Gaming in the future (5-10-15-20 years)

Unity already allows more or less that already….

GothicGothicness said:

Unity already allows more or less that already….

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Yes, the same can be said about Java and Flash but they all have a proprietary license. What I like the approach of Native Client is it's more general and can be applied to a wide range of applications. It'll probably also end up as an open standard too. There's also verification of of code like in Java, which is nice when you consider the potential security problems of running untrusted code.

Arg - so hard to say. The internet is a big part of gaming and the internet is overdue for a BIG change. The whole thing is built on trust - which worked great in the scientific/educational community that birthed it. It works like crap now. Tons of spam emails spew out constantly, denial of service attacks are tossed out at any company that offends just about anyone (Wikileaks, Ubisoft), companies slowing down access to competitors, nations getting into cyber wars… I think that, if we don't see some fundamental changes to how the internet works, we're eventually going to get to the point where we can't trust OS/Virusware updates to be from the company that should be sending them out - and then the whole thing is going to come crashing down. Humanity just isn't mature enough for the trust-based Internet. We're going to need one with a lot more safeguards to keep us from hurting each other, I'm afraid.

For gaming itself, though….

The first 64-bit only game should show up in around 5 years. (It would have been sooner if Microsoft hadn't made a 32-bit version of Windows 7.)

Graphics advances will be slowed because of the consoles. I'm hoping some developers start adding some of the nicer effects to the PC version but I wouldn't expect anything that requires a whole lot of work - they just won't want to spend the time on features that only a few players will get to see. (Luckily, stereoscopic 3D support seems to be a fairly easy thing to toss in.)

Kinect-style body controls…. This could result in entire new genres of games. I'm still hoping for a good sword fighting game. If the devs can come up with some good Kinect-based fun then it will work out great. If not, not.

I think, there might be even a backlash : Just NOT using the internet ...

Not using the internet??? Like people stop using it? That's not going to happen. It's too integrated into society now.

I know I won't stop using the internet, ever. I get too many cool mods/rogues/indies and no one would hear my rants

Truthfully, I'm hoping for more a more virtual reality experience. Just take a look at what kinds of games were made just ten or twenty years ago. Most people can't even play them because the graphics are too basic and the gameplay has a steep learning curve (my god you actually HAVE to read the manual)

Now imagine how they can improve upon the games of today so that kids in 15 to 20 years will look back on these games and think, "Man, how did they play those games back then?" The only thing I can think of is VR. There is only so far you can go with graphics and once you've reached that threshold the next move will be true 3D and then actual VR.

If you get infected by a dozen worms every time you plug into the internet you'll stop all right. I would hope that it won't come to that but, to stop it, security is going to have to be cranked up.

skavenhorde said:

Not using the internet??? Like people stop using it? That's not going to happen. It's too integrated into society now.

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It depends on the people. Like those who just see it as a tool, nothing more.

Zloth said:

If you get infected by a dozen worms every time you plug into the internet you'll stop all right.

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Yes. Some people just might get fed up with all of these "security breaches" reports - and those of worms, trojans, plain viruses … not to mention hackers, crackers, phishing, keylogging, identity theft, cyber war …

Some people might just get fed up.

And I guess it will be rather those who see the internet as nohing but a tool, a convenient tool, although.

There are still people out there who regard cars as nothing but good tools.

It's - in my opinion - actually a matter of the mindset.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

It depends on the people. Like those who just see it as a tool, nothing more.

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Tell that to the millions on Facebook

Alrik this is even far fetched for you. For the internet to go away the world would have to stop using it. That means people, governments and companies. No way in hell companies would allow all that profit to just disappear.

There is no way that the internet is going away. That's like saying TV was just a fad.

Zloth said:

If you get infected by a dozen worms every time you plug into the internet you'll stop all right. I would hope that it won't come to that but, to stop it, security is going to have to be cranked up.

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That would be on the news in 10 seconds flat and then there would be a host of users to battle the worms. If not just regular users then the companies that provide access to the internet would have their goon squad on that in no time. They wouldn't want to lose all that potential profit. Of course you would have your anti-virus companies battling that and I don't believe the governments would just sit idly back and let that happen (I would have more faith in the companies being able to handle it though). For the truly paranoid out there, they would say that the AV companies released it in the first place

No, I don't see any doomsday scenario for the internet. Unless the world actually came falling apart at the seams by war or natural disasters then there is no way the internet is going away at all.

Hmmm… I think I would put the doomsday scenerio down there around 10%. Thing is, to make it stop, I think the powers that be are going to have to make some fundamental changes to packet structure (can you digitally sign a packet?) and how packets get on the network. They will be working hard to make it as invisible to the users as possible but, without really knowing what they need to do, I can't guess how much games will have to change to accomidate. Hopefully not much.

Zloth said:

Hmmm… I think I would put the doomsday scenerio down there around 10%. Thing is, to make it stop, I think the powers that be are going to have to make some fundamental changes to packet structure (can you digitally sign a packet?) and how packets get on the network. They will be working hard to make it as invisible to the users as possible but, without really knowing what they need to do, I can't guess how much games will have to change to accomidate. Hopefully not much.

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There are already solutions for secure packet trafic but that wont stop email spam. For software updates there are also solutions ready like certificates. The only way to solve this problem is to turn your computer into a console. Now, is that something you really want?

The middle way is to remove large classes of security errors, where the biggest being insecure handling of memory on your OS. Well, that's not going to happend in the next 20 years, since it would mean a complete rewrite of both Windows and Linux. I think an open standard for virtual machine in the browser would be more successful, but that is neither going to happend because of the patent situation in US and because Microsoft won't allow it.

Bump up - what of your thoughts of then has become reality and what not ?

I just want my holodeck

Its funny that no one has mentioned the growth of tablets as smart phones as they are already outselling not just laptops but PC's. Google Glasses got some press this past April but these things have been around for 15 years at least. If they do get anywhere I can only see them as a variant of the existing smart phone/tablet popularity.

As for critiques of the future of 3D as niche, you didn't seen the glasses free display I saw at an NVidia conference two years ago. It is slick, with the only drawback being you have to be dead center to view it. When these things become more affordable it will change television..again.

I would curious if Microsoft Surface or tables like it will increase in popularity. I saw a number of very large touch screens that can resolve much more than two fingers at the same conference.

I see convergence finally happening somewhat as we are seeing more and more TV through the internet and the cost of really large LCD's have come down so much it almost doesn't make sense to buy a monitor.

Corwin said:

Also Grimoire will finally be released!!

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And VtM: Bloodlines will be patched to version 14.6.

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Guess what's more likely.

I bought wii since it was so cheap and became wii believer. Its controls are simply so much better than those of any other platform (no need for constant calibration i.e playstation move). I will propably grap wii u when it releases this fall. This might force ms and sony to release their own next gen consoles sooner than I thought.

I also became fan of playstation plus service. For monthly fee I get tons of free quality games like the new deus ex with all its expansions.

In 5 years we will see a new console generation, more and more mandatory always online DRM (it will most probably be a norm on the new console generation too) and (i hope) an eventual backlash to the joke, that the so called AAA gaming has become. I hope for something equally as shattering, as the so called video game crash in the eighties. At least one console maker will leave the market. A few big publishers will bite the dust. My money is on EA and Ubisoft.