I’ll be honest here, I could have easily called this trends. I just like adding ‘erific’ to the end of words. Moving on quickly from that frankly silly introduction, lets look at trends in the gaming industry right now, where things look like they’re going at the moment.
The most obvious pick is, of course, 3D. This is perhaps exemplified by Nintendo’s faith in the 3DS, although games like Killzone 3 and MotorStorm: Apocalypse certainly show that it has its place in blockbuster games. I’ve tried 3D on a few occasions and whilst it doesn’t really work for me (my Dad says the same so I guess it’s genetic) I do certainly see the appeal. In particular the depth and feeling of speed that the technology adds to racers like Motorstorm does seem to bring something genuinely new to the genre and the way games are built.
Next up is the move towards motion control, although this is hardly new. Every system has it’s own controller now, and it seems very likely that this is going to crop up in more and more games. It’s nice to see it starting to feature in more ‘hardcore’ titles likes Killzone 3, proving that the new interfaces aren’t just for party or casual games (although some titles on the Wii certainly showed this previously). It’s clearly something that’s not going to go away, although I think a lot of people would be happier if some titles kept it solely as an option rather than forcing it on you when you just want to play the newest Call of Duty.
Finally lets talk about something a little more businessy than purely about game mechanics. I personally think we’re going to see a lot more consolidation from developers and publishers. We saw this last week from Activision when they cancelled or put a lot of their series on hold, seemingly moving a lot of their focus towards Call of Duty. Whilst they did later announce several titles tying into franchises from other media, it does still look like their significantly scaling pack their operations and focusing more on safe bets. Personally I don’t want to see the industry go this way, but I think its reasonably likely.
So those are my big three picks for current trends in the industry, where do you think things are going? Have I pretty much summed it all up, or do you think I’m completely wrong?
carson321
we seem to be getting into two extremes, big publishers pushing lots of money into main franchises, and smaller publishers and even people at home starting to make great little games a la minis, indie games etc. and I think the increase in mobile gaming is what is driving this forward for a lot of people.
But as with the whole motion controlling and 3D end of things that you mention, I can see it all taking a step towards virtual reality, with perhaps a few years down the line and approaching the end of the next (read PS4, xBox 720 or whatever) generation consoles lifetimes, they will start to push on VR like they are with motion controlling now.
Dange
Less risks by devs, more sure things until the next generation of consoles when franchises start to grow stale.
Also more games to be released online, that’s the it seems to be heading with stuff like ME2 and AC2 recent games made available online (personally, I like getting cheap games off PSN but a full price game it’s gotta be on Blu-ray)
Dange
ME2 is like £47 or something on PSN, saw it new in Tesco for like £25!!!
Dange
More user created content seems to be a trend on the rise since LBP