You hear a lot of people expressing theories about what the future of gaming is going to be, and ultimatly it comes down to what they think is going to benefit them the most and line their pockets.
A lot of factors are not accounted for here, such as the simple fact that companies like Microsoft, Sony, and others are worth billions of dollars and aren't going to either go quietly into the night, or permit themselves more competition than they absolutly have to unless forced. I'm personally not convinced that browser based games will ever be truely better in any objective way from a gaming console, and even if they were, it will be a lot like gas companies and automotive manufacturers doing what they can to very successfully surpress the development of alternative automobile technology. Sure there are benefits to electric cars, and they will doubtlessly get to the point of more conventional automobiles, but any changeover has been a trickle (and still might not ever happen) simply because the guys who make billions of dollars off of selling you gasoline for those cars and have invested in that infrastructure do not want it to become obselete, or to stop making money off of you, and when you have the money, it's pretty easy to keep the little guy down, even when the goverment gets involved it's a giant mess.
The point here is that I very much doubt we're going to see any radical changes in terms of gaming hardware and the like. We're liable to see advancements in terms of speed, graphics, and similar things, but I do not think "cloud" or browser based gaming will take over in any radical way. If it does happen I expect a very slow, hard fought creep, full of legal battles and corperate manuvering before it replaces how things are now.
In short big businesses don't just let newer, littler businesses just walk in and replace them and take their place. While not as frequent or outrageous as books and movies, the bottom line is that when billions are on the line, a big business is more likely to have a much smaller competitor sabotaged (corperate espionage), or just outright have the people involved killed. Not nice, but things like that do happen.
Another big issue to consider above and beyond the reactions of the businessmen themselves, is of course consumer benefit. One of the reasons why you rarely see sudden, radical change within society is because for that to happen the overwhelming majority of people have to benefit from it. This is true even when dealing with smaller groups of people.
People have been screaming for years now that "Digital Downloads are coming, nothing will stop them!" yet retail has hardly been killed and replaced. I think people underestimate the simple fact that the consumers don't benefit from that business model, and thus don't support it.
Browser and cloud based games have all of the same issues as digital download, you pay for something that you have no physical control over, and become totally dependant on the service you purchused it from for continued access to what you bought. If the provider you bought from goes out of business, you lose everything.
What's more the idea here seems to pretty much be to get consumers to pay what amounts to subscription fees for all games, as opposed to just MMORPGs. The idea that you pay for access to someone's cloud, or browser service, and then purchuse specific games you can play as long as you maintain that subscription. This may or may not be in addition to general internet fees through your ISP.
A lot of people probably believe that this would not happen, but that's exactly where it will go if such services become the mainstay of gaming, and physical media disappears.
Right now the industry wants the future to be an experience where they charge you for games, charge you again for access to the games you bought (even single player ones), and then build microtransactions into the infrastucture so they can easily nickel and dime you some more for access to content being held back from the basic purchuse price.
Some people don't see that, but right now I think a lot of people do. For all claims that it won't go there, you'll notice there isn't exactly much in the way of guarantees that this kind of system won't be abused, and we'll have to either stop gaming or pay out the gills for it. Trusting the integrity of big business not to exploit you (and the gaming industry is big business nowadays) is foolish.
I consider all these proclaimations about the future of gaming to be similar to the "great Metric Changeover" and "Paperless Office" of yesterday. Massive change can happen if people are simply convinced it's going to happen, something a ot of people try and exploit. In this case I think the gaming industry is trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it hasn't been working as well as they hoped. A lot of people are convinced of course, but there are also a lot of people who like me take a "whoa, wait a second here, why on God's green earth do I want that? What's more what reason do I have to trust you guys of all people not to abuse this wonderful system your trying to sell".
A lot of factors are not accounted for here, such as the simple fact that companies like Microsoft, Sony, and others are worth billions of dollars and aren't going to either go quietly into the night, or permit themselves more competition than they absolutly have to unless forced. I'm personally not convinced that browser based games will ever be truely better in any objective way from a gaming console, and even if they were, it will be a lot like gas companies and automotive manufacturers doing what they can to very successfully surpress the development of alternative automobile technology. Sure there are benefits to electric cars, and they will doubtlessly get to the point of more conventional automobiles, but any changeover has been a trickle (and still might not ever happen) simply because the guys who make billions of dollars off of selling you gasoline for those cars and have invested in that infrastructure do not want it to become obselete, or to stop making money off of you, and when you have the money, it's pretty easy to keep the little guy down, even when the goverment gets involved it's a giant mess.
The point here is that I very much doubt we're going to see any radical changes in terms of gaming hardware and the like. We're liable to see advancements in terms of speed, graphics, and similar things, but I do not think "cloud" or browser based gaming will take over in any radical way. If it does happen I expect a very slow, hard fought creep, full of legal battles and corperate manuvering before it replaces how things are now.
In short big businesses don't just let newer, littler businesses just walk in and replace them and take their place. While not as frequent or outrageous as books and movies, the bottom line is that when billions are on the line, a big business is more likely to have a much smaller competitor sabotaged (corperate espionage), or just outright have the people involved killed. Not nice, but things like that do happen.
Another big issue to consider above and beyond the reactions of the businessmen themselves, is of course consumer benefit. One of the reasons why you rarely see sudden, radical change within society is because for that to happen the overwhelming majority of people have to benefit from it. This is true even when dealing with smaller groups of people.
People have been screaming for years now that "Digital Downloads are coming, nothing will stop them!" yet retail has hardly been killed and replaced. I think people underestimate the simple fact that the consumers don't benefit from that business model, and thus don't support it.
Browser and cloud based games have all of the same issues as digital download, you pay for something that you have no physical control over, and become totally dependant on the service you purchused it from for continued access to what you bought. If the provider you bought from goes out of business, you lose everything.
What's more the idea here seems to pretty much be to get consumers to pay what amounts to subscription fees for all games, as opposed to just MMORPGs. The idea that you pay for access to someone's cloud, or browser service, and then purchuse specific games you can play as long as you maintain that subscription. This may or may not be in addition to general internet fees through your ISP.
A lot of people probably believe that this would not happen, but that's exactly where it will go if such services become the mainstay of gaming, and physical media disappears.
Right now the industry wants the future to be an experience where they charge you for games, charge you again for access to the games you bought (even single player ones), and then build microtransactions into the infrastucture so they can easily nickel and dime you some more for access to content being held back from the basic purchuse price.
Some people don't see that, but right now I think a lot of people do. For all claims that it won't go there, you'll notice there isn't exactly much in the way of guarantees that this kind of system won't be abused, and we'll have to either stop gaming or pay out the gills for it. Trusting the integrity of big business not to exploit you (and the gaming industry is big business nowadays) is foolish.
I consider all these proclaimations about the future of gaming to be similar to the "great Metric Changeover" and "Paperless Office" of yesterday. Massive change can happen if people are simply convinced it's going to happen, something a ot of people try and exploit. In this case I think the gaming industry is trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it hasn't been working as well as they hoped. A lot of people are convinced of course, but there are also a lot of people who like me take a "whoa, wait a second here, why on God's green earth do I want that? What's more what reason do I have to trust you guys of all people not to abuse this wonderful system your trying to sell".
