Games: linear versus open world

[PZ]

Well thought out - I suspect that the PC trolls would complain that they are being ripped off while the mature gamer would gladly pay a higher price for a better game - all academic really, because as you mentioned, the bottom line (maximum profit) is what drives development.

[Art Blade]

Gaming future will be different. No PCs and no consoles. There already is one (not sure, I think even two) future tech company which kind of built a cloud of GPUs and CPUs and memory banks and data stores in say one big building. The user only needs a monitor and some input device, all the rest (game licenses, savegames) is in the fab and the vid signal (we're talking stuff like FC2) being streamed to the user. No more upgrades, no more hardware but a screen and a controller. Kind of like pay TV. This is no joke. I already predicted that maybe a year ago and now they're actually beta-testing..

So game developers only need to w@&k exclusively with one such partner and make their software (games) so it runs in such a fab, and that fab cooperates with hardware manufacturers which will produce high performance parts for that partner.. simple and effective.

[spaceboy]

..and I don't like that future.  Sure it levels the playing field, but then there's not as much incentive to invest in advancements.  This goes a bit hand in hand with what we discussed on a different thread - exclusivity.  Some of the best games be them for PC, PS3, or X360 are the exclusives.  Some multiplatforms are great of course as well.  Also the competition between Sony and MS, have fueled these great consoles and games that can even at least keep up, for the most part, with what the PCs can do.

I could go on, but I've got to run, I'll chime in later..

[JRD]

space have a good point there.

If you don`t have a competitor to overthrow, why should you spend more money into improving a game engine or a whole gaming concept?

The day all PCs are in a cloud with no more consoles or PC distinction between both and there`s no brand, manufacturers and rival companies out there is the day we are doomed  ??? :-(

[Dweller_Benthos]

Not to mention the fact that all these fans of "cloud computing" seem to forget that not everyone has the bajillion gigabyte per second internet connection that's needed to make it w@&k.

[spaceboy]

another good point D_B.  That can't be overlooked.  Think of dear fragger!

I also know there are still a lot of people like me who like their physical media.  Downloads for small games or add-on content is fine, but I like having the discs and boxes.  I still have PS2 games from 6 years ago that are being resurrected for the younger kids as they grow up.

I know the OnLive system is essentially the cloud system, and I believe it can be a good option for a lot of people, but for me to be interested at all, the monthly fee would need to be nominal, and the price of the games would have to be about 1/3 the price of a retail disc.

I expect we'll see a hybrid, which is already on its way to a degree.  Where Sony, MS, and I suppose Nintendo will want their physical stations in your home, but use them not only for physical discs and download games as they do now, but also mix in the cloud gaming.  It definitely seems logical that at least Sony and MS would be able to provide a section of their respective networks with cloud gaming.

There would be exclusives if funded by them, and multiplats would also exist.  Perhaps if done in a true cloud functionality (just using the consoles for the net connection), the multiplats would all be relatively equal across platforms.

[B33 ENN]

I must say I don't like the sound of that future, or at least if it means the end of personal computing.

If it could supply games, then it could supply other applications too, like OpenOffice does or Hotmail or Steam... as well as movies, music etc like Virgin Media/Sky/BTVision... but this would fuse it all together.

Like a Big Brother that runs your life, knows everything you do and links you to "the network"... Given the laws of digital licencing media today, be it movies, music, games, whatever... which says you essentially don't own anything, you are just licenced to use it (in effect renting it for life), I can imagine we wouldn't even own our own data if it existed online. So governments wouldn't have any legal issues about sifting through your life  :-()

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but let's just say that part of what I like about computing is tinkering with my own hardware, building it, playing with it, blowing it up  :-() upgrading it  :-D

For someone like me, this future sounds like television once was, only you won't get to have a video and collect or record your own movies this time...  :D

[PZ]

Not to mention the fact that all these fans of "cloud computing" seem to forget that not everyone has the bajillion gigabyte per second internet connection that's needed to make it w@&k.

Indeed - I can't even play online games using local physical media for the game engine, let alone have the entire game streamed to my device.  It will be a sad day should this come to pass using the existing Internet infrastructure - again an instance of the "haves" and "have nots"

[mmosu]

But I do agree with Space from a few posts back - we're likely to see PC/console hybrids that present aspects of all different types of media (disc-based, downloaded, and "cloud") long before the industry takes down one of these paths as a sole venture.  Hopefully consumer input will be significant enough to steer the ship in the direction we all want it to go at that point - I too like to have something physical like a disc that I can actually hold in my hand and a console that I can plug into my TV and put that disc into. 

Excellent thoughts B33 ENN and all who have followed.  I wrote a program for a simple 4 function calculator for an assignment way back in high school, and I remember how tough I thought that was!  It gave me a whole new appreciation for the programing behind even the most simplistic games.  Regardless of what pressures the market exerts on game makers, the technology and talent to produce something like the alternate FC2 described earlier is out there.  It's just going to take the right enterprising individuals to back it!

[B33 ENN]

Excellent thoughts B33 ENN and all who have followed.  I wrote a program for a simple 4 function calculator for an assignment way back in high school, and I remember how tough I thought that was!  It gave me a whole new appreciation for the programing behind even the most simplistic games.  Regardless of what pressures the market exerts on game makers, the technology and talent to produce something like the alternate FC2 described earlier is out there.  It's just going to take the right enterprising individuals to back it!

Yes, exactly! So I am astounded how things have moved on, where they can creat a virtual world to "live" in and interact with. Virtual Reality is a separate field in itself that is being pursued and i believe one day it will be the future way of gaming. Like every kid today taking their PS3's and mobile phones for granted like it's always been that way, tomorrow's kids will be wearing 3D headsets and all sorts of Wii-esque motion tracking gizmos to play their games and maybe even "talk" to firends on the other side of the world in virtual space instead of over "primitive" audio or 2D TV conferencing!  ???

Boy, am I gonna field old then talking about sprites and 4 colour screens...  :-() On the next point, I agree totally that the tech and talent already has been around for a long time to produce the FC2 I illustrated. I think I didn't really expand on that in my post before. If one looks at RTS games over the last 15 years, and I'm thinking titles like Age of Empires series, Civilization, Sim City, Dawn of War and Supreme Commander, to name a few well knowns... they pretty much cover the game mechanic I was taking about, and indeed expand on it to astounding degrees.

Those of you that haven't experienced such titles, I'd urge you to try at least one. I've had games in Age of Empires last weeks and never have I played a scenario that went the same way twice even when I used the exact same strategy! Obviously, they improve also with each advance in AI and graphical tech, but I believe games like FC2 and similar could easily incorporate some key mechanics from the RTS genre.

I believe it is on the cards, at some point, some developers will do it and take FPS and 3PS to the next level - no pun intended!  :-()

I mean let's take for instance  the ubiquitous cut scene. If Half-Life hadn't taken that "bold" first step and tried it, would it be the de facto story tool we see today?

[Art Blade]

Like a Big Brother that [...] knows everything you do

Again, that is closer to reality than many of you are aware of. Online games, MMORPGs, OnLive, MSLive, Steam.. WoW.. Without naming names, there are companies that actually analyse the entire communication and every action that has been logged completely. The game companies can't afford to maintain the hardware power needed, so they have companies analyse their data (that still takes months and months). They're not interested in what you think about yesterday's lunch but anything else that might help them improve their games and place in-game advertisements..

[B33 ENN]

Indeed, I noticed that on Steam where it logs what you played and for how long... Helpful to the player as a little statistic, but I think  8)they 8) gain more from knowing this then we do. Not for any particular individual, but for the market as a whole, these stats must be a commodity in themselves that encourages companies to support services like Steam and Games for Windows Live.

[JRD]

Yeah, but think about this: they'll get the statistics of the games you play the most and if it actually does count on market polls as we previously discussed, then you are kind of putting your likes on it... the more you play what you like, the stronger is your opinion (sort of  ::) )

I said that before and cannot say it too much... STEAM is a perfect solution for my problems. Living in a country (Brazil) left aside of a huge slice of the gaming industry (believe it or not) all that is left for me is a) buy pirate games or download it illegally or b) pay AT LEAST 3-4 times what you guys in US pay for a game at a retail store.

So.. hit me STEAM... as long as I can get fire sales and you are listening to my preferences (again, sort of  ;D ) you can fish  on my gaming stats, I don't mind.

[B33 ENN]

Absolutely. I find Steam to be a great solution also now, and am more okay with it as it has matured a lot in the last couple of years. Only thing is, I wish they'd have a slightly more active customer support and feedback service. They are slow to resolve some concerns and improvements that users would like to see that would greatly improve it. An example here in the UK and Europe is that we also pay more than US customers for the same games because Steam consistently doesn't sort the exchange rate conversion!

I think competition from GFWL might help to do that since Steam has very much had the PC digital download market to themselves (since they pioneered it).

Ultimately, companies collect marketing data in at all levels of consumer activity every day without us knowing it. From cable/sat TV services to internet service providers down to supermarkets. It's necessary and sensible for them to do so.

I think the thing to remember is that services like Steam are still very much in the pioneering stages and evolving. Back when Valve first thought about creaating Steam (as a support for their own Counter Strike online thing I think) they actually didnt want to go that way. They approached big players, one of which was Microsoft, to set up a service like this. No one was interested so they did it themselves. Today, now that they are successful, those same people are trying to copy the idea and get their own systems online to compete! Ironic or what!

All they had to do was support Valve from the beginning and today we'd have a more uniform and consistent service instead of several different players competing to do the same thing and creating confusion among developers on what service to support, thereby making a mess of the PC platform, not to mention confusing consumers!

No wonder so many people prefer consoles for gaming...

[Art Blade]

What I always liked about PC, let's spell it out: Personal Computers, is the fact that they are customisable. That made software (game) developers push the envelope to which hardware developers (vid cards, processors etc) reacted by increasing the power of their products, and then it started over, and over, and over again. We wouldn't have quad core CPUs and 3D vid cards with like 2GB RAM etc without gamers willing to spend money just so they could see what's possible and game developers likewise.

I remember my first PC (I skipped that lame x286) was an x386 and the guy who sold computers looked a bit puzzled when I told him I needed it for gaming.  There were like two or three vid cards available back then capable of supporting 2D games, my first vid card was a Tseng Labs ET3000. And I bought a Creative Labs SoundBlaster because I wanted to actually hear games and on top be able to make music.. yay, that was fun.. and I remember the guy's face when I told him to stuff that rig with maximum RAM (I think it was 3MB) and biggest hard drives available (like 136MB).

Now look at where we are today. Consoles are only a still of some time's computer components development and wouldn't improve much if it wasn't for the PC guys who keep following the pattern described at the beginning of this post. Let's just hope development goes on :)

[mmosu]

Ultimately, companies collect marketing data in at all levels of consumer activity every day without us knowing it. From cable/sat TV services to internet service providers down to supermarkets. It's necessary and sensible for them to do so.

I sat in on a lecture last year given by a guy who is heavily involved in business marketing (naturally this particular presentation was tailored toward marketing as it pertains to dental practices).  He was saying that Google routinely runs analyses that allow them to reconstruct how people read web pages, and they can literally trace the path a persons eyes take when viewing a given page for the first time.  Mind you, this is all done over the internet - they don't have to physically see you.  From what I understand it's done by looking at the paths the mouse cursor takes across the screen and the probabilities that certain things get clicked on given their placement on the page.  What they've found is that most people tend initially to read web pages in a "C" shape, starting at the upper right corner, moving left and then down and back to the right.  These studies have apparently revolutionized web design and people are using the data to optimize their web pages so that the most pertinent information is displayed where it will be quickly and easily seen by the potential consumer, seizing the brief opportunity to draw them deeper into the sight before "search engine overload" takes over and their attention is lost.  Think of the massive volumes of data it took to figure this out!  And this is going on everywhere, everyday!


Oh, and Art:  Creative Labs SoundBlaster . . . nice name drop  :-()

[Art Blade]

To my knowledge it was the only available good sound card back then :)

As to reading "C" shape.. they probably don't need to check mouse movements (a little bit too much of a data stream) but where someone clicked what (i.e. top right click, then middle left click etc).

The reason for that C is simple:
Top - title page, main information, perhaps menu bar
Left - site navigation / menu bar
Bottom - any last words, "next" / page count (i.e. topic comprised of 4 pages, you're on page 2) / "go up" etc.

That is what I keep telling people who develop any kind of web/html interface: "Bloody stick to standards! Nobody is looking for that info over there, and for god's sake, the menu blocking your view now just isn't going to w@&k like that, a fricking cascading mouse-over drop-down menu popping up out of nowhere when you accidentally moved your mouse over there!" Etc  ;D

[mmosu]

To my knowledge it was the only available good sound card back then :)

It's ok, I had one too (well, my dad had one . . . I was like thirteen)  :-D

[Art Blade]

That's something I try to imagine: Having a dad  who plays video games and grow up like that.. people of my generation are who started playing vid games (hell, I even remember the early days of arcade games). I'd have enjoyed to grow up with a dad who introduced me to vid games  ;D

[fragger]

Just recently, my father got his first PC - at the age of 82! He's still very energetic and vital, playing 18 holes of golf twice a week and regularly tackling heavy yardwork, and remains as sharp as a tack (and I sincerely hope he's passed those particular genes on ;D ). He got his PC mainly for e-mailing, but who knows, maybe I can get him into games, and if so, that'd be a bit of a turnaround - a 50-year-old introducing a now 83-year-old to the joys of PC gaming! I doubt that he'd go in for shooters, but I do know he'd get into a good golf game as he used to like playing Leaderboard Golf on my old C64 whenever he came around. In fact sometimes I'd have a hard time getting him off it :-()

My dad's not a complete stranger to computing, though. Way before I was just a glint in his eye, he was for a time involved in helping to maintain the first computer in Australia, a vacuum-tubed behemoth called CSIRAC. It filled a large room, and according to my dad it would only w@&k for an hour or two before a vacuum tube somewhere would burn out and have to be replaced (which was one of my dad's jobs), bringing everything to a halt. Ah, the good old days :-()

There's a bit about it here, although this article is nearly ten years old now:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/csirac/default.htm

[Art Blade]

...nearly 10 years old -- you can tell if you read this

By comparison, a typical desktop PC today has a processing speed of 500 megahertz, with 64 megabytes of memory and a hard disk containing 10 gigabytes (10,000 million bytes) of storage.

^+-+

[spaceboy]

that's pretty cool fragger.  The thing is, my Dad (69) has always been quite technical being an electrical engineer, and we had early PCs in our home (a Tandy color computer if I recall), plus an early Mac.  Anyways, despite his love and interest for technology I could never get him interested in gaming.  I show him games once in awhile and talk about how neat it is to play along with others from around the world.  I think he's impressed with the tech, but not enough to really spend too much time thinking about it. 

But oh, boy will it be different for my kids.

[Art Blade]

But oh, boy will it be different for my kids.

^+-+ :-X

[fragger]

 :-D :-D :-D

[mmosu]

That's something I try to imagine: Having a dad  who plays video games and grow up like that..

Well it, didn't start that way . . .
I had always been in to console games ever since I was in the first grade and used my own money that I had been saving for almost 2 years to buy my first system, the good 'ole NES.  But back even before that we had an Apple 2G in the house.  My dad bought it to give me a jump on early computer literacy - that was the system all the schools in this neck of the woods were using at the time.  I had a couple of little games on it too (one I remember in particular had you guiding around a little 2D dinosaur in an attempt to survive the Cretaceous period - yeah, lay off, I was like 4 :-D).  Years later, when my Dad went to buy our second PC (the 2G had been long gone at this point, and I had moved on the the SNES and Sega Genesis for consoles), he decided on a custom rig from a local computer shop and I insisted that a SoundBlaster be included because I was sick and tired of playing Doom with the sound turned off  :-().  However, both my dad and I soon became fairly frustrated with PC gaming in general due to all the compatibility issues experienced in those days.  My dad went through periods of waxing and waning interest in console gaming, with his interest mainly focused on games like Gran Turismo (he really likes Gran Turismo) and fishing games of all things  ????