Where do you see the future of gaming going?

For better or worst where do you see the video game industry in 20 years?

Hopefully better. While there are some pretty lousy practices trying to get pushed here and there overall I feel the good largely outweighs the bad.

Twitch and PornHub will merge when simstim becomes a real thing.

@lamprey263: simstim? Do I want to ask?

The internet's transition to the Metaverse will be a prominent future for pretty much everything technological, including video games.

Two directions at the same time.

One side, we'll see independent games gain more and more of the market share each year.

In response, large publishers and developers will intensify their greed. Development costs will go up while innovation goes down, they'll charge more for games that offer less, and we'll see games that should not be a service turned into one that drip-bleeds their players of money for years on end.

Basically everything good about independent and small-studio development will get better, and everything bad about large publishing and development will get worse.

What I hope to see is well-know developers establish independent studios, splinter away from AAA gaming, and make the games they want to make. I legit believe that we all succeed in life doing what we want to do and if more developers made games they want to see instead of making games some suit says a market study says would be popular, we'd get a lot better games out there.

Streaming will end up taking over, question is how long will it take 10 years? 7 years? 4 years?

Better be not in the NFT direction

Certainly more VR consoles will be released.

More game streaming and greater prominence of subscription.

Largely shit with the crappy business practices like microtransactions, price increases on games, and even more games catering to an online-only market.

Hopefully there will still be an indie scene if single-player becomes even more of an afterthought for the big devs. But if not, well, I've still got my old games to play over and over again.

Same as past 20 years. Mainstram games suck as always. Amid tier games shine.

I think AAA games will move even more in the service/platform direction. This is driven by the simple fact that it is way cheaper to produce 10 h content for an existing ”platform” than it is to make a new 10 h game.

Remakes and indies will supply the ”linear” crowd. Graphics of indie games will become closer and closer to AAA games with modern engines. They will still lack production values though.

Innovation will mostly be in structure and monetization.

Completely agree with the last part (well the rest as well). If you are a creative person, making ”content” to milk whales must be soul crushing.

In 20 years time we should be in the 6G stage, consoles would be irrelevant.

Developers will buy server space and consumers will be able to stream the games directly to our TV’s, phones, tablets and etc.

Between now and then, there will be more M&A activity and consolidation. Most of us will simply subscribe to one or two packages. Games will also still be available to purchase.

Physical games would still be available but will be increasingly irrelevant.

@warmblur:

Wamy, Play Deathloop. incredible game. new ip, fresh, innovative.

Probably worse. AAA developers will try new ways to **** their customers in the ass. More streaming and subscriptions, which I don't want either. The game industry is never gonna stop growing, and the more it grows, the more assholes will join the industry and try to profit. Can't really get better from here in that regard, only worse.

More and more studios get bought up by gigantic corporations, they only care about making the most money. And that is done by making games exhaustive and predatory, not by making fun games.

GPU prices rise to $50.000 for mid end cards thanks to Bitcoin mining, NFTs and Ghosts4ever.

Bigger,better,longer development time scale for AAA games

More expensive than ever I’m guessing? I don’t think consoles will be around,believing it might be a Xbox/Sony/Nintendo app people have to subscribe too. Believing theirs going to be a quite a bit more gaming subscription companies then we have now. 20 years from now there’s gonna be less game release’s then now,gaming development will be a great more complicated task to develop games. It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s no such thing as tv’s. Projector’s? Anyhoo the future of gaming is exciting to think/talk about. Scary too I’m guessing?

Anyways heres my prediction for next 20 years

• Consoles will be replace by apps on PC and Androids ie (xbox app, playstation app)
• PC will become handheld gaming and Steamdeck is beginning. Android gaming PC will also rise.
• Less games release in years due to longer development cycle
• VR become common and mainstream
• Death of hardware disk and everything digital
• There will always be developers who carter to old school gamers and making old school games to carter angry fans
• Photorealistic Graphics will be more common
• All mainstream publisher will hire expensive hollywood actors to potray protagonist

- VR dead

- Consoles replaced by cloud gaming

- PC gaming will grow massively because of east / africa joining

- nintendo becoming mobile only

- microsoft pushing cloud hard with google and amazon the main competitors on that space

- Sony moves to PC as 3rd party developer and starts to focus on mobile far more.

- PS6 is going to be the last disc based console u will ever see as its a dead medium, PS7 could be the last console entirely.

- Huge investsments from movie space into gaming

- E-Sports will grow and become bigger then real sports.

Consoles will be dead, VR/AR would be mainstream and cheap, mobile will rule like it's currently + cloud will be much more prevalent, PC gaming might finally be on its last legs or it will survive but mostly as a VR machine.

my prediction Android PC gaming will become thing in next 20 years.

Steam deck is begining of converting PC gaming into hand held.

GPU are so and so expensive that people will turn away from traditional PC gaming.

Mass monetisation and everything will be live service. I have a feeling there might be less focus on single player gaming.

Base Android is nothing but a Linux distro which is what Steam Deck is already. The usual 'Android' on phones is just Google Services tacked on.

in 2050. Android will be evolved into high end gaming PC.

20 years ago no one though world can control through androids.

@warmblur: The end of console generations is near, IMO. They may still be around, but eventually they will go away.

Examples:

1. The PS7, IMO, will have the same OS as the PS6. It will just be more powerful. So, if you want the latest Uncharted game to look the best possible, get a PS7; but you will be able to play a downgraded one on a PS6. I think it will mirror the PC world.
2. Cloud gaming will finally be a thing. You may be "next gen" because you bought an LG with "the XBox App" in it (or the "Playstation App"), and stream 8k/120fps games. This will be possible because 5G (and even 6G) will be a reality by then, and your streaming capabilities will be much greater. Plus, cloud technology will have caught up by then.

Towards worse and worse monetization until gamers stop supporting that garbage.

Nintendo will probably be portable only. Playstation and Xbox will become services on PC and have no standalone hardware at all, or if they do, have some sort of minimalist hardware streaming box.

Ready Player One VR in meta's Metaverse.

Ha! 20 years... Man, I hope there is even a society to play games in 20 years from now...

I think a best case scenario is one box that streams/downloads games from each companies service. Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo (they'll holdout the longest). You'll also have steam and ea etc wanting in on it as well. That's good! Because then all resources can be spent on game development and unique experiences.... Not unike Netflix competing with Disney, Hulu and Amazon...peacock, HBO etc....

Wherever your turd goes once you flush it.

Needs another crash, we've made a mistake.

The continuation of the Romanization of Gaming (decadent) and its decline with a worldwide crash.

It will be advanced with the technologies emerging. It will be the 'thing' just like as Crypto. Most of the games will have an online version. Example of glimpse is https://www.casinovibez.com/

Neither Sony or Microsoft will no longer be making consoles - they will be selling subs on other people's PCs.

Nintendo will make the Switch 3.

GTA5 will still be in the top ten.

Oh, in 20 years time George R R Martin's ghost will be tweeting about how the Winds of Winter is going well and is due for imminent release.

VR/AR will be the main interface for gaming in 20 years.

This is inevitable.

16K/240fps all streamed on all devices. phone, TV, PC etc.

Bright future, of course. Gaming has always been getting better for me. We have more genres, sub-genres, higher level of polish, more immersion thanks to VR and ridiculously good visuals, 2d gaming relevant again thanks to indies, etc.

The only thing i really dislike about modern gaming is the community. People grew so arrogant and spoiled that hate and blind nostalgia became the cool/normal behaviour to have.

Not much. People will still play consoles, our internet will get even faster but consoles will remain the premier way to game. Streaming will carve itself a market, but lag will always keep game streaming back. Gaming will itself be almost indistinguishable from reality. VR gaming will flourish and we will probably start to enter into advanced VR, ie through brain implants. Esports will be bigger than traditional sports and the obesity problem will balloon.

I hope that games will only get better in the future and that this industry will move in the right direction. At the moment, there are already many such examples. For example, I really like games that can earn money by playing. I think it's super cool. While there are practically no such games, there are applications that pay you to play your favorite games. This is also a great start. I hope that the games will be more meaningful and exciting in the future. Let's hope for the best.

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The majority of gaming is done through streaming tech and/or VR/AR.

Also, I'm not one to believe that games will get worse. People say the same thing about cinema, music etc. yet they aren't worse. The standard cinematography is better. The standard music production quality is better. etc. Ex. You can record better sounding audio these days through a laptop than Michael Jackson did in the 80s in a state of the art recording studio.