The direction of gaming?

This speech from DICE 2010 hit the interweb about a month ago and stirred up a bit of a buzz among some of my gaming kinsfolk. Now, with ever-growing advent of online browser games like Facebook offers, more and more people are getting into gaming in general. Ads across webpages like Google’s AdSense are becoming more acceptable. Combine these two aspects and, yes, I could see life and “gaming” going the direction the speaker suggests. However, my outlook on gaming still centers around entertainment and, mostly, console gaming. I either own or have owned in my time the following consoles (do the math as I’m about to disclose my age generation, here): Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Nintendo Gameboy, Playstation, Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, and Wii. Now, I’ve played on a whole lot more consoles than I’ve owned like the Neo Geo, Atari Jaguar, Sega Super System, Sega CD, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Game Cube, Playstation 3 and the list could go on. Keep in mind, my writings just refer to console gaming. I don’t get into PC gaming like I used to (including the new browser-based generation), which is much older.

As I’m writing these reviews more frequently, I’m noticing more and more of a pattern in console game development these days. Originality doesn’t exist quite like it did in the earlier days of the “third generation” consoles (Xbox 360 / Playstation 3 / Wii). Also, the genres have bled together even more. It’s all about TPS (third person shooter) massive environments, or FPS (first person shooter) run-and-gun, or RPG (roll playing game) and TBS (turn-based strategy) thought-provokers. I think the only genres that haven’t changed are MMO (massive multiplayer online), Sports, Fighting (like Street Fighter) and Racing. The old days of Adventure vs Shooter vs Action vs Challenge is slowly dying. The Strategy genre is something that derived from the early days of Command and Conquer and Warcraft (not to be confused with the MMO World of Warcraft). Over time, this genre has lead way to the release of modern wonders like Halo Wars and Battlestations Midway or the re-release or continuation of Command and Conquer and Tropico. MMO and Strategy are still new in the overall age of gaming, so they tend to be more “cult-driven” genres, so to speak.

Now, keep in mind, this is only my perception of the evolution of gaming as I’ve experienced it over the last 25 or so years. I’d love to hear any of your comments on this and where you think gaming has been and will go.

l8rz