How might gameplay change in 25 years? / Hebrew

How might gameplay change in 25 years? / Hebrew

How are we playing today? Mostly on a PC using a mouse and keyboard, on mobile phones – using a touch screen. Much less often we use virtual reality glasses, even less often – AR (augmented reality). Developers create games as a finished product that we run on our own or rented devices, as well as in the cloud.

I propose to discuss what may change in a quarter of a century and what you need to prepare to play in old age with children!

Trends today

To look into the future, one must understand the present. Organization for the development of the video game industry (RVI) together with the company Strategy Partners analyzed video game market in the world and in Russia. The result was a list of trends:

Global optimization

Developers and publishers have noted that the cost of creating video games and advertising often does not pay off. Therefore, the world’s leading studios cut costs and laid off employees. Unity fired 2.8% of its employees in 2023, and a quarter of its staff in 2024. Microsoft Corp. closed four internal studios. To reduce risks, studios make sequels to existing successful projects instead of implementing new ideas.

Artificial intelligence

AI tools for generating texts, music, images, videos are becoming more and more advanced. Grodels also use this – this is how you can create unique content and speed up the development process.

Among the examples are dialogues in the mobile game Justice from the Chinese company NetEase Games, which were generated in ChatGPT. Replica Studios creates “intelligent” NPCs using AI Voice and OpenAI for Unreal Engine: now you don’t need to invite actors for voice acting.

In open-world games like Grand Theft Auto, Skyrim, and Elden Ring, generative AI can change and improve gameplay. Algorithms can create unique storylines and quests based on the data collected about the player.

VR/AR/MR and fitness games

Although such projects are not always successful, companies continue to try to make fitness games and revitalize the virtual reality niche.

One of the most popular games for the Nintendo Switch was Nintendo Switch Sports – more than 12.48 million copies were sold. In 2023, an omnidirectional treadmill with VR Virtuix Omni One went on sale, and 35 video games have already been announced for it.

One of the advantages of VR is that the brain perceives what we see as truth. And this is the drawback of the technology: the body gets confused due to the differences in the data received from the eyes and from the vestibular apparatus, which makes the user feel nauseous.

New platforms for PC games

Steam remains the most popular gaming platform. However, to save on commissions and increase revenue, major developers are launching their own stores – such as the Epic Games Store, EA App and Ubisoft Connect. There are also indie platforms like Itch.io and Humble Store.

eSports

E-sports continues its rapid development. And the growth of this segment has a favorable effect on the video game market as a whole – thanks to it, new participants and investments appear.

Among the most popular disciplines:

In Russia, figital sports – a combination of digital and physical formats – are gaining popularity. The largest competition in this format in the country, “Future Games”was held in Kazan in February-March of this year.

Cloud services

Instead of buying your own computer hardware, you can use standard PCs and laptops to run games in the cloud. The ability to save is one of the main drivers of the growth of cloud services for games.

Video game streaming

Last year, users spent 2.8 billion hours on streaming platforms, which is more than 319 thousand years. The indicator increased by 75% compared to 2019. According to Statista, revenue from the video game streaming market will reach $13.7 billion in 2024.

Metaverse

Currently, there are many examples of attempts to use metauniverses, but market participants do not yet understand how to implement and use the full potential of this approach.

Walt Disney Co. together with Epic Games plan to create a metaworld, the film company will invest 1.5 billion dollars in the project.

Blockchain in video games

A number of companies are trying to revive this direction in video games. Among them are Avalon, Parallel Studios and Gunzilla Games. So far, this technology does not benefit gamers.

Graphics

If we talk about the graphics in general, it is unlikely to improve much – since Unreal Engine 5 already gives a photorealistic image, often similar to what we are used to seeing in movies.

Artificial intelligence can have a huge impact on the graphic component of video games. The game itself, which is released by the developers, can eventually turn into a kind of draft, which will be able to get the necessary effects and style of the tool already chosen by the user himself.

Imagine that Bioshock can be played in a realistic style, pixel art design, and in the style of Minecraft.

Mixing realities

The development of VR/AR/MR technologies, together with the cheapening of devices – helmets and glasses, as well as cloud services can lead us to the world shown in the movie “First Player Get Ready”. Or we will live in the universe of “Johnny Mnemonic” – if we take into account the developments of Elon Musk.

Sony this year showed your opinion about what the games of the future will look like. The VR headset allows you to create an avatar, meet and play with friends. So, at the intersection of realities, games can exist in the 2030s.

The concept of figital sports implies being in the physical world, that is, real sports. It is quite possible that technology will move from eSports to regular disciplines – and players will hit a soccer ball, aiming with the help of a lens with an algorithm built into it from the team’s programmers.

Plot

And again we are talking about artificial intelligence, especially since it has already been used to generate levels.

Many people like the opportunity to go through all the endings in The Witcher 3, Fallout or Detroit: Become Human. But what if the endings are completely unpredictable?

Collecting data about the user during the game, analyzing his style of passing and interacting with NPCs and other players, information about events in the real world can be used to create not just unique quests, but entire maps and scenarios.

It can be like a normal “sandbox” like Minecraft, but with a much more elaborate and adaptable plot. A real movie with full immersion and the impossibility of simply reading the passage to solve the next puzzle.

Tencent presented a neural network engine that can create open-world games. For now, this is just the beginning – just a gameplay simulation.

Management

Controlling movement in games on home consoles began back in the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System. In the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger had a glove with a real gamepad from this console. With the help of the glove, you could fight and drive a car in the game, making movements similar to turning a steering wheel. Decades later, the Wii Remote, PlayStation Move and other devices appeared.

Currently, VR helmets are accompanied by gloves. There are gloves with feedback. Moreover, there are tactile suits that allow you to feel the blows of your game character in reality.

And moving around in an open video game space in a small room requires an omnidirectional treadmill.

Both haptic suits and VR technology will be successful if they can penetrate into the homes of users. And it depends on interesting games, active promotion and, of course, prices for such devices. On the other hand, the industry of video game clubs is actively growing in Russia – they can become a driver of the popularization of the technology.

And, of course, for educational and educational purposes, VR will be used even more actively.

Neurocomputer interfaces

A powerful start to this direction was perhaps given by Elon Musk when planted a monkey with a brain implant behind a computer monitor in 2021.

Chipping and brain implants have been written and talked about before – urban madmen on the Internet and fiction writers in books.

Vadym Panov described in “Enclaves” a future in which a person was implanted with a port for a “balalaika” – a triangular device that stored information from the user’s eyes, and allowed to sit on the Internet, and provided for many other functions. In some countries it was necessary to pay for it, and somewhere the installation was mandatory from a certain age.

In honor of the gadget from the book called scientists of the Baltic Federal University named after I. Kant his software and hardware complex for managing applications using gestures and thoughts.

“Also, balalaika can be used in e-sports to improve the results of athletes by using channels of information that are not available for conventional interfaces, for example, for direct reading of a person’s imaginary intentions to act,” specified the vice-rector for scientific work of BFU named after I. Kant Maxim Demin.

Brain control devices in games have been in the works for quite some time. So you can follow the development of the technology and wait for it to become truly widespread.

Conclusion (and invitation to discussion!)

It can be noted that history is cyclical. Technologies and approaches that seem modern may have been used decades ago – but not always successfully or only for limited purposes. It is safe to say that most of the current trends will develop.

What do you think about it? How will we play in the 2030s and a quarter of a century from now?

Related posts