Thread: Future of Gaming

Am I the only one who believes that the raising bar of next-gen console games will eventually die out? I would think that the raising devolpment cost vs. profit of "next-gen" gaming will not only turn down some gamers but force developers to emphasize certain aspects(graphics) over others in order to "Advertise" their products.

Is this decline destined? A set economic mechanism to prevent the ongoing evolution of gaming for the masses? Of course one can argue this "evolution" will always be working by forcing developers to realize high defintion realism isn't necessarily better than some art styles in gaming. Am I raving mad? Or do my predictions hold some water?

As long as you have Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo battling for a larger gaming marketshare, games will keep improving over time. If one of them takes over and "wins" the console wars, we'll all lose because they will no longer have an incentive to keep making things better.

We have competition to thank then. I just hope these companies won't have to risk bankrupcy in order to provide decreasing prices.

Even if one company wins the console wars (which won't happen) there are still hundreds of developer companies and even more third party developers. If game dev companies get lazy then the open source market will call them on it.

OpenGL, ODE, Havok, DarkBasic... allow 3rd party people to make huge advances in the game industry and will continue to push it along.

In my opinion games are getting better, not worse even as they focus more on graphics. Good stories are key for a game to take off now. Remember, game development companies are teams and there is usually maybe one or two graphics specialists on that team, plus maybe two or three modelers. The rest are working on the engine, AI, and story.

The graphics might advance but not cheesy storylines, the graphics will always advance limitless, bump mapping is the whole jazz right now but soon bump mapping will be replaced with paralax mapping which makes textures look 3d, the graphics will just keep getting better but don't expect the gameplay to keep up.

I honestly would rather see gameplay improve, the graphics are already good enough for me, you can get better but gameplay is what makes a game fun.

Graphics are almost unlimited in what is displayed. There are still a lot of advancements to go though, whoever solves the problem of chromatic reflection will get his name on the algorithm. Refraction still has to be done with raytracing and therefore not able to be put in games.

What I'm looking forwards to soon though is dedicated physics cards. As good as the Havok engine is, it's slow and still very restricted. It can't do cloth or liquid in real time, I can't wait to see better simulations in games.

The storylines and gameplay are getting more sophisticated all the time. Many game companies have professional sci-fi writers on their payroll.

Just to throw my 2 cents in. I think the quest for accurate physics is complete bullocks in the long run. Accurate physics does not make the game fun, in contrast, it more often hampers game maker's creativity and style.

Lets picture a perfect physics engine, destructible everything.

Now lets look at the 2nd law of thermodynamics, everything moves towards equilibrium. Essentially, this means that in a "perfect game" everything just moves towards being the same, best represented by a pile of rubble that used to be a fun, well designed map.

The best games are ones that simulate physics in ways that make it fun. The same thing applies to art. Why has anime become so popular even though the detail and realism are actually crap? It's well stylized.

Stylized art > full realism
Fudged physics > real physics

Graphics can always get better. While it's true that we can do photorealistic graphics, it takes minutes to do a single frame. Games are not photorealistic. Color reflection, refraction, true shadowing, and true reflections are still impossible in games. Next-gen is anything but realistic.

An everything destructible game won't end up in a pile of rubble. For most buildings it would take all of the weaponry in the game to level it, it's not like you are given huge bombs in gameplay. What's a rocket launcher going to do to a bunker?

Physics won't get there any time soon, but I would like to see realistic fluid and clothe simulation in the next generation of consoles as well as realistic air flow currents. Smoke looks okay in current games, but it doesn't behave right. I did my senior thesis on fluid dynamics and it could easily be done in real time for air.

Voice interaction will probably be included very soon. Imagine if you're with a group of soldiers. In games now they do what their AI tells them, which is usually go towards an objective. What if suddenly a ton of enemies show up? Right now they still move forwards, but soon I think we'll be able to yell "retreat" and the voice recognition system will change the type of AI to move back.

Originally Posted by arby

Just to throw my 2 cents in. I think the quest for accurate physics is complete bullocks in the long run. Accurate physics does not make the game fun, in contrast, it more often hampers game maker's creativity and style.

Lets picture a perfect physics engine, destructible everything.

Now lets look at the 2nd law of thermodynamics, everything moves towards equilibrium. Essentially, this means that in a "perfect game" everything just moves towards being the same, best represented by a pile of rubble that used to be a fun, well designed map.

The best games are ones that simulate physics in ways that make it fun. The same thing applies to art. Why has anime become so popular even though the detail and realism are actually crap? It's well stylized.

Stylized art > full realism
Fudged physics > real physics

Funny you say that. I remember when the Ragdoll physics engine first came into use. Everyone was so happy because you could blow bodies around and stuff. Sometimes the video game industry tries to be a little bit more than what it is, an entertainment industry. Not to say cinematic games aren't fun, but sometimes you should focus more on the gameplay, then on photo realism and stuff.

We need CO-OP games and consoles that can handle players on a mass scale...like 200 people.

I would love to play some GTA game with 200 peopl XD That would be insane!

Also, gameplay > graphics...so once people start getting the graphics down, they should get better gameplay. Although the gameplay should come first and then the graphics!

I think gaming will continue to advance and advance and advance until it's virtual reality on such a level that it is pretty much 100% lifelike, then gamers will be vegetables and refuse to return to the real world, and then there'll be a big war about it, and we'll wipe ourselves out.

Anyway that's what I think.

Makes me think of what they did with Crysis, just good graphics and moderate gameplay. Although they are developing a headset that can read your mind.