Discussion: what will gaming be like in 20 years?

20 years ago, gamers were just starting to get their hands on the original PlayStation. A lot has changed since those days, but even more could change in the next 20 years. What do you think gaming will look like in 2034?

Charlie: I think that in twenty years, gaming will be about as immersive as you want it to be. For those who prefer them, sit-in-your-chair-and-stare-at-the-screen games will still be around, and will probably still be popular. But for those who want a deeper experience, I think the sky will be more or less the limit. Graphics in the best games will likely be close-to-indistinguishable from real-life video, and virtual reality won’t mean clunky peripherals like the Oculus Rift. In fact, there might be no peripherals at all, as gamers will take in their entertainment Matrix-style, via a brain-computer interface. That’s not science fiction, by the way, we have that technology now, although it’s nowhere near ready to be used for games yet.

Consequently, I think game addiction is going to become a massive social issue in most developed societies. As games become more immersive, people are more likely to get immersed in them and not want to come out. There will also probably have to be increased regulations about what kind of games can be played in virtual reality—imagine the genuine psychological damage a game like Amnesia could cause if it looked and felt totally real to the player?

(As a side note, the console will be dead well before 2034. Don’t expect to be playing a PlayStation 8; the idea of separate gaming boxes that sit in your living room will be a thing of the past by then.)

Xairylle: Upon reading this question, the first thing I thought of was “virtual reality”, which then reminded me of the “Ultimate Battlefield 3 Simulator” at the Gadget Show. It was basically a big dome where you could play Battlefield 3 using real-life body movements thanks to virtual reality. It has omnidirectional treadmills so you can walk around and paintballs that hit you when you get shot in-game. It’s really cool when you look at it, and I believe it resembles what we’re going to have two decades from now—really immersive gaming.

Mary-Anne: Several years ago I discovered a short story called “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”. It told of a world that had been completely consumed by an artificial intelligence. The supercomputer, AM, had been created to fight World War III, but came to sentience and killed everyone but five people. Five people, who it had kept alive for the past century or so, just to torment for its own amusement. And it did that just because it could.

It’s very hard to describe the sort of feelings this story invokes in me, but suffice to say they are definitely not sunshine and rainbows. 20 years from now, I have a sick fear that we might go down this exact route, and those of us that aren’t dead will be stuck in the tormented matrix of some huge, undeniable form of artificial intelligence that has sucked the world dry of humanity. You can read the story for yourself here and forever be tormented by this possible future.

Iain: Unlike Mary-Anne, I am all about the Matrix future, and am actually looking forward to it. I’m pretty sure that within 20 years we will be looking at the beginning of human-consciousness uploads. It’s going to be awesome, intriguing and frightening, but I am so ready for it. I want to be in the game, explore the worlds and be someone else. I want to live in a world where I can experience everything, where I am limited only by my imagination, and the imagination of others.

It could, of course, be a dystopian nightmare. But I prefer to remain optimistic.

Kuanyi: 20 years ago people thought we would have flying cars by now, but look at us with our pathetic land-bound automobiles. In the same way, I don’t think gaming will have changed much.

While the Oculus Rift is an exciting new development, I think that gamers will always be a lazy bunch who just want to relax on a couch and move nothing more than their thumbs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited for a future of better graphics and new technologies, but I believe tech like the Wii and Kinect will always be novelties, and lazy gaming is here to stay.

What do you think?