What lies in the future for video games

[phart010 1,585]

So video games pretty much started with Atari pong in 1972. This was paradigm 1, 2D-gaming. It started with bleep-blip sounds and the graphics processors required assistance from your imagination. Over the next two decades, 2D graphics improved, new genres emerged, and overall video games just got more fun until around 1993-1996-ish when we experienced what some call the “golden age of gaming” basically a period where it seemed that developers had mastered 2D video game making.

Toward  this time some 3D games were made, but 3D wasn’t really mainstreamed until the commercial release of Sega Saturn in 1994 (Sorry, I don’t consider PC to have been main stream back then). 1972-1994 was 22 years of 2D gaming. 

Some people say that first-gen 3D consoles did not age well. I would agree. That is because these systems were the Atari of the 3D paradigm.  Each generation improved things until today, in which I feel we are in the second golden age of video gaming. This is the golden age of 3D games. 1994-2019.. we’ve been in this 3D gaming paradigm for 25 years..

I don’t know what the next paradigm of video gaming will be . We do see hints of potential in various technologies, but the new paradigm doesn’t seem to have solidified yet to reveal itself. Some ideas that seem to have been toyed with are:

Augmented reality (AR): Nintendo dabbled in AR it on 3DS. TONS of iPhone/Android apps use AR. Microsoft did Xbox Kinect. Google is developing Google glasses and currently Microsoft is heavily invested in HoloLens.

Virtual reality (VR): Oculus Rift kicked it off, Sony mainstreamed it, and Nintendo is toying with it on Labo.

Socially interactive gaming: this was an interesting idea Nintendo brushed upon with 1-2 Switch. I feel they discovered a new concept to bridge the gap between gaming and real life, but they kinda didn’t go further with it. I could see something like this being expanded on.

What do you think we are transitioning to next?

Edited October 29, 2019 by phart010

[ALTQQ 87]

Micro transactions and cell phone games. Fits perfectly into people's low attention span busy lives. I play animal crossing on my phone all the time. It's a quick easy win when you want to play a game but have a bunch of stuff to do 

[ThePhleo 1,963]

Seasonal Gaming.

Wouldnt be surprised to see FIFA, Madden, etc. just become like channels on a tv and gon100% digital subscription based with tiered levels of access to features.

[Philosoraptor 368]

If AAA gaming gets its way, it'll be more of a service model. Ideally, a large game release would also have periodic content updates to keep players playing and paying as long as possible. More and more, devs are finding ways to add additional transactions to games through gambling elements, loot boxes (which are being regulated in some countries in Europe now), gachas, quality of life improvements to avoid having to grind for items or levels, and once-unlockable content that has now been gated off behind paywalls. And for good reason: it can add a lot of revenue to their bottom lines.

Thankfully, not all devs and publishers do this, but many see customers purchasing a game as the first of many purchases instead of the first and only purchase. 

[empire 106]

Streaming will be the next format when physical dies off after next gen. Open the app on your phone and you can access your account and saved games wherever you go. Rather than buying games individually, I think we'll have a monthly fee which lets us play whatever we want.

[arch_8ngel 1,597]

4 minutes ago, empire said:

Streaming will be the next format when physical dies off after next gen. Open the app on your phone and you can access your account and saved games wherever you go. Rather than buying games individually, I think we'll have a monthly fee which lets us play whatever we want.

I think we are further from game-streaming being practical than a single console generation.

There are huge swathes of the USA that are under-served for high speed internet access, and data caps are a real concern when you look at the estimates Google put out for their service.

[DefaultGen 4,416]

Services like Xbox Game Pass and Apple Arcade absolutely seems like the future to me. I get a big list of games I sort-of care about, a couple big releases that make it feel like a good deal, it's cheap, they get my money every month, and I don't actually own anything. I think we're each going to 1-2 game subscriptions then occasionally buy our favorites like we all have Netflix and sometimes buy a blu-ray or Amazon movie now.

I think big standalone games like an Elder Scrolls are going to figure out how to constantly monetize without upsetting the entire fanbase or simply re-releasing the same game 100 times. Fallout 76 was a big failed experiment in that aspect, but a $5 used copy of Skyrim with 200 hours of gameplay is "too good of a deal" for gaming in the modern age. I think single player games will likely have more MMO-like structures where you subscribe to content updates or something.

I think we're a long ways off from people accepting streaming games due to bandwidth requirements, input lag, and the limitations of compressed streaming video in a world where it looks increasingly like high refresh rate, ultra high def gaming is on the horizon for consoles.

Edited October 29, 2019 by DefaultGen

[jonebone 1,252]

I assume subscription based gaming. And AAA titles are probably still sold individually.

[Jfreakofkorn 206]

I sense gaming will be like the movie one player. With everything online and no physical copies except hardware ( like gloves, googles, suits, shoes, etc . . . ). we ll be the generation of elders at nursing homes at where we will still warm up our nes/snes/gamecubes/n64s/wii s among many other systems 

[G-type 1,770]

Yea, I'm not sure how far away it is, but streaming games-on-demand will likely be the way to go in the future. All you'll need is the compatible controller and a monthly netflix style subscription

[Phyrexian Hulk 15]

I think we are approaching the end of an important era in video games. I'm in agreement with everyone in this thread, physical media is on the way out, and we are in the golden age of 3D gaming. I'm sad & excited at the same time as we move into the next iteration of gaming. So what's next? Good question. AR & VR will likely push forward in a massive leap over the next few years as the tech for it improves and becomes cheaper. I see cloud gaming becoming  a reality in countries like South Korea & Japan where the infrastructure for Gigabit Internet is in place. Mobile gaming is here to stay of course and will continue to expand. I also agree that subscription based models with video games are going to be more heavily pushed for in the future. Gaming will be like having a sub to Netflix, or Disney +. Companies need a constant revenue stream to move forward. They've been able to keep new game prices at around $60 for nearly 20 years now, but that's because we are moving to digital only. Once that fully happens prices for games will either go up or you'll have a subscription to even it out. I wouldn't be surprised to see a subscription based system that you must be a part of just to purchase new games in the future. As AAA game development increases this becomes more likely. 

[fox 1,418]

Ray Tracing.  Video games are about to get lit.