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The future of computer games

Crispy

Crispy

The following psytrance is baṉned: All
So here come the new Videogame Consoles, bringing much need relief to the RAM and GPU starved "Triple A" developers of the world. Will we see that power put to good use? Or will the same old shit just get polished to an even greater shine?

Digital distribution has allowed hundreds of developers, jaded by the AAA grindstone, to jump ship and start indie projects of all shapes and sizes. Crowdsourced funding has even allowed the creation of an entirely publisher-free "AAA" budget game (Star Citizen). The PC games scene has never been so vibrant. But is this sustainable in a world where the market for desktop PCs is shrinking all the time, and App Store prices are trending to $0.00?

Meanwhile, various technologies wait in the wings with the potential to turn everything on its head. Will Occulus, Valve, Google or Sony usher in a new world of head-mounted displays that immerse players in completely new and compelling ways?

Oh yeah, and there's Nintendo. Dark horse or dead horse?

Where's it all going eh? Will we still be pressing X to jump in 10 years time?
 
nintendo still makes some of the best old school style games.

when i was teaching at college i had to keep telling students to put their phones away.

why? they were playing pokemon.
 
I don't know - MS are clearly pushing for a Kinect based approach in a big way, so it may be that gaming does become more of a 'walk in to the room, system comes on and is controlled by voice/action' kinda thing, but developers seem reluctant to embrace it, and tbh, I think gamers like using a controller for most games. So yeah, we'll still be pressing X to jump for a while yet.

I think games however, will become more personal, more emotionally involving (see the success of things like Heavy Rain, Journey, Walking Dead) which is a good thing, and Nintendo will either shelve the Wii or re-target it toward children, as games become more lifelike and parents don't want their 8 year olds demanding GTA 8 or the next Resident Evil - as well as accepting their place as the domineers of the handheld market and concentrating on that more.
 
I think a greater maturity, as gamers get middle aged and old

I read an interesting article which my google-fu can't locate recently which said that in the past couple of years we've gone from having parents as side characters (i.e. Fallout 3 - go and rescue your dad) to playing parents (i.e. the Last of Us and the whole Sarah/Ellie daughter thing).

So the start of games involving OAPs as lead characters? Grand Theft Zimmerframe? The Elder Scrolls?
 
TruXta said:
Oculus Rift.
Click to expand...

Not for me in its current form, I've got a dodgy neck, it would do me right in. I do really like 3d gaming/VR though, and although I don't actually have a decent 3d (nVidia type, with nice light glasses that aren't going to put me in a neck brace ;) ) set-up, it's only because I can't afford it - if I could, I'd be on it like a shot. I've played plenty of games in anaglyph 3d with 3rd party drivers and a pair of red/blue specs (not ideal, it's a little headachy and dark!), so that should be a good indication of how keen I am on the whole 3d thing :D
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
I thought they were developing VR about 15 years ago; but they stopped, because it does something to people's brains.
Click to expand...
They never stopped, it was just too expensive for the mass market. There have been medical, military and research VR systems for decades. It's only now that mobile phones have made the hardware cheap, and computers are powerful enough to drive it.
 
TitanSound said:
VR made me feel sick.
Click to expand...
That's because it was shit VR. In order to prevent motion sickness, the display has to refresh at least 60fps. The latency between moving your head and having the display update has to be very very small - 20ms or less. The hardware must track your head's rotation and position with high accuracy and frequency, and very low latency. In the 90s these were all very very hard problems to solve, even for million dollar research systems. You probably tried something like this:

Virtuality.jpg

Which was a terrible, awful system. Massive amounts of lag, no positional tracking, tiny field of view and a heavy headset. No wonder you were sick.

EDIT: Also, the type of content that works on a flat screen doesn't work in VR. The running speed in Team Fortress 2 is over 30 mph and you can turn and stop on the spot. Moving around like that in real life will make you hurl, and so it does in VR. The best VR experiences will have slow movement, or take place in a cockpit environment so you always have a stationary reference frame.
 
Crispy said:
EDIT: Also, the type of content that works on a flat screen doesn't work in VR. The running speed in Team Fortress 2 is over 30 mph and you can turn and stop on the spot. Moving around like that in real life will make you hurl, and so it does in VR. The best VR experiences will have slow movement, or take place in a cockpit environment so you always have a stationary reference frame.
Click to expand...

So it's basically gone be fuelled by porn.
 
Crispy said:
That's because it was shit VR. In order to prevent motion sickness, the display has to refresh at least 60fps. The latency between moving your head and having the display update has to be very very small - 20ms or less. The hardware must track your head's rotation and position with high accuracy and frequency, and very low latency. In the 90s these were all very very hard problems to solve, even for million dollar research systems. You probably tried something like this:

View attachment 44133

Which was a terrible, awful system. Massive amounts of lag, no positional tracking, tiny field of view and a heavy headset. No wonder you were sick.

EDIT: Also, the type of content that works on a flat screen doesn't work in VR. The running speed in Team Fortress 2 is over 30 mph and you can turn and stop on the spot. Moving around like that in real life will make you hurl, and so it does in VR. The best VR experiences will have slow movement, or take place in a cockpit environment so you always have a stationary reference frame.
Click to expand...

I had a go on these Virtuality VR things pictured, it was FANTASTIC.

Though it was in Glastombury in the early nineties and I was tripping. Cost me a fiver and I remember running away from a pterodactyl.
 
I think Elite is being written to support Oculus Rift which would be well cool.

Even if it does reduce the res to 720p, which I guess is the fly in the ointment.
 
Yetman said:
I think games however, will become more personal, more emotionally involving (see the success of things like Heavy Rain, Journey, Walking Dead) which is a good thing
Click to expand...
This. IIRC isn't one aspect of the Xbox One that its upgraded Kinect can detect emotional state in player faces? So games like David Cage's will become even more emotion-driven and be able to react to the player's face directly.
 
They will become a game that is like life itself, the total immersion means that you do not even realise that you are playing. When you turn it on it will be the final goal in the game we are currently plugged into and playing.
I suspect that I will be the last one to finish so, i'll meet you all in the pub for post game laugh.
 
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