A group of experts was brought together at GDC this week to discuss what the future holds for video gaming. On the panel were:
- Neil Young. General Manager, EA LA.
- Phil Harrison. Head of worldwide studios, Sony.
- Ralph Koster. Lead designer on Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies.
- Peter Molyneux. Boss of Lionhead.
- Chris Taylor. Dungeon Siege creator.
- David Perry. Video Game consultant.
Their universal opinion was that the future lies online with server based games. As has been covered here several times. All you need at home is a connection, a TV and an interface. It makes gaming a lot cheaper because there is no physical product, no distribution chain and no expensive home hardware. The only weakness of this business model that they discussed was latency on the net which can affect action games.
They seemed to think that consoles as we know them are only an interim gaming solution and that already the web is far bigger and more important for gaming than consoles are. And that with the coming upgrades to Flash it would be the next big platform, though there still isn’t a working business model for Flash games.
 Here are some articles about the meeting covering it in far more detail and well worth reading:
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I seriously dont understand why industry experts are saying this 🙁
I’ve heard them say that Flash games are the next big thing and could effectively replace PC and console gaming. What!? Is it possible to produce games such as Call of Duty 4, Burnout Paradise, Crysis etc to the same quality using Flash!!
Sorry, I’m confused.
Flash games are fun to play (some), and offered through the TV I’m sure it will provide an excellent service etc, it’s just the “replace console and PC gaming” bit that I find amazing.
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I find it hard to believe that internet based games built around Flash could replace all console or PC games on the market today. I think the concept WildTanget came up with, Orb, is similiar to this but offers a better overall platform for gaming. It will also be interesting to see how these companies plan on dealing with internet bandwidth issues for games that are more graphic intensive such as the ones Redh3lix mentions.