distant possibility, but calculated reality. This is why I've avoided making a long-time dream come true - getting into the game industry. Being that America is bent on exploitation to make the next buck, the game industry is very well within bounds for exploitation.

I think it is important right now to note that the game industry will suffer a 1999 dot-com disaster. But how will we get there? A little dissection...

The next big WOW is physics. Once this fad is overcome, you'll find fully destructible environments are common, bullets that tear through flesh realistically normal, stuff that breaks according to composition, accurate phase changing (ice to steam), realistic genetic growth methods (think Spore-ish types), perfected lighting and illumination, transitive properties, absorbtion and dissipation... etc etc all are run-of-the-mill.

All these physics properties are the next big candy-filled playground for programmers and gamers. Within 2 years, you'll see a major shift into making these effects happen. Why? Because video/graphical effects will officially be obsolete. Marketing will demand something new to WOW consumers, physics is it. Again, our American exploitation efforts will harvest this new resource as absolutely fast as possible. Around 2016, you can expect to be saying "eh yea that's cool, but really nothing new". Push 2 years after that (think of how long 2 years is in game industry terms), now what's left? Yes there will be hardware/interface improvements in next generation consoles (I mean like Wii2 or XBOX720 or whatever), but nothing will drop gravimetric bombs on the game playing populace like awesome physics. At this point, there is only one thing left.

Gameplay. Right now, we're experiencing another iteration of "what?! games need gameplay? why are my sales sucking, they look awesome!!!11". Nintendo and XBOX Live are bringing back old-school gaming with current-gen techniques. I think that's awesome, old-school is generally known for games that utilized gameplay as their strength. This field of gaming will never die. In fact, if the DS were to be ported to a console, or the SNES brought back enabling net connectivity and 3rd party free development, those consoles would be near immortal. Everything else has an expiration date.

On a side note, this makes me think for a second, getting into theoretical physics (love em) - we have 2d gaming, 3d gaming. Then, 4d gaming - they're call MMO games. For the non-theoretical science geeks, 4d is the encapsulating dimension responsible for time i.e. change. Why classify MMOs as 4d gaming? Because they change regardless if you play them or not. 3d games are isolated, they do not change, the rules of their world/universe always remain the same. Pretty interesting concept!

Back to the doom, it is inevitable games will run out of quick-fix attention-deficit WOWs. Mass psychology patterns point to an industry crash about 2019. What would that crash entail? Publisher stocks doing this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble#List_of_companies_significant_to_the_bubble

Meaning triple A games will become very rare. Game release volumes drop dramatically. Game studios closing down en mass. I'd expect just before this time, one huge push by the few remaining publisher titans will sink stupid amounts of money into nearly all their titles attempting to make them ALL triple-A titles. And ......... FAILURE. Little return for the investment. Stockholders bail. PR spins out of control. Analysts, reporters, magazines, forum buzz, all want a swing of the hammer driving nails in a coffin. Game companies declaring "I'm not dead yet!", well you know what happens.

I've cited myself in this post from a writing of 9 months ago. I expect to cite this post in the future, pointing out the parallels of current events to those listed here. I don't do this out of arrogance or ego. If any of this could affect your livelyhood, i.e. you work for a game company, I'd suggest planning for a new career in the time it'd take you to get a degree in a different field. Or something. I'm going to guess if you are that close to the industry, these thoughts may have already crossed your mind. I just put a date on them.