What will computer games be like in 20 years?

FaxModem1 · Post by **FaxModem1** » 2004-08-18 01:17am

Title says it all. Just post your theories(reasonable ones) and why you think so.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-08-18 02:59am

Well I dont think mind machine interfaces will become commonplace within 20 years. So games would be played in a similar fashion to today. Instead of PC's there would probobly be embedded computers in every house that runs everythings. Games will be viewed using monitors or TV.

Graphics will be highly advanced due to advances in hardware. It would be almost life like. In 20 years a lot will improve. Just compare games from 20 years ago to present. The AI in games will be highly advanced too thanks to high power processors. However the main attraction will be multiplayer gaming. With new broadband I thimk there would be large number of players playing very low lag games.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » 2004-08-18 02:59am

Someone has to say it.

In 20 years, you won't play the game, the game will play you.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2004-08-18 03:12am

some VR shit

(yeah, i know, we heared that 10 years ago allready

)

Temjin · Post by **Temjin** » 2004-08-18 03:29am

wautd wrote:some VR shit

(yeah, i know, we heared that 10 years ago allready )

I doubt it. The VR interface, contrary to popular belief, does not lend it's self well to games. To many complications.

More likely, what we'll probably have will be very much like today, but with minor variantions. Probably with much better graphics and a.i..

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-08-18 03:55am

There won't be video games in 20 years because humanity will have ceased to exist.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2004-08-18 04:09am

I've got a feeling the technology and graphics for games will sometime in a decade or so get to a level that is sufficiently powerful and realistic enough for players to not notice or care about significant improvements. Eventually it'll reach a point where that level of graphics and detail is 'good enough' for games, and there's no point to bother to put time and money into pushing it past this limit of sufficient realism. After a while every game will more or less have the same level of tech and having the 'latest graphics' becomes immesurable and moot.

Hopefully this will make the bigger emphasis of visuals be required function and apropriate style to fit the game rather than pure brute polygon-crunching power, and weed out many of the developers that slack off on important gameplay aspects in favor of visuals. Perhaps this leveling out of graphics and deemphasis on state-of-the-arts will give small-time development and one-man produced games an equal playing field as game-producing tools catch up in price and availability (consider the programs and PC specs that are available to even your average teen today compared to what game developers were using 5 years ago). Some gamers, no longer drawn to notion of all games being uniformly realistic in graphics, probably will be more willing to play games with simplified or streamlined graphics like we find in most flash games or classic nostalgic games.

Or maybe not. Gamers these days are still damnably superficial and gimmey-gimmey with their games, and might just keep on going for the games that promote modelling every last blade of grass that their jet fighter flies over, and let anything that isn't 1st person or over-the-shoulder photorealistic become completely extinct.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2004-08-18 07:12am

in 20 years i'll be working overtime so my kids can download Madden 2024 to their cerebral mounted datachip and play it on their moleculerelectronic contact lens view screen.

Mutant Headcrab · Post by **Mutant Headcrab** » 2004-08-18 09:39am

20 years from now eh? Graphics will be realistic, physics will be realistic, and more emphasis on gameplay will be used. All of this is oot, because I'll be too busy upgrading myself to a cyborg to really care.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-08-18 11:06am

Something that people haven't pointed out is that in twenty years, there will probably be a large gamer demographic of adults between ages 35-50 as well as the kids and young adults demographics of the present. Sure, some people may "grow up" and leave behind their toys, but lots won't. I know my dad loved playing video games with us kids and he was in his forties.

Because of this, you'll probably see a much larger variety of games to fit the different groups. You will still have the bright pretty eye-candy games, but those will be for the kiddies. Older, more mature gamers will demand things a little more gameplay oriented, and they'll have the money to make sure their demand gets met.

Also, as computing gets better, I'm expecting a resurgence of the old randomly generated games, but naturally with a twist. Instead of those simple randomly generated dungeons that your character would hack and slash and grab items in, you could generate entirely new plots so that each time you play, you could get a new experience. Less "according to the strategy guide, you must go to city X and talk to character Y to get to city Z to advance plot, every time you play" and more "Hmm, what do I do now?" Can't have a walkthrough when any person in a town of a thousand may have important information or clues for an entirely original adventure.

I know some people who were doing projects in their CS classes about computer-generated plot development. Some of it involved the computer making up the plot as the story went on, depending on what inputs it got. Yeah, and you thought "create your own adventure" books were cool when you were a kid.

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2004-08-18 11:22am

The graphics will probably keep getting more and more advanced until they can render advanced NURBS (or subdivided faces - even better) and raytracing in real time, at which point the games will be pretty much indistinguishable from movies (and maybe real life if they invent some nifty holography technology). Then, there will not be any real reason to upgrading the technology any more because it wouldn't make any difference. Hopefully they will instead make really fun and innovative games. Like the CG plot that Mayabird describes. That would be really intresting. At least it would be good for "replay value"

.

Or maybe games will be banned in 20 years because they became to addictive...

Faqa · Post by **Faqa** » 2004-08-18 12:30pm

Well, if video games are AROUND in 20 years, no doubt humanity won't be. We'll kill each other off in violent, bloody events induced by Doom and Quake. The few remaining will be deadly fighters, having picked up martial arts from Ninja Gaiden(damn console-onlys!) and sharpshootin' from Doom 3(not, y'know, more intelligent games like Farcry or Flashpoint. Nobody plays those...). Because, as we know, those are all excellent learning tools with lots of real-world relevance....

Waddya mean you don't believe me?! Just ask Senator Lieberman!!!

More seriously, I think(or at least hope), that graphics will have hit the ceiling in terms of realism. Thus stopping the 'upgrade cycle' and graphical-demo games around nowadays. Further, with such powerful computers, dynamic gameplay and better A.I routines, games will be made that induce oceans of drool in any gamer!

Then again, we're talking Atari video-console to Pentium 4 3 Ghz monsters upgrade here. So maybe we just CAN'T accurately predict anything.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-08-18 01:57pm

Quad core 15 terahertz processors...and that's just the GPU!

lol

As said above, it'll be able to render NURBS and movie quality effects, so you could have, say, Star Wars Episode 3 being rendered in real time and be playing in the middle of the battle. Maybe Star Wars Episode 9 by then, if Lucas gets bored

However, this will cause problems. Games will be *SO* realistic, that, well, it'll take ages to create all the 3d models. Game development time will increase. Even as we find faster ways of creating the models (say, making a sculptur and scanning it like Lucas did in Ep2 for some of the models) it'll still take ages for all the amount of models to be done. And that's not even COUNTING the maps you play in, which will be gigantic, and incredibly realistic, and interactive.

The programming will be a nightmare with the sheer amount that has to be done, the maps will have to be incredibly detailed, etc, etc.

We're looking at massive price jumps in game costs, if $50 wasn't bad enough. $100 to $150 for the latest games, though the older games will still cost $20 to $40.

Additionally, companies like Nintendo will take big losses when their systems become so uberrealistic that they CAN'T release a new console- the human eye won't be able to tell a difference between the two, so no one will buy it.

Eventually, even handhelds will be ultra realistic.

PERHAPS if they get hologram technology, we can have a handheld that projects a big screen. If holograms are impossible to do in good quality (modern day holograms are projecting a screen of fog and using a projector, but the image is wavy and not good quality), then perhaps handhelds of the future will have both a playing screen, AND a projector, so you can use the wall as your screen.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-08-18 03:28pm

Praxis wrote:As said above, it'll be able to render NURBS and movie quality effects, so you could have, say, Star Wars Episode 3 being rendered in real time and be playing in the middle of the battle. Maybe Star Wars Episode 9 by then, if Lucas gets bored

Feh! Global Illumination in REAL-TIME. THAT will be a SIGHT to see!

However, this will cause problems. Games will be *SO* realistic, that, well, it'll take ages to create all the 3d models. Game development time will increase. Even as we find faster ways of creating the models (say, making a sculptur and scanning it like Lucas did in Ep2 for some of the models) it'll still take ages for all the amount of models to be done. And that's not even COUNTING the maps you play in, which will be gigantic, and incredibly realistic, and interactive.

mmmm, meh, not really. People can make realistic models in weeks, or even days nowdays.

The programming will be a nightmare with the sheer amount that has to be done, the maps will have to be incredibly detailed, etc, etc.

I don't think it'd be as hard as you say.

Some of these graphical designers work REALLY, REALLY, FAST.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-08-18 03:34pm

eh. course there's always the benefit of having pre-built game engines. one of the main reasons fps games are so ubiquitous, as an example, is due to the fact that people can take standard gaming engines, such as doom, quake or UT, and alter it sufficiently to the point where it's suitable for whatever game they happen to want, without having to build the thing from scratch.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-08-18 03:35pm

I am thinking the ultimate in realistic gameplay, a lightweight set of goggles and a body sensor.

Imagine playing the latest Star Wars game from lucas arts inside your room on a large game pad(for movement) all surfaces able to be interacted with, feeling the pain of a lightsaber slashing into your arm. Feelling the dark side of the force flow through you....

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-08-18 05:46pm

The thing is, it isn't that hard to do a fully imerssive 3D game complete with body suit and VR goggles using the technology of today, nevermind 20 years from now.

Aside from the inevitable graphic improvements, the real changes that are going to be made in the next 20 years are in what we see (the monitor) and how we interface with it (the input controller). Today's consoles and PC's haven't changes much at all from the rudimentary NES systems of yore, we still use a controler with buttons on it which hasn't changed all that much and we still view it on the same two dimensional screen.

For videogames to really evolve, what is needed is a standardized immerssion device designed solely for games. It would come complete with body suit, goggles and probably a treadmill and would retail for, say, $2k-$3k ideally. It would be solely a controller/viewing device and it would allow you to plug in any games station you want, much like a modern television. Such ideas are already in the prototype phase and may be the thing which reinvigorates the arcade world (which has stagnated as of late) before moving into the home market. I could see such an advance being made over the next 20 years, but it would take a push from a video game giant to do it (Microsoft and Sony come to mind).

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-08-18 05:58pm

Of course, games would then be biased toward people who are more physically fit, which may incite more gamers to exercise, LOL.

But a fully compatible neural interface system would be the "ultimate experience" no doubt.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2004-08-18 06:02pm

I can imagine that there will be a bigger percentage of old people playing video games as people who regularly play video games right now age, so there will probably be games like "Matlock 2024", and "Extreme Bingo".

There will probably be some point within the 20-year span when graphics become so lifelike, not much can be done to make them better, at which point more emphasis will be put on making games more in-depth, and with more options for the player.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-08-18 06:05pm

Shinova wrote:Of course, games would then be biased toward people who are more physically fit, which may incite more gamers to exercise, LOL.

But a fully compatible neural interface system would be the "ultimate experience" no doubt.

"Real" lightsaber duels would be sooo sweet

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-08-18 06:19pm

Duke Nukem Forever is released using the Quake 3 engine.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-08-18 06:21pm

Spyder wrote:Duke Nukem Forever is released using the Quake 3 engine.

I'd rather see it with a hybrid of the DooM3 one and whatever powers Red Faction...

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-08-18 06:44pm

hehe, I can imagine the next generation of TIE Fighter Games BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-08-18 06:52pm

Spyder wrote:Duke Nukem Forever is released using the Quake 3 engine.

They'll announce another delay and switch to the Doom 3 engine. They work so slow that they're only half done when the Unreal3 engine comes out. They announce another delay and switch to that.

Nyaaa~

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2004-08-18 07:53pm

Spyder wrote:Duke Nukem Forever is released using the Quake 3 engine.

Uh... that would require either video technology to stagnate, or George Broussard to die. Whichever happens first. Seriously, whenever some new physics engine comes out, Broussard restarts development on DNF. It'll never come out.