02-05-2013, 10:10 AM
I think things are going to stay generally the same, at least for the next 10-20 years. Consoles aren't dying, PC isn't dying, and while indie games are becoming more popular, commercial games aren't becoming any less popular (at least not significantly). While Steam Box does look like it'll bring something new and will probably make consoles and PCs redundant for some people, I doubt it'll do too much on the big scale.
Personally, I prefer PC gaming and indie games, but I wouldn't want consoles or commercial games to go away. Not only do I really enjoy plenty of these of these (Zelda, Mario, Team Fortress 2, Fallout, etc), but if they disappeared it would eliminate the charm of indie games. And with no consoles we wouldn't see all these new, intuitive control methods popping up (DS touch screen, Wii remotes, XBox Kinect, and whatever will come next), not to mention portable/handheld consoles are extremely handy during long trips/power cuts.
So what I'm basically saying is that, in the current state, I see the gaming market's bits and pieces all to be complementary to each other. Take one away and you'll effect another bit. It'd be like if you took away all genres except for FPS, even people who mostly play FPSs would be annoyed because they wouldn't have any other genres to compare to.
What I would like to see is games as a influential and appreciated medium, like books and films. In general games are seen as ways to pass the time with no real meaning or significance. While this is true in many cases, some games can actually be really meaningful and give the same messages as any other media (stuff like Braid or Frozen Synapse).
Here's Jonathan Blow's post about it, which is where I got the initial idea about it. I agree with most points there and I'd really like to see games recognised as serious things that can actually have a point. It really depends on how people continue to develop games, hopefully with indie developers becoming more popular, more of these sort of games will appear.
Personally, I prefer PC gaming and indie games, but I wouldn't want consoles or commercial games to go away. Not only do I really enjoy plenty of these of these (Zelda, Mario, Team Fortress 2, Fallout, etc), but if they disappeared it would eliminate the charm of indie games. And with no consoles we wouldn't see all these new, intuitive control methods popping up (DS touch screen, Wii remotes, XBox Kinect, and whatever will come next), not to mention portable/handheld consoles are extremely handy during long trips/power cuts.
So what I'm basically saying is that, in the current state, I see the gaming market's bits and pieces all to be complementary to each other. Take one away and you'll effect another bit. It'd be like if you took away all genres except for FPS, even people who mostly play FPSs would be annoyed because they wouldn't have any other genres to compare to.
What I would like to see is games as a influential and appreciated medium, like books and films. In general games are seen as ways to pass the time with no real meaning or significance. While this is true in many cases, some games can actually be really meaningful and give the same messages as any other media (stuff like Braid or Frozen Synapse).
Here's Jonathan Blow's post about it, which is where I got the initial idea about it. I agree with most points there and I'd really like to see games recognised as serious things that can actually have a point. It really depends on how people continue to develop games, hopefully with indie developers becoming more popular, more of these sort of games will appear.