2007 PAX Panel
The Future of Gaming
Tags: Penny Arcade Expo 2007 Categories: Features, Tech Features
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Aug 29th, 2007
The games industry has become one a huge part of the entertainment industry. With both movies and music citing slipping profits, gaming might be the most stable. That doesn’t mean that everyone is happy. Games are not a guaranteed investment, and despite the fact the gamers seem to have trouble keeping up with all the “must have” games, only about 10% of games succeed. A few figures from the industry sat down at PAX to give us an idea of what to expect from the future of the hobby.
Wizards of the Coast’s Randy Buehler cited the factor that no one, even the critics of the industry, wants to acknowledge. Gamers are getting older. Especially in the case of tabletop games, it may skew even older; or as Buehler puts it, “The main question is, how are we going to adapt to a graying of our market.”
WOTC seems to be pushing their products into the electronic sphere. Magic already went that direction, and so has D&D. It is ironic that WOTC is talking about the changing nature of tabletop gaming at PAX, as Tycho has gone on at length about how PAX is a way to try and pass Tabletop gaming to a new generation.
As sad as it would be for all those dice to cry out at once and be silenced, that tradition lives on in video games. John Tynes of Flying Labs cites D&D as a big influence on his upcoming Pirates MMOG. He gave an in-depth story about trying to use physics engines for cannonballs, and after being unhappy with the results modeled something akin to an RPG dice system.
MMOG’s are in great flux as microtransaction systems come across the Pacific. Tynes said that Pirates might be one of the last traditional subscription based MMOG’s. There were a lot of names from the microtransaction industry, Maple Story, and Runescape the biggest. Both of these attract a younger audience, and since usually in Asia small amounts of money are paid with cellphone minutes – how does anybody make money over here? Gamerpoints and Wii Points were named as steps in the right direction.
The industry isn’t just games. The future of the retailer seems to be of some concern, as digital distribution is growing in popularity. Buehler commented, “The future of gaming retail is going to be setting up places where people can play together, like the Arcade of the 80’s.” Of course one of the biggest concerns is, if and when the government will get involved with gaming. Tynes noted, “There is no government regulation. . . no sales restriction has ever passed constitutional muster.” He went on to mention that New York was crafting a law to pass the courts, and it says, “No game with extreme violence, and hardcore pornography can be sold to minors.” He also left it on a hopeful note; “Sooner or later there will be a Senator who played Grand Theft Auto.”
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Tags: Penny Arcade Expo 2007
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Aug 29th, 2007 and is filed under Features, Tech Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
